Average salary in Japan: median pay, minimum wage and take-home in 2026

average private-sector salary in 2025, about $30,440 at 160 yen to the dollar (National Tax Agency, September 2026)

¥4.87 million

weighted average hourly minimum wage for fiscal 2026, or $7.36, up ¥56 in a year

¥1,177

of a ¥5 million gross salary is left after tax and social insurance, for a single person in Tokyo (our estimate)

About 79%

The average salary in Japan is ¥4.87 million a year, about $30,440 at 160 yen to the dollar, according to the National Tax Agency survey published in September 2026 for income earned in 2025. The median is lower, close to ¥4.2 million ($26,250) by our estimate, and the minimum wage averages ¥1,177 an hour since the autumn 2026 revision. This page breaks those figures down by age, gender, industry and prefecture, then works out what is left after tax.

What is the average salary in Japan in 2026?

Two official surveys answer the question, and they do not measure the same thing. The National Tax Agency (NTA) counts what private-sector employees were paid over a full year, bonuses and part-timers included. The labour ministry (MHLW) measures the monthly contract pay of full-time workers in June, without overtime or bonuses. Both are quoted before tax.

Per month, the NTA average works out at about ¥406,000 ($2,540) because it spreads two bonuses over twelve months. A payslip in an ordinary month looks more like the MHLW figure of ¥340,600. Per working day, ¥4.87 million is roughly ¥20,000 ($125) on 245 working days a year.

The 2025 average is a record and rose 1.9% in a year, after 3.9% the year before. The MHLW monthly figure rose 3.1%, from ¥330,400 to ¥340,600. Several English-language guides still quote ¥4.78 million, which is the previous edition of the tax agency survey.

Median salary in Japan: about ¥4.2 million

Neither survey publishes a median. The NTA does publish how many of the 51.6 million full-year employees fall in each salary band, and interpolating inside the ¥4 million to ¥5 million band gives a median of about ¥4.2 million ($26,250). The same method gives about ¥5.13 million for men and ¥3.04 million for women. These are our estimates, not official statistics.

The distribution explains the gap between mean and median. 31.5% of employees earned less than ¥3 million in 2025, and almost half of women did (49.3%, against 18.0% of men). At the other end, 6.6% earned more than ¥10 million: 10.2% of men and 1.8% of women. A salary of ¥6 million therefore sits well inside the top third.

Average salary in Japan by age and gender

Pay in Japan still follows seniority. It climbs steadily to a peak at 55 to 59, then drops by about a sixth at 60, when many companies end the regular contract and rehire staff on a lower one. Men in their late fifties averaged ¥7.34 million a year in 2025.

The gender gap is wide. Over the year, men averaged ¥5.97 million and women ¥3.42 million, largely because more women work part time or on non-regular contracts. Among full-time workers only, women earned ¥285,900 a month against ¥373,400 for men, or 76.6% of men's pay, up from 75.8% a year earlier. The gap is small at 20 to 24 and opens from the thirties, when men's pay keeps rising and women's flattens near ¥305,000.

New graduates start low. University graduates hired in 2025 earned ¥262,300 a month ($1,639) in their first job, up 5.6% in a year, and holders of a master's degree or doctorate ¥299,000. Starting pay is nearly the same for men and women (¥264,900 and ¥259,700).

Average salary in Japan by industry and company size

The spread between industries is larger than the spread between ages. Utilities, finance and IT pay two to three times what hotels and restaurants do.

The two columns rank some sectors differently because the NTA includes part-timers. Retail and restaurants employ many of them, which pulls their annual average down far more than their full-time monthly pay.

Company size matters almost as much. In the MHLW survey, full-time staff at large companies earned ¥385,100 a month, against ¥326,200 at mid-sized firms and ¥305,600 at small ones. The NTA shows the same slope over a year: ¥6.92 million at corporations with capital of ¥1 billion or more, ¥4.16 million at those under ¥20 million.

