The Atarashift Blog
Insights for working in Japan
Guides, interviews, and honest advice for international talent building a career in Japan.
The Atarashift Blog
Guides, interviews, and honest advice for international talent building a career in Japan.
Japanese paid leave is a legal right, not a favour. Take-up hit a record 66.9% in 2024, and your employer is legally required to make you use 5 days.
Most foreign employees in Japan spend their first year quietly wondering whether they're allowed to use their holiday. The answer is that paid leave, 年次有給休暇 or nenkyu, is a statutory right under Article 39 of the Labour Standards Act. You don't apply for permission. You don't owe anyone a reason. And since 2019, your employer commits an offence if it fails to make you take at least five days a year.
The cultural hesitation is real, but the data has moved. In 2024, Japanese workers used 66.9% of their granted leave. That's the highest rate since the survey began in 1984. On average they took 12.1 days of the 18.1 they were granted (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2025 Working Conditions Comprehensive Survey, 2025). The office where nobody takes holiday is becoming the exception rather than the rule.
Key Takeaways
- You get 10 days of paid leave after 6 months of service with 80% attendance, rising to 20 days at 6.5 years.
- You never have to give a reason. Your employer can ask you to shift the timing, but it cannot refuse the leave.
- Since April 2019, employers must ensure anyone with 10+ days actually takes 5 of them, or face a fine of up to ¥300,000 per employee.
- Take-up reached a record 66.9% in 2024, though it ranges from 75.2% in utilities down to 50.7% in hospitality.
- Unused days carry over for two years, then expire.
Ten days, granted six months after your start date, provided you worked at least 80% of your scheduled days. That entitlement then grows every year of continuous service until it caps at 20 days (Labour Standards Act, Article 39).
| Continuous service | Days granted |
|---|---|
| 6 months | 10 |
| 1 year 6 months | 11 |
| 2 years 6 months | 12 |
| 3 years 6 months | 14 |
| 4 years 6 months | 16 |
| 5 years 6 months | 18 |
| 6 years 6 months and beyond | 20 |
Two details people miss. First, this is a legal floor, not a company policy. Plenty of employers, particularly foreign-affiliated ones, grant more, and some grant the first tranche on day one rather than making you wait six months. Check your rules of employment (就業規則) rather than assuming the minimum.
Second, part-time workers are not excluded. Article 39 provides for proportional grants based on scheduled working days per week. Someone working three days a week accrues on the same timetable, just fewer days.
Unused days roll over for two years and then expire, under the statute of limitations in the Labour Standards Act. In practice that means the days you earned this year sit alongside last year's balance, and anything older quietly disappears. If you've been in Japan a few years without taking much, check whether you're about to lose a block of days.
No. The right to annual paid leave is unconditional, and the reason you want the time off is legally irrelevant. Your employer cannot require an explanation as a condition of approving it.
There is one narrow exception, and it's worth understanding precisely because it gets misrepresented. Article 39 gives employers a right to change the timing (時季変更権) when the requested dates would "interfere with the normal operation of the business". That's a right to move your leave, not to deny it. Being busy is not automatically enough, and an employer who uses it routinely is on weak ground.
In practice, most Japanese workplaces run on a norm of asking early and handling your own coverage rather than on formal refusals. That norm is social, not legal. Knowing the difference matters, because it tells you when you're navigating etiquette and when someone is overstepping.
Since April 2019, employers must ensure that every employee entitled to 10 or more days actually takes at least five of them each year. The employer, not the employee, carries the obligation, and non-compliance carries a fine of up to ¥300,000 per worker.
This reform is why the culture is shifting, and it explains something that confuses new arrivals. If your manager starts pushing you to book days off in February, that isn't unusual generosity. Your company is managing a legal exposure that grows with every employee who ends the year under five days.
The mechanism also means your employer can designate dates for you if you haven't taken enough. Nobody enjoys having leave assigned, so the practical move is simple: book your own days early in the leave year, on dates you actually want.
More than ever, but it varies enormously by where you work. The national take-up rate reached 66.9% in 2024, up from 65.3% the year before and the highest since 1984 (MHLW, 2025 Working Conditions Comprehensive Survey, 2025).
The industry spread is where the useful signal sits:
| Industry | Take-up rate |
|---|---|
| Electricity, gas, heat supply and water | 75.2% |
| Manufacturing | 72.8% |
| Finance and insurance | 72.8% |
| Medical and welfare | 68.4% |
| Information and communications | 66.9% |
| Construction | 60.7% |
| Wholesale and retail | 59.9% |
| Accommodation and food services | 50.7% |
Company size matters too, though less than industry. Firms with 1,000+ employees averaged 69.0% take-up, while those with 30 to 99 employees managed 64.9%.
