MMoving to Japan

Question about salaries

  • September 16, 2025

Hello,

Long time lurker but finally decided to make a post. I’ve done a lot of reading on this sub, related Japan subs, and Google but I’m still not quite sure.

First off, when people talk about salary in Japan, (2m, 3m, 4-6m), I know this means pre-tax, but does this number include bonuses or is this just base salary?

Secondly, these are my numbers for my job. I’ll be moving to Tokyo in the next month or so (pending COE) and just wanted to get a feel of where I land in terms of salary in Japan.

37M, single, no debts

Base – 320,000 or 3.8m/year

OT – Around 20 hours/month (I’ll supervise a small team)

Salary with OT – 370,000 or 4.4m/year

Bonus:
Received quarterly of 1-3x base pay (I’ll assume 2x average)

Winter bonus of 1x base pay

Total estimated bonus – 2.88m

Total estimated salary – 7.3m

Edit: sorry for the janky formatting. I’m on my phone

Edit #2: Working for a foreign company in Japan (non-teaching) if that makes any difference

by ___yuki

4 comments

  1. First question: Typically, that’s just the base salary, pre-tax.

    Second question: What industry are you joining? If it’s English teaching, the base is usually standard, since they start low. It often hits around 300,000–350,000 yen if you supervise or become a team leader (this is for eikaiwa, kindergarten, or ALT jobs, not accredited schools).

    Anything outside of that? You’re generally a bit underpaid. Unless you’re in sales or recruitment, where a big chunk of your pay comes from bonuses, the base can feel a bit meager.

    If you’re talking about 7.3M/year including bonus, though, that’s actually a pretty good number and above average overall!

  2. You should clarify expected bonus. 1-3x base pay per quarter is a huge fluctuation. I’m a cynic so I would expect a 1x base pay per quarter.

  3. 1. Typically when someone mentions annual income, it includes bonuses, because bonuses come at least once a year. When someone mentions their monthly income, it’s just base salary. Both pre tax, as you said.

    2. That’s a lot of bonus money for you base salary, but 7.3M for a 37M is probably slightly above average if you look at all of Japan. But if you only look at those with 10+ years of work experience with a white collar job at a foreign company in Japan, the average salary with be more than that.

  4. For a skilled worker this salary seems to be on the lower end, but I dont know how industries other than IT operate in japan

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