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COST OF LIVING IN JAPAN: BUDGET TOOL

This tool will help you answer the question: How much can I earn (and save) teaching English in Japan. Because it's creating a monthly budget it'll work fine if you're not a teacher, but you'll need to adjust some fields like bonus and airfare reimbursement to fit your job.


The budget has default answers and numbers filled in, change what you need and press calculate. To find out more about a field (and how it is calculated) click the text for it.


You can share the budget with your own numbers by changing them and then pressing custom URL. You'll get a link to your own custom version of the budget

Enter your monthly salary. It has to be in Yen.
Nationality sets the flight costs and can sometimes affect tax and pensions. If your nationality isn't listed, don't worry it won't make much of a difference.
This only changes the totals (usually in green), all the monthly expenses, startup and end of year costs still have to be in Yen.
ALT programs place teachers at public schools i.e. JET or Interac. Eikaiwas are private language companies like Aeon or Gaba.
This will change your tax situation, local inhabitants tax is based off the previous (calender) year.
The US has a tax treaty with Japan that exempts you from paying Japanese Income Tax for your first two years as an ALT.
This is to help calculate local inhabitants tax. It's your total income from the last calender (Jan to Dec).
This is to help calculate local inhabitants tax. It's your total social security costs from the last calender (Jan to Dec).
This is to help calculate local inhabitants tax. The tax is based on your income in the last calender year so when you arrive is important.
If your contract says 29.5 hours or less then you're being counted as a contract worker and your employer doesn't have to pay social security
¥80529
Or 7.5 hours of constantly spinning around the London Eye
¥998517
Which is 4.3 months cruising around the Caribbean.

THE BREAKDOWN

TAX AND INSURANCE

TAX BREAKDOWN

SOCIAL SECURITY BREAKDOWN

This break down is for the year. Only the total is monthly.
A tax default deduction which everyone gets. Pretty much every tax system has one.
(¥)
The amount of your salary that can be taxed once deductions (social security etc.) are removed.
(¥)
The total amount of income tax you'll have to pay a year.
(¥)
Income tax is paid to the main government, inhabitants tax is paid to local government. It's calculated on the last calender years income.
(¥)
This break down is for the year. Only the total is monthly.
This is the cost of payments into Japan's national health system.
(¥)
This is the cost of payments into Japan's national pension system. You can get it as a lump sum when you leave.
(¥)
¥202529

STARTUP COSTS

You can alter the values in these fields
Upfront housing costs are things like key money, deposit and upfront rent. Deposits you get back, the other two you don't.
(¥)
This is an average price from Hopper.com from the 5 largest cities of your country to the largest destination airport.
(¥)

MONTHLY EXPENSES

You can alter the values in these fields
If you know where you'll be living then it might be worth looking up prices to change this.
(¥)
These are bills for the apartment, things like gas, electricity, building maintenance etc.
(¥)
The cost of an internet connection. Hopefully this one is obvious.
(¥)
This food budget assumes you can manage without mass buying western groceries e.g. cereal.
(¥)
This is the cost of getting to work and back, it doesn't cover train trips away etc.
(¥)
The cost of getting a local mobile plan. If you use a lot of wifi you could reduce this.
(¥)
This is very person specific so we've left this at 0 and you'll need to change it.
(¥)
¥80529
¥62203

END OF YEAR ROUNDUP

You can alter any of the values in the top row.
The cost of the plane trip back. See airfare there for how it's calculated.
(¥)
This is the amount given to cover plane tickets.
(¥)
An end of year bonus equal to one months salary is very common.
(¥)
Some apartment startup costs aren't refundable. The deposit is.
(¥)
When you leave you can withdraw your pension as a lump sum. You get 80% by default and a tax representative can get the rest (only 80% shown).
(¥)
You can download an Excel spreadsheet of the budget if you'd prefer to here. And if you have any suggestions for things that would be useful added or just want to discuss the finer points of the tax calculation, click here to email me and lets talk.

You can find long explanations of all the tax calculations in the country tax sections complete with examples!

Here's a really standard tax disclaimer: We're not tax lawyers, this isn't official tax advice. You're responsible for what you do, if you're unsure of anything you'll need to talk to a proper tax lawyer and all that good stuff. I'm sure you knew all this anyway.


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