The number worth remembering: a hospitality worker and a utilities worker in the same city, both legally entitled to the same 20 days, use them at 50.7% and 75.2% respectively. The law is identical. The culture of the industry is what differs, and that's a question worth asking in an interview rather than discovering in year two.
Japanese public holidays are separate from your nenkyu and don't consume it. Golden Week in early May, the Obon period in mid-August, and the New Year shutdown mix statutory public holidays with company closure days. That distinction matters for your balance.
Where it gets murky is the planned-leave system (計画的付与). Article 39 lets an employer designate the timing of leave beyond the first five days, but only through a written labour-management agreement. Some companies use this to close entirely over Obon or New Year and count those days against everyone's nenkyu.
That practice is lawful when the agreement exists. It's worth asking about before you accept an offer. A company advertising 20 days that pre-allocates eight to fixed shutdowns is offering something quite different from one that leaves all 20 to you. Ask how many days are genuinely yours to schedule.
Ask early, in writing, through whatever system your company uses, and keep the request short. The etiquette that surrounds nenkyu is mostly about giving colleagues notice and making sure your work is covered, not about justifying yourself.
A few things that help:
If your Japanese is limited, the standard phrasing is simple and worth learning. Our guide on working in Japan without fluent Japanese covers the wider question of how much you need for daily office life.
Start by separating a cultural push-back from an unlawful refusal. A manager sighing about timing is friction. A manager saying you may not take nenkyu at all, or demanding a reason before approving it, is breaking the law.
If it's the second, the escalation path is short and free. Your local Labour Standards Inspection Office (労働基準監督署) handles exactly this kind of complaint, has authority over your employer, and does not charge anything. Bring your rules of employment, your leave balance, your written request, and the response.
Before that, though, put the request in writing. A lot of disputes evaporate the moment there's a record, partly because the five-day obligation means an employer blocking leave is creating its own liability. Pointing that out politely often resolves it faster than any appeal to your rights.
A note on the other leave types you may hear about. Maternity and childcare leave, nursing care leave, and condolence leave (慶弔休暇) are separate systems with their own rules, and none of them consume your nenkyu. If someone tells you a funeral has to come out of your annual leave, check your rules of employment first.
Nothing automatic. Japanese law does not require an employer to pay out unused annual leave when you leave, and many won't. The standard practice is to burn your remaining balance during your notice period. That's why resignation timelines in Japan often run longer than the notice itself.
Plan this backwards from your last day. If you have 15 days banked and a one-month notice period, you'll want to agree the leave schedule at the same time you submit your resignation, not afterwards. Some employers do choose to buy out the balance, but that's goodwill rather than obligation.
If a job change prompted the calculation, the immigration side runs its own deadlines in parallel. Our guide to changing jobs on a Japanese work visa covers those. Check bonus timing too. Japanese bonuses usually require you to be employed on the payment date, as our guide to Japan's bonus system explains.
No. Your employer can ask you to move the dates under the timing-change right in Article 39, but only where your absence would genuinely disrupt business operations. It cannot refuse the leave outright, require a reason, or make approval conditional on anything.
Yes. Article 39 provides proportional grants based on your scheduled working days per week. A three-day-a-week employee accrues fewer days than a full-timer on the same tenure schedule, but the entitlement and the six-month qualifying period work the same way.
Two years. Unused days carry over into the following year and then expire under the Labour Standards Act's statute of limitations. Most companies apply your oldest days first, but confirm this, since the order determines what you lose.
Usually yes. Japan has no separate statutory paid sick leave for general illness, so most employees use annual leave when they're ill. Some employers offer separate sick days (病気休暇) as a company benefit, which is worth checking in your rules of employment.
No. Japan's public holidays are separate and don't reduce your nenkyu balance. The exception is the planned-leave system, where a written labour-management agreement can allocate some of your annual leave to fixed company shutdown days around Obon or New Year.
Nenkyu is a legal entitlement, and the law is considerably more generous than the office atmosphere sometimes suggests. Ten days after six months, rising to 20. No reason required. Five days your employer must ensure you take, on penalty of a fine.
The reason so many foreign employees underuse it is that they read the room instead of reading the statute. Both matter, but only one of them is enforceable. Give plenty of notice, sort your handover, and book the days.
If you're weighing up an offer, the industry take-up figures tell you more about your future life than the job description will. A 24-point gap separates utilities from hospitality, and that gap is culture, not law.
Sources
This article is general information, not legal advice. For a dispute about your own entitlement, consult your local Labour Standards Inspection Office (労働基準監督署) or a qualified employment lawyer.
Japanese income tax runs 5% to 45%, plus 10% residence tax and around 15% social insurance. The residence tax lag is what catches foreign employees out.
Japan's standard permanent residency route takes 10 years, but most people qualify sooner. A February 2026 rule change creates a 31 March 2027 deadline.
You don't transfer a Japanese work visa. Your status stays valid, but you must notify immigration within 14 days or face a fine of up to ¥200,000.
