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.
Civil Code Article 627 lets you leave on two weeks' notice, whatever your handbook says. How resigning in Japan works, and the money you lose by mistiming it.
You can resign from a Japanese company on two weeks' notice. That is Article 627 of the Civil Code, it applies to anyone on an open-ended contract, and your employer's consent is not required.
Your handbook probably says one month, sometimes three. That rule is not nothing, but it does not override the law, and no company can hold you past the two-week mark.
The harder questions are the ones nobody puts in the handbook. What happens to your unused paid leave. Why quitting in February costs more than quitting in July. And what you must collect from HR on your way out, because chasing it later from a company you have left is miserable.
Two weeks, if you are on a contract with no end date. Article 627, paragraph 1 of the Civil Code says either side may end the employment at any time, and it terminates fourteen days after notice is given.
Two details matter here.
It does not require agreement. The clock runs from the day you give notice. Your manager does not have to sign anything for it to run.
Paragraphs 2 and 3 do not apply to you. Those set longer notice rules for monthly and semi-annual pay periods. Since the 2020 Civil Code reform they are written to cover termination by the employer only. Employees always get the plain two weeks.
Fixed-term contracts work on a different logic. You committed to a period, so Article 628 normally requires a compelling reason (やむを得ない事由) to leave early.
There is a large exception. Article 137 of the supplementary provisions of the Labour Standards Act covers contracts running longer than one year. Once twelve months have passed from the first day, you may resign at any time. No compelling reason needed, no employer approval.
Two groups are carved out: highly specialised workers earning roughly ¥10.75 million or more, and workers aged 60 and over. They fall back on Article 628.
Not quite, and you should know why.
Most Japanese work rules (就業規則) ask for one month. The mainstream view among labour lawyers is that Article 627 wins, because a company rule cannot take away a statutory right. A minority argue the handbook governs. Courts have not settled it cleanly.
In practice this argument almost never happens. Give the handbook notice if your circumstances allow it. Keep the two-week rule in your back pocket for the case where they refuse to let you go at all.
No, and the document you hand over decides how much room they have to push back. The two words look similar and behave very differently.
| 退職願 (taishoku negai) | 退職届 (taishoku todoke) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A request to end the contract by agreement | A unilateral notice of resignation |
| Needs acceptance | Yes | No |
| Can you withdraw it | Yes, until it is accepted | Generally no |
A 退職願 is a request to end the contract by mutual agreement. Until someone with authority accepts it you can take it back, which gives the company space to negotiate, delay, or talk you round.
A 退職届 is a unilateral notice of resignation. It is the one-sided termination Article 627 describes, so the fourteen days start regardless of what anyone says next. You generally cannot withdraw it.
Most people submit a 退職願 first because it is the softer convention. That is fine when the parting is friendly. If you expect resistance, the 退職届 is the instrument that actually ends things.
Tell your direct manager first, in person or on a call, before anyone else hears it. Skipping your manager to go straight to HR is read as a deliberate insult in a way it often is not elsewhere.
Bring a proposed last day and a handover plan to that first conversation. Japanese offices weight the 引き継ぎ (handover) heavily, and arriving with one converts the discussion from whether you are leaving into how.
Expect to be asked to reconsider, possibly more than once. That is convention, not necessarily pressure. A calm, unchanged answer each time works better than a long justification.
It is yours, and leaving is the moment most people finally use it.
Japanese workers took 66.9% of their paid leave in 2024, up from 65.3% a year earlier and the highest rate since records began in 1984. Even so, the average worker received 18.1 days and used 12.1. Roughly six days a year go unused.
Here is the part that helps you. Employers hold a right to move the timing of your leave (時季変更権) when granting it would disrupt operations. But that right only moves leave to another date. Once you have a leaving date, there is no other date to move it to, so it effectively cannot be used against you.
Three practical points:
Our guide to how paid leave works in Japan covers accrual and the carry-over rules in full.
More than people expect, and the timing is adjustable. Four costs are worth planning around.
