Gensen Choshu Hyo and the January 31 Payroll Filings in Japan

The gensen choshu hyo (源泉徴収票) is the annual salary and withholding certificate a Japanese employer must give every employee it paid during the year, by January 31 of the following year, or within one month of leaving for anyone who leaves mid-year. It is one of a set of January filings that share the same data. The Japan entity also files a salary payment report for each employee with the municipality where that employee lived on January 1 (or, for a leaver, on the leaving date), and a statutory report summary with its tax office, along with separate slips for retirement pay and for payments to non-residents. For the filings due in January 2027, two rule changes become effective. A salary payment report filed with the municipality now counts as filing the withholding slip with the tax office. And e-filing becomes mandatory at 30 forms of a type, down from 100. This post sets out who receives which document, what the 2027 amendments change, and what departing foreign staff need.

Who receives what: the January filing set

Each document goes to a different recipient and covers a different group of people. If a global payroll vendor runs Japan payroll, confirm in writing whether its scope includes these Japanese forms or only an annual pay statement. The table below is the checklist we work from with HQ payroll teams. For where these January filings sit among the other monthly and annual deadlines, see our Japan payroll calendar for the full year.

Document	Japanese name	Recipient	Deadline	Who it covers
Salary withholding slip	給与所得の源泉徴収票	Employee	January 31; within one month of leaving for mid-year leavers	Everyone paid salary in the year
Salary payment report	給与支払報告書 (kyuyo shiharai hokokusho)	Municipality of residence: the January 1 address for current employees; the address on the leaving date for mid-year leavers	January 31	Employees on the payroll on January 1, plus leavers paid more than JPY 300,000 in the year they left
Statutory report summary	法定調書合計表 (hotei chosho gokeihyo)	Tax office	January 31	Totals for every statutory report type the entity files, including payments outside payroll
Retirement income withholding slip	退職所得の源泉徴収票 (taishoku shotoku no gensen choshu hyo)	Employee and tax office	Within one month of retirement; tax office copies can be batched by January 31	Every recipient of a retirement allowance paid on or after January 1, 2026
Payment report for non-residents	非居住者等に支払われる給与、報酬、年金及び賞金の支払調書	Tax office	January 31	Non-residents paid more than JPY 500,000 in the year for services performed in Japan
Fee and royalty reports	報酬、料金、契約金及び賞金の支払調書	Tax office	January 31	Payments such as fees to individual professionals, usually booked in accounts payable

The January 31 deadline is set out for the national filings in NTA No. 7400 and No. 7411, and by Article 317-6 of the Local Tax Act (地方税法第317条の6) for salary payment reports. Because January 31, 2027 is a Sunday, the tax office deadline moves to Monday, February 1, 2027 under Article 10(2) of the Act on General Rules for National Taxes (国税通則法第10条第2項). We still plan the whole set for the last business day before January 31, Friday, January 29, 2027, because the employee slips and municipal reports come from the same final payroll data and slipping one usually slips all of them.

The gensen choshu hyo: what the employee receives

The salary withholding slip shows the employee's total salary and bonuses for the calendar year, the employment income deduction applied, the deductions claimed in year-end adjustment, the income tax withheld, and the social insurance deducted. According to the NTA guidance on the salary withholding slip (No. 7411, laws as of April 1, 2026), the payer must prepare and deliver a slip for every person it paid salary to, by January 31 of the following year, or within one month after the leaving date for anyone who left during the year.

The slip can be delivered electronically instead of on paper if the employee has agreed in advance and the other conditions are met, but the employer must still issue a paper copy if the employee asks for one (NTA No. 7411). For a subsidiary whose staff use a group HR portal, collect that consent with the onboarding documents, not in January.

Employees use the slip in four ways, which is why late or wrong slips generate questions quickly:

• Filing a tax return. Employees outside year-end adjustment, such as those whose salary exceeds JPY 20 million, use its figures to file their own tax return (NTA No. 2665).
• Joining a new employer. A mid-year joiner gives the previous employer's slip to the new employer so the year can be adjusted there.
• Home-country tax. Secondees and returning staff often need the slip to claim foreign tax credits in their home country.
• Proof of income. Banks, landlords and immigration applications ask for it.

