Resident, Non-Permanent Resident, or Non-Resident? Japan's Three Tax Statuses When You Leave

Last reviewed: 2026-09. The three categories and the year-of-departure split below were checked in September 2026 against the 2025 National Tax Agency guide, the Reiwa 7 confirmation form, and Income Tax Act Articles 2, 7, and 8.

This page is about income-tax status in the year you leave Japan. The filing paths are in Appoint a tax agent or file a quasi-final return?. One Japan-source payment that often arises after you have become a non-resident, the pension lump-sum, is in the 20.42% withholding article.

What this page will not do

TakoyakiCPA does not decide whether you are a resident, a non-permanent resident, or a non-resident. It does not file a return, and it does not act as a tax agent (納税管理人, nōzei kanrinin). Domicile (住所, jūsho) depends on where your base of living is. The official note quoted below is a general note. Applying it to one household is a determination this page does not make.

The three categories

Income Tax Act Article 2 and section 1-3 of the 2025 guide use the same three labels. The guide’s English is quoted here because it is the National Tax Agency’s own wording. The statute is the rule.

Category	Who it is	Japanese term on the statute
Resident	Any individual who has a domicile (the guide writes JUSHO) in Japan, or who has a residence (KYOSHO) in Japan continuously for one year or more	居住者 (kyojūsha)
Non-permanent resident	A resident of non-Japanese nationality who has had a domicile or a residence in Japan for an aggregate period of five years or less within the preceding ten years	非永住者 (hieijūsha)
Non-resident	Any individual other than a resident	非居住者 (hikyojūsha)

A non-permanent resident is a kind of resident. The five-year test does not create a fourth status. Article 2, item 4, says a non-permanent resident is a resident who does not have Japanese nationality and whose total time with a domicile or a residence in Japan, within the past ten years, is five years or less.

The non-permanent resident 5-year check adds periods of domicile or residence you enter and compares the total with five years. The count follows the National Tax Agency’s basic circular, cited on that page. The check does not decide domicile, nationality, or your status.

No.12006 states the non-resident side in one sentence: you are a non-resident unless you have a domicile or have had a residence continuously for one year or more. It points back to the guide for resident status.

“Permanent resident” on the tax form is an income-tax label

The National Tax Agency’s confirmation form is titled, in English on the form, “Confirmation of the Type of Resident Status etc.” (居住形態等に関する確認書). Its instructions divide resident status into non-permanent resident, permanent resident, and non-resident. They define “permanent resident” as a resident other than a non-permanent resident.

That label is the income-tax category for a resident who does not meet the non-permanent test. It is the word printed on this form. Immigration status, including permission to reside permanently, is a different legal status and is not what this form’s “permanent resident” row measures. A person can hold an immigration status and still fall in any of the three income-tax rows, because the income-tax test looks at domicile, residence, nationality, and the five-year total.

What the guide means by domicile and residence

The confirmation instructions give a short English note:

In general, you have a domicile in Japan if your base of living is in Japan.
In general, you have a residence in Japan if you are staying or living in Japan, whether or not you have a domicile there.

Section 1-3 of the 2025 guide adds a note about a temporary absence. If a person who has a residence in Japan leaves with the intent to be absent temporarily and later reenter, the person is treated as having been residing in Japan during the absence. The guide says that intent is presumed if, during the absence, the person’s spouse or relatives remain in the household in Japan, the person retains a residence or a hotel room for residential use after returning, or the person’s personal property for daily use is kept in Japan for use on return.

That note can keep a residence continuous. A continuous residence of one year or more is itself enough to be a resident, under Article 2, even without a domicile. The note is a presumption the guide states. It is not a finding about a particular trip.

No.1923 (Japanese, laws current as of April 1, 2026) states a different pattern. A salary earner of a company in Japan who transfers to an overseas branch or similar post for a planned period of one year or more is, in general, presumed not to have a domicile in Japan after the transfer, and is a non-resident after the transfer. No.1923 presents that as a general presumption for that employment pattern. It is not a ruling on any one assignment. The English guide does not repeat this sentence. The Japanese tax answer is the source for it.

What income is inside each category

Article 7 sets the scope. Section 1-3 of the guide states it in English.

Category	Income subject to Japanese income tax, as the 2025 guide states it
Resident other than a non-permanent resident	Whole income
Non-permanent resident	Income other than foreign-source income; foreign-source income paid in Japan; and foreign-source income paid abroad and remitted to Japan
Non-resident	Domestic-source income. The guide’s table says “taxable in principle” and points to its own page 9 for the outline

Article 7, item 2, defines the non-permanent scope by reference to foreign-source income in Article 95, paragraph 1, and it includes certain gains on foreign securities that a cabinet order specifies. The guide’s three-part sentence is the English statement of that scope. The cabinet-order detail is not copied here.

For a non-permanent resident, the guide defines how a remittance is counted. Among money remitted from abroad and received in Japan in the year, the amount treated as a remittance of foreign-source income is the part that exceeds the non-foreign-source income paid abroad in that year. The guide walks through a numerical illustration on page 7. The ordering rule is the rule. The illustration’s figures are the illustration’s figures.

