Japan tax residency: a domicile, or a year’s residence
You’re resident in Japan for income tax if you have a domicile there — your base of living — or have had a residence there continuously for a year or more. Days alone don’t decide it: even 183 days or more abroad can leave you resident if your base of living is in Japan.
Japan tax residency: who counts as resident
Japan’s Income Tax Act divides individuals into residents and non-residents, the National Tax Agency explains:
- Domicile (jūsho) — your base of living, judged from objective facts: your home, your work, where your assets are, where your family lives, your nationality. With a domicile in Japan, you’re resident.
- Residence (kyosho) — a place you actually live that isn’t your base of living. Having one continuously for a year or more makes you resident.
- Everyone else is a non-resident.
| You are | Taxed in Japan on |
|---|---|
| A resident, not non-permanent | all your income, from Japan and abroad |
| A non-permanent resident — no Japanese nationality, 5 years or less in Japan over the last 10 | income other than foreign-source income, and foreign-source income paid in or remitted to Japan |
| A non-resident | income from sources in Japan |
Not a 183-day count
Residence isn’t decided by days alone. The National Tax Agency notes that even 183 days or more abroad can leave you a Japanese resident, and that a “perpetual traveller” moving between countries all year is resident if their base of living is in Japan.
Leaving Japan meaning to come back, you’re treated as residing there while you’re away. That intention is presumed if your spouse or relatives stay in your household, you keep a home or a hotel room for your return, or your everyday belongings stay in Japan.
Moving to Japan
- A job that normally needs you in Japan for a year or more — you’re presumed to have a domicile, so you’re resident from arrival, unless a contract clearly limits your stay to less than a year.
- No domicile at first — you’re non-resident until a year has passed since you arrived, and resident after it; if you set up a domicile within that year, resident from that day.
Worked example
You arrive on 1 April 2027 to study, with no job tying you to Japan and your base of living still at home. You’re non-resident for that first year and resident once a year has passed since 1 April 2027. Had you come for a job that normally needs you in Japan for a year or more, you’d have been resident from 1 April.
China counts 183 full days instead: see China tax residency. Other countries, side by side: 183-day rule by country.
How FlySee counts it
FlySee has no Japan tracker, and there’s no calculator here: residence turns on where your base of living is, judged from facts, and on a year of residence. FlySee’s Log records every day you’re in Japan and abroad, and its export lists them — the dates your year began and the trips in it.