Rank and education add another layer. A department head (bucho) averaged ¥635,800 a month, a section chief (kacho) ¥529,200 and staff without a management title ¥310,500. University graduates earned ¥396,300, and holders of a postgraduate degree ¥517,400, against ¥297,200 for high-school leavers.

Average salary in Tokyo and across the prefectures

Full-time workers in Tokyo earned ¥418,300 a month ($2,614) in June 2025, 23% above the national average of ¥340,600. Only four prefectures beat that average: Tokyo, Kanagawa (¥368,600), Osaka (¥348,900) and Aichi (¥341,600). Chiba follows at ¥339,100.

At the bottom, Aomori averaged ¥263,900, Miyazaki ¥268,300, Yamagata ¥272,200, Iwate ¥275,000 and Akita ¥275,800. A full-time worker in Tokyo therefore earns about 1.6 times what one in Aomori does. Fukuoka sits at ¥314,300, Miyagi (Sendai) at ¥313,700, Kyoto at ¥337,400 and Hokkaido at ¥297,100. The figure for every prefecture is in the last column of the minimum wage table below.

Over a full year, the NTA publishes averages by regional tax bureau, not by prefecture. The Tokyo bureau, which also covers Kanagawa, Chiba and Yamanashi, averaged ¥5.61 million in 2025. Osaka's averaged ¥4.81 million, Nagoya's ¥4.75 million, Fukuoka's ¥4.05 million and Okinawa's ¥3.81 million. Rents follow the same map, as the city budgets in our guide to the cost of living in Japan show.

Minimum wage in Japan in 2026: all 47 prefectures

Japan has no single national minimum wage. Each prefecture sets an hourly rate every autumn, guided by a national council. For fiscal 2026 the weighted average is ¥1,177 an hour ($7.36), up ¥56 or 5.0% from ¥1,121, the second-largest rise since the current system began in 1978. Tokyo is highest at ¥1,280 ($8.00), Kanagawa is one yen behind, and Miyazaki is lowest at ¥1,085 ($6.78).

The new rates did not all start on the same day. Most prefectures switched on 1 October 2026, but five were still on last year's rate on 14 November: Saga (15 November), Kyoto (16 November), Iwate and Kumamoto (1 December) and Okinawa (2 December). The table follows the ministry's final list, from north to south.

The poorest prefectures raised their rates most, by up to ¥65 in Saga, against ¥54 in Tokyo, Kanagawa and Osaka. The lowest rate is now 84.8% of the highest, up from 83.4% a year earlier.

Per month, a full-time job of about 173 hours pays roughly ¥221,800 in Tokyo, ¥213,300 in Osaka, ¥193,100 in Fukuoka and ¥204,000 at the national average, before deductions. That is 53% of the average full-time pay in Tokyo, about 60% nationally and about 70% in Aomori.

The minimum wage applies to everyone working in the prefecture, foreigners included: students with a work permit, working holiday makers, technical interns and Specified Skilled Workers. It is counted on base pay. Commuting allowances, overtime premiums and bonuses cannot be used to reach it. Some industries also have a higher sector rate set at prefecture level.

Japan salary after tax: from gross pay to take-home pay

Five deductions come out of a Japanese payslip. Social insurance weighs more than income tax until a salary is well above average.

The 2026 tax year is kinder to low and middle salaries than earlier years. The minimum employment income deduction rose to ¥740,000 and the basic deduction to ¥1.04 million for incomes up to ¥4.89 million, so an employee pays no income tax below ¥1.78 million of salary, against ¥1.6 million in 2025 and ¥1.03 million before that. Employers apply the new amounts at the year-end adjustment in December 2026, which means a larger refund on the December payslip.

The table below is our estimate for a single employee aged 30 in Tokyo, with no dependants and no other deductions, paid in twelve equal months. Residence tax is shown at its full level, as from the second year.

The ¥5 million line shows the method. Social insurance takes ¥723,100. The employment income deduction is ¥1.44 million, which leaves ¥3.56 million. Subtract social insurance and the ¥1.04 million basic deduction and the taxable income is about ¥1.8 million, taxed at 5% plus the surtax: ¥91,700. Residence tax uses a smaller basic deduction of ¥430,000, hence ¥245,600, flat ¥5,000 included.

