Japan Bonus Tax Calculator: NTA Withholding Rate and Take-Home (2026)

How the take-home bonus is calculated

1. Social insurance is deducted from the bonus. The premiums are the insurance rate applied to the bonus rounded down to the nearest ¥1,000 (the “standard bonus amount”, 標準賞与額). The employees' pension is capped at ¥1.5 million per payment and health insurance (including nursing care and the child-rearing support levy) at ¥5.73 million cumulative per fiscal year. Employment insurance applies to the bonus amount itself.
2. The previous month's salary after social insurance, and your number of dependents, are looked up in the National Tax Agency's rate table (算出率の表) to find the rate to apply to the bonus.
3. (Bonus − social insurance) × that rate is the withholding income tax, with fractions of a yen dropped. The rate already includes the special reconstruction income tax.
4. Gross bonus − social insurance − withholding income tax = take-home bonus.

Many employers set bonuses as a number of months of salary (for example “2 months”), so the buttons under the salary field fill the gross bonus with the previous month's gross salary × the multiple. The withholding rate depends on the previous month's salary and the number of dependents, so as long as the bonus is within 10 times the previous month's salary the rate is the same whatever the multiple (the rate is shown in the result above).

Salaries and bonuses paid on or after 1 January 2027 are scheduled to use revised withholding tax tables, so bonuses from next year on may differ from this calculator's result (this page uses the 2026 table).

These figures assume you are a resident of Japan paid as an employee. Withholding for non-residents follows different rules that this calculator does not cover.

How the withholding rate on a bonus is chosen: the NTA's example and a table

The National Tax Agency's own example (Taxanswer No. 2523) is a previous month's salary of ¥285,454 after social insurance, with three dependents. The table gives 2.042%. The bonus after social insurance is ¥389,558, so the tax withheld is ¥389,558 × 2.042% = ¥7,954 (fractions of a yen are dropped). This calculator reproduces that example exactly.

The rate is chosen by the previous month's salary after social insurance and the number of dependents, not by the size of the bonus, so as long as the bonus is within 10 times that salary a larger bonus is taxed at the same rate. The table below uses a ¥600,000 bonus, age 30, and shows how the rate steps up with the previous month's gross salary.

The rates include the 2.1% special reconstruction income tax. Withholding on a bonus is only an advance payment: your actual income tax for the year is settled in the year-end adjustment or your tax return.