The slip reflects the year-end adjustment, so it cannot be finalised until December payroll has closed and the adjustment has been reconciled. Our post on year-end adjustment (nenmatsu chosei) for a foreign-owned subsidiary covers that process. Our guide to withholding tax (gensen choshu) in Japan covers the monthly withholding the slip summarises.

Salary payment reports to each municipality

Salary payment reports are how municipalities learn what each resident earned, and they are the basis for the following year's resident tax (住民税, juminzei), which the employer then deducts from pay under resident tax special collection. Under Article 317-6(1) of the Local Tax Act, an employer that pays salary on January 1 and must withhold income tax files a report for each employee with the mayor of the municipality where the employee lives, by January 31. Article 317-6(3) adds leavers: a report is also due by January 31 for anyone who stopped receiving salary during the year, except those paid JPY 300,000 or less by that employer in the year they left. For a leaver, the report goes to the municipality where they lived on their last day of pay, not on January 1.

The practical difficulty for a foreign-owned subsidiary is the address list. The report goes to the municipality of the January 1 address, not the address on file in the HR system in, say, March. Even a small Tokyo office can end up filing with many different wards and cities. Employees who moved in December, secondees who arrived late in the year, and staff who work remotely from outside Tokyo are where the errors usually sit. Ask employees to confirm their January 1 address in the year-end adjustment pack rather than in late January.

If the employer is required to e-file its withholding slips under the Income Tax Act, Article 317-6(5) of the Local Tax Act requires the salary payment reports to be filed electronically through eLTAX or on optical disc as well. Our explainer on eLTAX, Japan's local tax filing system covers registration, which takes time if the entity has never used it.

What the amendments change for the January 2027 filings

The salary payment report now counts as the tax office filing

Until now, the employer filed salary withholding slips with the tax office only above set thresholds, such as officers paid over JPY 1.5 million and most adjusted employees paid over JPY 5 million (NTA No. 7411). Under the same NTA guidance, effective for salary withholding slips due on or after January 1, 2027 (令和9年1月1日以後), filing the salary payment report with the municipality is treated as filing the slip with the tax office. The tax office filing scope also widens to every salary payment except to mid-year leavers paid JPY 300,000 or less in the year. In practice, the Japan entity stops preparing a separate tax office copy of the employee slips, and the municipal reports carry more weight. A missing or wrong municipal report is now also a gap in the national filing.

E-filing at 30 forms instead of 100

According to the NTA guidance on who must file statutory reports (No. 7400), e-Tax, an approved cloud service, or optical disc is required for each type of statutory report where 30 or more forms of that type were due two years earlier. For reports filed on or before December 31, 2026, the threshold was 100. The NTA's own example: if 30 or more fee and royalty reports were due in January 2025, those reports must be filed electronically in January 2027 under the amended rule. The count is per form type, so an entity can be required to e-file its fee reports and file other types on paper. Check the 2025 counts now, while there is time to register for e-Tax.

Retirement pay and non-resident payments: the separate slips

Retirement income withholding slip

Retirement allowances (退職手当等) are taxed separately from salary and reported on their own slip. According to the NTA guidance on the retirement income withholding slip (No. 7421, laws as of April 1, 2026), the slip must be delivered to every recipient within one month of retirement. For payments on or after January 1, 2026, a copy must also be filed with the tax office for every recipient, not just officers as before. Filing with the municipality may be omitted for now. Slips for people who retired during the year can be filed together by January 31.

The withholding on the payment depends on a form the employee signs. If the employer has received the employee's declaration on receipt of retirement income (退職所得の受給に関する申告書), it withholds tax calculated with the retirement income deduction for the years of service. If not, it withholds 20.42% of the full payment and the employee settles the difference in a tax return, according to the NTA guidance on withholding on retirement allowances (No. 2732). Collect the declaration before the payment is made. Our post on severance pay and retirement allowances in Japan covers how these payments are structured.

Payment report for non-residents

Payments to non-residents use a different report from the resident slips. The NTA statutory report guide's section on payments to non-residents and foreign corporations requires the payment report for non-residents where salary or fees are paid for personal services performed in Japan, unless the annual amount is JPY 500,000 or less. Two copies are filed for payees resident in a country that exchanges tax information automatically with Japan, and the payee's My Number is included if one was issued. The NTA procedure page for this report (F1-27) sets the deadline at January 31 of the following year.