From age 40, nursing care insurance removes a further ¥25,000 to ¥95,000 a year at these salaries. A dependent spouse or children lower the two taxes. Real payslips also differ by a few thousand yen because contributions are set by pay bands, and because health rates vary by prefecture and by company health fund.

Residency status, tax treaties, the year-end adjustment and the pension refund for people who leave are covered in our guide to Japan tax for foreigners. What the health contribution buys is explained in how healthcare works in Japan.

Bonuses in Japan: summer and winter payments

Most regular employees receive two bonuses a year, one in late June or July and one in December. They are not required by law. The amount comes from the employment contract, the work rules or the year's results, and an offer letter that quotes an annual salary may or may not include them.

The labour ministry's monthly survey puts the summer 2026 bonus at ¥448,765 ($2,805) on average among employees who received one, up 5.3%, or 1.04 months of pay. The winter 2025 bonus averaged ¥424,889 ($2,656), or 1.08 months. About 74% of workplaces with five or more employees paid a summer bonus.

Averages hide large differences. In summer 2026, employees in information and communications received ¥793,224, those in finance ¥763,612 and those in accommodation and food services ¥81,647. At large listed companies the summer bonus passed ¥1 million for the first time, according to the business federation Keidanren's tally as reported by the Japanese press. Over the year, the NTA counts an average bonus of ¥750,000, equal to 18.2% of base salary.

Health and pension contributions are deducted from bonuses at the same rates as from salary. One-year contracts, which include most entry-level English teaching jobs, often come with no bonus at all, so compare offers on annual pay.

Overtime pay in Japan: legal rates and fixed overtime clauses

The legal working time is 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week. Beyond that, the Labour Standards Act sets minimum premiums on the hourly base wage.

An employer can ask for overtime only after signing a written agreement with staff representatives, known as a 36 agreement after the article of the law, and filing it with the labour standards office. The ceiling is 45 hours a month and 360 hours a year. A special clause can raise it in busy periods, within 720 hours a year, under 100 hours in any month and 80 hours on average over two to six months, and for no more than six months a year.

Many Japanese contracts include fixed overtime pay (minashi zangyo or kotei zangyo): the monthly salary already covers a stated number of overtime hours, often 20 to 45. The contract must state both the hours and the amount, and any hour beyond that number must be paid on top. When you compare two offers, remove the fixed overtime part first. A ¥300,000 salary that includes 40 hours of overtime is a much lower base wage than ¥280,000 without it.

In practice, overtime, night and holiday pay added about ¥20,000 a month to the average payslip in September 2026, according to the ministry's monthly survey, which counts part-timers too.

Average salary in Japan for foreigners, by visa status and job

The MHLW wage survey reports the pay of foreign workers by residence status. In June 2025 they earned ¥254,300 a month on average ($1,589), 4.8% more than a year earlier, at an average age of 32.5 and with 3.3 years in their company. That is a quarter below the national average, mostly because foreign workers are younger and newer in their jobs.

These are monthly contract amounts without overtime or bonuses. For a sponsored job, immigration expects pay at least equal to what a Japanese employee would receive in the same role, a rule explained on our Japan work visa page. The ¥313,200 average for professional statuses is close to what Japanese workers aged 30 to 34 earn (¥312,300).

Software engineer salaries in Japan

Official data first: full-time staff in information and communications earned ¥406,000 a month in June 2025, with ¥308,700 at 25 to 29, ¥363,400 at 30 to 34 and ¥456,800 at 40 to 44. Over the year the sector averaged ¥6.82 million.

English-speaking developers do better than that, according to the TokyoDev survey of international software developers living in Japan. Its 2025 edition found a median of ¥9.5 million ($59,400), ¥8.5 million at companies headquartered in Japan and ¥13.5 million for people working for a company with no Japanese entity. By experience, the medians were ¥5.2 million at one to three years, ¥6.3 million at four to six, ¥9.4 million at seven to nine and ¥11 million at ten to twelve. The sample is self-selected and tilted towards Tokyo and international companies, so read it as the upper part of the market.