Employment insurance treats voluntary leavers worse than dismissed ones, on two axes at once.
| You resigned | You were dismissed or made redundant | |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage required | 12 months in the prior 2 years | 6 months in the prior 1 year |
| Before payments start | 7 days plus a 1-month restriction | 7 days only |
The one-month restriction applies to separations from 1 April 2025. It was two months before that, which is what most English-language guides still say.
One route around it: take an approved training course while out of work and the restriction can be lifted entirely, even for a voluntary leaver. Hello Work sets this out on its page on the basic allowance.
Residence tax (住民税) is a local tax charged on last year's income. It is collected monthly from June through May, a full year behind what it taxes. Leave partway through and the balance has to be settled.
Resign between January and May and your employer must deduct every remaining month up to May from your final pay. You do not get a choice. Someone leaving in February is looking at four months of tax in one payslip.
Resign between June and December and you choose: settle the lot now, or switch to self-payment in four instalments. Our guide to income tax and social insurance explains how the year-behind billing works.
Most Japanese bonus schemes require you to be employed on the payment date, and many also exclude anyone who has already given notice. The rule sits in the work rules, so read them before you pick a date. A few weeks of patience can be worth a month or two of salary. Our explainer on Japan's bonus system covers the usual conditions.
A 退職金 (taishokukin) is a lump-sum retirement allowance paid on departure, and many Japanese companies offer one. The schedule almost always starts at three years of service, sometimes five. Leaving at two years and eleven months commonly means nothing at all.
Four documents, and you want them before your access is cut off.
Then there is one you have to ask for. Article 22 of the Labour Standards Act obliges your employer to issue a 退職証明書 (certificate of resignation) when you request it. It can state five things: your period of employment, your type of work, your position, your wage, and the reason you left.
You choose which of the five appear. Paragraph 3 of the same article forbids your employer from adding anything you did not ask for. Immigration and future employers both accept it, and a company that is dragging its feet on other paperwork usually produces this one quickly, because refusing is a clear breach.
Also return what you hold: your health insurance card, your ID badge, company equipment, and any business cards you collected. And confirm your final payslip date. It is often the month after you leave, not the month you leave.
The same two things that happen if you are dismissed. Your status of residence does not care why the job ended.
You must file a notification of the contracting organisation within 14 days, under Article 19-16 of the Immigration Act. It is free and carries a fine of up to ¥200,000 if you skip it. File it again when the new job starts.
Your status also becomes revocable after three months without the activity it covers, under Article 22-4. Active job hunting normally counts as a justifiable reason. Even so, this is the argument for lining up the next role before you resign.
If the new job is in a meaningfully different field, you may need a change of status rather than a simple notification. Our guide to transferring your work visa when you change jobs covers when that applies, and our post on losing your job in Japan covers the involuntary version of this situation.
They cannot stop you. But some companies try, and it helps to know which threats are real.
"You will owe us damages." Almost always empty. An employer can sue for losses caused by an early exit, but succeeding requires proving concrete damage, and courts rarely entertain it against someone exercising a statutory right.
"We will not accept your resignation." Irrelevant to a 退職届. Acceptance is not a requirement under Article 627.
"We are keeping your documents." Not their call. The 離職票 and the 源泉徴収票 carry legal issuing duties. A labour standards inspection office (労働基準監督署) will take that complaint, and it is free.
A 退職代行 (taishoku daiko) is a resignation agency that handles every contact with your employer so you never speak to them again. Where the pressure is genuinely bad, this is no longer a fringe option. Persol Research Institute surveyed 1,829 people in late 2025 and found 5.1% of leavers, about one in twenty, had used one.
The profile is worth knowing. Around half of users were in their twenties or thirties, and roughly 40% had been at the employer under a year, about double the rate among leavers generally. Some 40% reported harassment from their direct supervisor.
If you use one, the provider type matters. Roughly 40% of the market is ordinary companies, which can pass on your message but cannot negotiate terms on your behalf. About 30% are labour unions, which can. Only a lawyer can act for you in a dispute.