For a subsidiary, the typical cases are a director based abroad who receives director's fees from the Japan entity, and an employee who transferred overseas and later receives a bonus that relates partly to work done in Japan.

What departing foreign staff need when they leave mid-year

An employee who leaves Japan mid-year generates more paperwork than one who stays. The steps depend on whether they stay in Japan with a new employer or leave Japan and become non-resident.

• Withholding slip within one month. Every leaver gets a salary withholding slip within one month of the leaving date (NTA No. 7411). For staff leaving Japan, deliver it before departure or send it electronically with their consent. A slip posted to a Tokyo address after the employee has left often never reaches them.
• Year-end adjustment at departure. An employee who leaves Japan on an overseas transfer becomes non-resident, and the employer runs the year-end adjustment at departure on salary paid up to then, according to the NTA guidance on year-end adjustment for employees transferring overseas (No. 2517). The slip shows the adjusted figures. A leaver who stays in Japan is generally not adjusted by the old employer, according to the NTA guidance on who is subject to year-end adjustment (No. 2665); the new employer adjusts them using the slip, according to the NTA guidance on year-end adjustment for mid-year joiners (No. 2674).
• Pay after departure. Salary for work performed abroad after the employee becomes non-resident is not Japanese-source income and is not withheld. A bonus paid after departure is withheld at 20.42% on the part that relates to work in Japan during the calculation period (NTA No. 2517). If that Japanese-source part exceeds JPY 500,000 in the year, it goes on the payment report for non-residents, according to the NTA Q&A on employees transferred overseas mid-year.
• Salary payment report. If the leaver was paid more than JPY 300,000 in the year, a salary payment report still goes to the municipality where they lived when they left by the following January 31 (Local Tax Act Art. 317-6(3)).
• Retirement allowance slip. If a retirement allowance is paid, the retirement income slip goes to the employee within one month of retirement (NTA No. 7421).

Departing staff also often ask about their social insurance contributions. Our post on Japan pension for expats and the lump-sum withdrawal covers that claim, which the employee makes after leaving.

Where foreign-owned subsidiaries usually go wrong

• Treating the vendor's annual statement as the slip. A global payroll vendor's year-end statement is not the Japanese form. Confirm in October who produces the slips, the municipal reports and the summary. Our post on running Japan payroll through a global payroll vendor sets out how to split that scope.
• Stale January 1 addresses and leaving-date addresses for leavers. Reports sent to the wrong municipality lead to wrong or missing resident tax bills in June, and, once the change takes effect in January 2027, to a gap in the tax office filing too.
• Forgetting the non-payroll reports. The statutory report summary includes fees to individual professionals, which sit in accounts payable. The payroll team often does not see them.
• Director's fees to overseas directors. These need the non-resident report, and they are often paid by HQ on behalf of the Japan entity, so nobody in Japan has the figures.
• Leavers who cannot be reached. Slips posted after departure, with no forwarding address or electronic consent, leave the former employee without the document they need for their next employer or their home-country return.
• Late e-filing registration. With the threshold now at 30 forms, entities that have always filed on paper may need e-Tax and eLTAX set up before the change takes effect in January 2027.

Who owns each step

The Japan entity is the legal payer and signs every filing. In the subsidiaries we support, the work usually splits as follows.

Step	Owner	Timing
Confirm January 1 addresses and electronic delivery consent	Japan entity, with the year-end adjustment pack	October to November
Export full-year pay, tax and social insurance per employee	Global payroll vendor	After December payroll closes
List HQ-paid director's fees, retirement payments and payments to non-residents	HQ payroll and finance	Early January
List fees paid to individuals from accounts payable	Accounting	Early January
Prepare slips, municipal reports, non-resident and fee reports, and the summary	AQ, from the reconciled year-end adjustment data	Mid to late January
Deliver slips to employees; file with municipalities and the tax office	Japan entity	By the last business day before January 31

Working with AQ Partners. Our Tokyo team provides the annual payroll statutory reports, year-end adjustment and employee life-cycle filings for foreign-owned subsidiaries in Japan, working alongside your global payroll vendor so the January slips, municipal reports and summary come from one reconciled data set. Book a consultation to plan your January 2027 filings under the amended rules and the paperwork for staff leaving this year.