Japan's Social Insurance (社会保険), Explained

Five deductions, one paycheck

Look at any Japanese payslip and you'll find a cluster of line items grouped under 社会保険 (shakai hoken, "social insurance") sitting above the tax lines. Unlike income tax or 住民税 (resident tax), shakai hoken bundles together four separate insurance systems plus, from April 2026, a new childcare levy — each with its own rate, funding pool, and payout. Your employer withholds all of it automatically, so most people never look past the total. For a line-by-line walkthrough of where these numbers sit on the document itself, see our guide to reading a Japanese payslip. This page covers the other half: what each deduction actually buys you.

The systems, at a glance (FY2026, employee share)

The table below lists what comes out of your side of the payroll split. Three of the four core systems are split roughly evenly between you and your employer (労使折半, "labor-management even split"); 厚生年金 uses the same even split but calculated on a different base, described below.

健康保険: more than a 70% discount

健康保険 through 協会けんぽ (Kyokai Kenpo, the plan most small-and-mid-size employers use) is priced per prefecture and split evenly between you and your employer. In Tokyo the combined rate is 9.85%, so you pay roughly 4.925%; the national average runs closer to 9.90% combined. What you're buying isn't just the well-known ~70% coverage of medical bills — it's also 高額療養費, a cap on out-of-pocket cost in a bad month, 傷病手当金, partial income replacement if you're off work sick for an extended stretch, and 出産育児一時金, a lump-sum childbirth payment. The last two rarely come up until you need them, which is exactly when they matter most.

厚生年金: a bigger pension, calculated on a banded number

厚生年金 (employees' pension) has been fixed at 18.3% combined since 2017, so your share is 9.15%. Enrollment automatically covers your base 国民年金 (national pension) and stacks a second, earnings-linked pension on top, plus disability and survivor coverage the flat national pension alone doesn't provide as generously. The premium isn't calculated on your literal salary — it's calculated on 標準報酬月額 (standard monthly remuneration), a banded figure your employer assigns from your average pay, reviewed periodically rather than every payday. That figure is capped at ¥650,000/month for premium purposes, so above that level your kosei nenkin premium stops rising even as your salary keeps climbing.

雇用保険: unemployment isn't the only benefit

雇用保険 costs a modest 0.5% for general-business employees in FY2026. Beyond the 失業給付 unemployment benefit it's usually associated with, it also funds parental/childcare leave payments and training benefits — worth knowing if you're planning time off around a birth or a career pivot.

介護保険: kicks in automatically at 40

Once you turn 40, an additional ~0.81% (1.62% combined, FY2026) is added to your health-insurance line for 介護保険, buying you into Japan's national long-term-care system. There's no application — it appears on your payslip the month you become eligible and stops at 65, when collection shifts to a different method.

New from April 2026: 子ども・子育て支援金

Starting April 2026, a new nationwide levy called 子ども・子育て支援金 appears alongside your health-insurance deduction, at roughly 0.115% of standard remuneration. It funds childcare-support measures nationally rather than buying a personal benefit directly, but it's worth recognizing so the new line item doesn't look like an error.

Foreign workers: covered the same way, with one exit option

None of these systems treat foreign employees differently — if you're enrolled in shakai hoken through your employer, you pay the same rates and get the same coverage described above. The one option specific to people who don't plan to stay long-term is 脱退一時金 (the pension lump-sum withdrawal payment): if you've paid into 厚生年金 or 国民年金 and leave Japan without enough contribution years to qualify for a Japanese pension, you can claim a partial refund within a limited window after departure. It's a partial refund, not a full one, and it forfeits any future claim tied to those months, so weigh it against staying in the system if a return to Japan is plausible. Our FAQ covers more process-level questions around enrollment, dependents, and leaving the country.

One more thing worth flagging: since 標準報酬月額 bands are reviewed periodically rather than monthly, a raise doesn't always mean an instant jump in your shakai hoken deduction — it can lag a review cycle. That's a different mechanism from the year-behind billing that catches people off guard with resident tax, covered separately in why your second year in Japan hits harder on tax. Between the two, most "why did my take-home drop" surprises trace back to one of these systems catching up to a pay change.

Add the employee-side rates together and shakai hoken alone typically runs in the mid-to-high teens percent of your standard remuneration, before income tax or resident tax are even applied. To see how that stacks against your own salary, start from your gross pay on the calculator and work through the same bands described here.