By the numbers, unusually good.
In 2024, 40.5% of people who changed jobs in Japan saw their pay increase, against 29.4% who saw it fall. Nearly three in ten got a raise of 10% or more.
We ran the increase-minus-decrease gap across the full decade the Ministry publishes. The result is a market that has genuinely turned:
| Year | Pay rose | Pay fell | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 34.2% | 35.9% | -1.7 |
| 2020 | 34.9% | 35.9% | -1.0 |
| 2021 | 34.6% | 35.2% | -0.6 |
| 2022 | 34.9% | 33.9% | +1.0 |
| 2023 | 37.2% | 32.4% | +4.8 |
| 2024 | 40.5% | 29.4% | +11.1 |
As recently as 2021, changing jobs in Japan was slightly more likely to cut your pay than raise it. In 2024 the gap was the widest in the published series, and more than double the year before.
Younger workers do best of all. Among 20 to 24 year olds, 50.5% saw a rise. For 25 to 29 year olds it was 46.3%. For context on where the ranges sit, see our data on what foreigners earn in Japan and our guide to negotiating salary.
Two weeks, under Article 627 of the Civil Code, if you are on an open-ended contract. Your employer's agreement is not required. Company work rules often ask for one month, which is worth following where you can, but it does not override the statutory two weeks.
Not if you submit a 退職届, which is a unilateral notice rather than a request. The employment ends fourteen days later whatever your employer says. A 退職願 is a request to end the contract by agreement, and that one can be refused or withdrawn.
Yes. Your employer can normally reschedule leave that would disrupt operations, but that power only shifts leave to another date. Once your last day is fixed there is no later date available, so in practice it cannot be used to block you.
Yes. File a notification of the contracting organisation within 14 days of leaving, exactly as you would after a dismissal. It is free, and skipping it carries a fine of up to ¥200,000. File it again when you start the new job.
Yes, in two ways. You need twelve months of employment insurance coverage in the previous two years rather than six months in the previous one. You also wait an extra month beyond the seven-day period before payments begin.
It can cost you money rather than reputation. Retirement allowance schedules usually begin at three years of service, so leaving earlier often means receiving nothing. The stigma is fading: nearly one in seven employees changed or left jobs in 2024.
Notice periods come from Article 627 of the Civil Code. Fixed-term contracts are governed by Article 628 of the same code, plus Article 137 of the supplementary provisions of the Labour Standards Act. The duty to issue a certificate of resignation, and the bar on adding content you did not request, are both in Article 22 of the Labour Standards Act.
Paid leave figures are from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's 2025 General Survey on Working Conditions, which covers 2024. It reports a 66.9% take-up rate, with 18.1 days granted and 12.1 days taken per worker. The sample is 3,820 responding companies of 30 or more employees.
Job-changer pay data and the separation rate are from the Ministry's 2024 Employment Trends Survey, published 26 August 2025, covering around 15,000 establishments. The published tables give the increase and decrease shares separately for each year. We ran the year-by-year difference between them ourselves to produce the gap column, which is not in the source.
Resignation agency figures are from Persol Research Institute's quantitative survey on job separation and resignation agencies. It surveyed 1,829 people aged 20 to 50 online between 21 August and 1 September 2025. Of those, 52 had used a resignation agency, so the demographic splits within that group are indicative rather than precise.
Employment insurance rules, including the one-month restriction that took effect on 1 April 2025, come from the Ministry's 2024 employment insurance reform material. Immigration obligations are in Articles 19-16 and 22-4 of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Contract disputes turn on your own work rules and circumstances. A labour standards inspection office, a labour union, or a certified administrative scrivener will advise on your case at little or no cost. Data retrieved 16 September 2026.
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Losing your job does not cancel your visa. Your status runs to its expiry date. What matters is a 14-day notification, the three-month rule, and your next renewal.
Leaving Japan? You can claim back up to five years of pension contributions. But claiming erases your entire Japanese pension record, permanently.