English teacher salaries in Japan

Entry-level teaching pays less than the national average. In 2026, dispatch companies advertise ¥200,000 to ¥250,000 a month for assistant language teachers and conversation schools ¥220,000 to ¥280,300. The JET Programme pays ¥4.02 million in the first year, about ¥335,000 a month, rising to ¥4.32 million in the fourth and fifth years. Employer-by-employer figures and monthly budgets are in our guide to teaching English in Japan, and the government scheme has its own page on the JET Programme.

Finance, restaurants and hotels, and SSW jobs

Finance and insurance is the second best-paid sector: ¥7.26 million a year on average, ¥437,000 a month for full-time staff, and a summer 2026 bonus of ¥763,612. No official survey isolates front-office roles at foreign banks in Tokyo, which pay well above these averages, so treat any single figure you read for them as an advert, not a statistic.

Restaurants and hotels are at the other end, with ¥277,200 a month full time and ¥1,234 an hour part time, barely above the minimum wage in most prefectures. This is where most working holiday and student jobs are, and where many Specified Skilled Workers are employed. SSW holders averaged ¥221,400 a month across all fields, about ¥17,000 above a full-time month at the national minimum wage. They must by law be paid at least what a Japanese worker doing the same job receives.

For where foreigners find work and which sectors recruit from abroad, start with our overview of jobs in Japan for foreigners.

What is a good salary in Japan? Pay against the cost of living

A salary is good or bad only against what life costs. Our cost of living estimates for 2026 put a single person's spending at about ¥266,000 a month in Tokyo's 23 wards, ¥226,000 in Osaka, ¥218,000 in Fukuoka and ¥203,000 in Sendai, rent included and before tax. A couple in Tokyo spends about ¥5.4 million a year and a family in central Tokyo close to ¥560,000 a month.

Two questions come up often. $2,000 a month is ¥320,000, enough for a single person in any Japanese city if it is what you have after tax. $3,000 a month is ¥480,000, which supports a couple in Tokyo. If those amounts are gross salaries, take off about 20% first.

Salary also decides what you can rent. The rule of thumb in tenant screening is a rent of no more than about a third of gross monthly income, as described in our guide to renting in Japan. And it counts for long-term plans: immigration examines several years of income and tax payments when you apply for permanent residency in Japan.

Japan salaries compared with the US and UK, and the weak yen

Converted at 160 yen to the dollar, a Japanese salary looks small: ¥4.87 million is $30,440. Exchange rates overstate the gap, because prices in Japan are lower. The OECD publishes average annual wages for full-time equivalents in dollars adjusted for purchasing power, which is the fairer comparison.

Source: OECD average annual wages, constant prices, read on 14 November 2026. Even with prices taken into account, a Japanese worker earns about 58% of an American one and 76% of a British one. Japan's figure has barely moved since 2022, when it stood at $51,129, while the US gained about $2,800.

The same data show what the weak yen does. The OECD's Japanese average is about ¥5.19 million, which it counts as $50,183. That implies a purchasing-power rate near 103 yen to the dollar, against 160 on the currency market. Inside Japan, a yen salary buys far more than its dollar value suggests: rent, trains and meals are priced in yen. The loss appears when money leaves the country, to repay a student loan in dollars or pounds, save for a retirement abroad or travel home. If you plan to send part of your pay overseas, see our guide on how to send money to and from Japan.

Pay is at last rising faster than prices. The 2026 spring wage round (shunto) ended with an average rise of 5.01%, or ¥16,400 a month, in the final count of the union federation Rengo, the third year in a row above 5%. Base pay alone rose 3.50%, and smaller companies agreed 4.69%. In the ministry's monthly survey for September 2026, nominal wages were up 4.6% on a year earlier and real wages up 2.2%, the ninth monthly rise in a row. Union settlements cover only part of the workforce, so the national averages on this page move more slowly.