Japan Pensions

Eligibility goes to ten years in October?


I read an interesting article today about changes to the pension laws. The author isn’t very impressed with many of the changes, but confirms that from October the minimum period you need to make payments to shakai hoken or kokumin nenkin in order to vest (become eligible to receive a pension) will be reduced to ten years.

This is great news.

Of course, in order to receive a full pension you still need to pay in for twenty-five years, and paying for a shorter time will mean your pension will be smaller, but at least you’ll get something.

Remember that you can check your payment history (and estimated pension amount if you are old enough) by creating an online account at the national pension website. It’s very easy to do and the site is clearly laid out.

If you were in kyosai nenkin until last year, you won’t be able to see the payments for those years until you reach your birthday (I’m guessing they did this to spread out the huge amount of work they have to do moving everyone across to kosei nenkin).

My birthday is in September so I will have to wait until then, but I confirmed with a friend with a March birthday that he could see all his payments.

So some positive news today for a change ๐Ÿ™‚

12 Responses

  1. This is great news for those of us who want to retire early! I had to take into account the nenkin payments in my plans, and might not have to after all. For my wife and I that’s a big difference of about $3000 a year that I could remove from our yearly expected expenses.
    Where can we confirm this 100% though? I can still see on the official English documents that one has to pay between 20 and 59…

    1. Not sure how this saves you money though, SB. Everyone has to pay into the pension scheme unless their income is low enough to qualify for exemptions (I was on quarter payments for a few months).
      So if you are living in Japan you’ll have to pay into kosai nenkin or kokumin nenkin. The government has been lax in collecting this in the past but they are getting stricter (My Number is part of this).

      1. I see, I misunderstood. I thought this meant I could choose to stop paying after 10 years.

      2. I think a lot of people would like that option ๐Ÿ™‚
        To be honest, right now, you could do this (especially once you get permanent residence). The enforcement mechanisms are still fairly weak, but they are getting more effective as time goes on.
        The government subcontracts to private companies to encourage people to start paying, and once they get My Number up and running they could just take the money from your bank account.
        I wouldn’t count on being able to avoid the pension payments in the future.

      3. Yup, and it’s not my intent to do anything illegal. Just like a video game, “victory” (early retirement) would taste bitter if I cheated (didn’t follow the law).
        In particular as a foreigner I think it’s really important to follow the rules of the host country, if only so that extremists cannot use that argument against our entire group (“gaijins don’t pay the Nenkin and abuse the system!” kind of stuff…)

      4. That’s my view too.
        As visible minorities we are much more noticeable and our behaviour is often extrapolated to the larger community, so we almost have to behave better than native Japanese citizens ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. Hi SB
      The law seems to be scheduled for October, so I resume they’ll update the online information after it gets passed.

  3. Hello Ben and Stockbeard
    As a regular visitor and appreciator of the website i figured might be time to join the conversation.
    This is indeed good news especially for us UK nationals whose country doesnt have a totalisation agreement with Japan.
    Full pension is with reference to 40 years i believe though. So 10 years of contributions only gets you 10/40 of the basic pension. Probably not very much when I retire.

  4. Hi Naraland
    Good to have you with us. I don’t think the pension will be a large amount of money for most of us, but better than nothing ๐Ÿ™‚
    My personal approach is to assume it will be 0 and hopefully be pleasantly surprised.
    You can make an account on nenkin.go.jp to see all your past contributions and (if you are old enough and have paid enough) projected payouts.

  5. Dear Retire Japan,
    Thanks for providing such an informative website. I found it through a recommendation on the Monevator blog.
    Maybe you or your readers could help me: I (American) taught in Kagoshima at a girl’s Catholic school from 1987-1989. Of course, pensions, etc., were the furthest thing from my mind back then. It sounds as though pension contributions are voluntary, and there’s a good chance I never paid any. I haven’t kept any paycheck stubs from that time. I would like to find out, because I am 6 credits short of being eligible for Social Security/Medicare in the States (I have lived in Europe since the ’90s) and these potential credits could help. Do you have any advice on how to trace this? It has occured to me to write to my old school, too, although who knows if they have records on former gaijin sensei….๐Ÿ˜ณ๐Ÿค— I appreciate any and all guidance!

    1. Hi Dorf
      Thanks for the kind words! Much appreciated.
      As for your pension, you will probably need your ๅŸบ็คŽๅนด้‡‘็•ชๅท (kisonenkinbangou -basic pension number).
      You could find this in your pension book (blue or orange, passport-sized) or you could ask your school. They might still have records.
      This page shows the pension offices in Kagoshima, but you would have to prove your identity before they would talk to you (by showing your passport, for example). Over the phone they would require your nenkin number.
      It’s a tricky one. I’m having a similar problem in that I can’t find my national insurance number for the UK, and have so far failed to get any government office to tell me it ๐Ÿ˜‰
      Best of luck.