For a non-resident, No.12006 lists categories of domestic-source income and then sorts them into aggregate taxation and separate withholding. The withholding rate it states for many of those categories, for a non-resident with no permanent establishment, is 20.42%, with 15.315% for the interest and installment-savings categories it numbers (8) and (15). Page 9 of the 2025 guide is the table of that outline. Treaties can change a rate. No.12006, section 4, says a treaty benefit is claimed on an “Application Form for Income Tax Convention,” filed through the payer before the payment date, or later on a refund application if that form was late. This page does not apply a treaty.

One domestic-source item that matters after a person has left is employment income, public pensions, and retirement allowances from work done while the person was a resident. No.12006 lists those in its item (12). The Employees’ Pension lump-sum withdrawal payment is a specific case of withholding at 20.42%, with an optional return. That procedure is in the lump-sum article.

The year you leave is split by the period, not by a single label

Article 8 applies when, in one year, an individual falls under more than one of these: resident other than a non-permanent resident, non-permanent resident, or one of the non-resident classes in Article 164. Tax for that year follows the income that arose in each period, under the Article 7 scope for the category the person had during that period.

A general scenario, not a determination: a person who is a non-permanent resident on January 1 and who later in the year ceases to be a resident has two periods in that year. Income in the earlier period is taxed under the non-permanent scope. Income in the later period is taxed under the non-resident scope, which Article 7 limits to domestic-source income. Article 8 is why a single label for “the year I left” drops the split the statute requires.

Becoming a non-resident, and making a “departure” in the filing sense, are related and are defined separately.

Resident or non-resident is Article 2: domicile, or one continuous year of residence.
出国 (shutsu-koku), which the National Tax Agency’s English leaving-Japan notice calls departure, is Article 2, item 42. For a resident it means coming to have neither a domicile nor a residence in Japan without filing the tax-agent notification. The filing consequences of that defined departure are in the tax-agent article. Appointing a tax agent does not, by itself, decide the domicile question. It does decide whether the statute’s word “departure” has occurred.

No.12004 is the short English page for the person who will leave and lose a domicile or residence and still has filing duties. Section 3-10 of the 2025 guide is the longer notice for a departure during 2026.

The form that asks you to divide the year

The Reiwa 7 (2025) forms index says item 19, 居住形態等に関する確認書, is used when a resident who had a period as a non-permanent resident in the year files a final return. The Reiwa 7 PDF is the 2025-year form. A later year has its own PDF on that year’s form index. The fields below are the ones printed on the 2025 form. They show what the National Tax Agency asks. They are not instructions to tick a box.

The form asks for:

Name, domicile or residence, telephone number, nationality, and residence-card number (it also has a line for an alien-registration number).
Date of original entry into Japan, visa status, and permitted period of stay.
Whether you left Japan at any time during 2025. If the answer is yes, the period of absence and the purpose of the absence.
The period in 2025 of each type: non-resident, non-permanent resident, and permanent resident in the income-tax sense used on the form.
If there is a non-permanent period, whether you had foreign-source income in that period. If yes, the amount, the amount paid in Japan, and the amount remitted to Japan.

The instructions say the periods in which you had a domicile or a residence in Japan within the preceding ten years can be checked from entry and exit stamps in a passport you still have for that period. They say you may attach a copy of the passport in place of writing those periods.

The forms index does not name Article 127, and the 2025 form has no sentence about Article 127. The statute does. Article 120, paragraph 7, requires a resident who had a non-permanent-resident period to attach a document of the matters in Ordinance for Enforcement of the Income Tax Act Article 47-4. Article 127, paragraph 4, applies Article 120, paragraphs 3 to 7, to the departure return. Article 47-4, paragraph 2, of that ordinance applies those matters to that attachment. If you had a non-permanent-resident period in the year, the departure return carries that attachment. The index’s sentence is only the general one: a resident who had a non-permanent-resident period and who files a final return.

How the pieces fit when you leave

A person reading this because they are leaving can use the official materials in this order. The order is a reading list. It is not a conclusion about status.

Read the three definitions in section 1-3 and Article 2, including the guide’s temporary-absence note and, if the facts are a transfer of one year or more to an overseas post, the general presumption in No.1923.
If the year will contain more than one category, read Article 8 and the scope table above. The non-resident portion of the year is limited to domestic-source income. No.12006 is the English list.
If a final return is filed for a year that includes a non-permanent period, open the confirmation form for that year and read item 19 on the forms index.
For the tax-agent notification and the quasi-final return, use the leaving-Japan article. Status and the filing path are separate questions. Article 8 answers the first. No.12004 and section 3-10 answer the second.
If a pension lump-sum is paid after you are a non-resident, the 20.42% withholding and the optional Article 171 return are in the lump-sum article.

Official sources

The Primary sources list below is the set this page relies on. The category tests are Article 2 and section 1-3 of the 2025 guide. The year split is Article 8.