Paid leave in Japan is a statutory entitlement, not a benefit your employer chooses to offer. The law also does something unusual: it makes your employer responsible for ensuring you actually use some of it. Knowing both halves changes how you ask.
What you are entitled to
After six months of continuous employment, having worked at least 80 per cent of scheduled days, you are granted 10 days of paid leave. It then increases with service:
- 6 months — 10 days
- 1 year 6 months — 11 days
- 2 years 6 months — 12 days
- 3 years 6 months — 14 days
- 4 years 6 months — 16 days
- 5 years 6 months — 18 days
- 6 years 6 months and beyond — 20 days
This is the legal floor. An employer may offer more, and many do, but none may offer less.
Part-time workers are included. Entitlement is granted proportionally to scheduled working days. Working three days a week does not mean no paid leave; it means a smaller number of days.
The five days your employer must make you take
Since April 2019, an employer who grants you 10 or more days must ensure you take at least five of them within the year. If you do not choose dates, the employer is required to designate them for you after consultation.
This is the part worth understanding properly: the obligation and the penalty sit with the employer. A workplace culture that discourages leave is not just unpleasant, it puts the company in breach. If you are being quietly dissuaded from taking days, pointing at this duty is a legitimate and unemotional thing to do.
You do not have to give a reason
The right to designate when you take leave is yours. You are not required to justify it, and "personal reasons" (私用) is a complete answer.
The one power your employer holds is the right of change (時季変更権) — to ask you to move leave to a different date if your absence would genuinely impede business operations. It permits rescheduling, not refusal, and it cannot be used routinely or to prevent you taking leave at all.
Expiry, and why unused days vanish
Paid leave expires two years after it is granted. Unused days from this year carry into next year and then disappear.
Your employer is not obliged to pay you for expired leave, and generally will not. The common exception is on resignation, where some employers buy back the remainder as a matter of policy rather than law — which is why using leave during your notice period, rather than hoping to be paid for it, is the reliable approach.
Hourly and half-day leave
Many workplaces allow half-days, and where a labour-management agreement provides for it, leave can be taken by the hour up to five days a year. Useful for a ward office appointment or a clinic visit that does not need a whole day. Hourly leave does not count towards the mandatory five days.
Sick leave is a separate thing
Japan has no statutory paid sick leave. In practice most people use annual paid leave when ill, which is one reason balances run down faster than expected.
For a longer illness there is injury and sickness allowance (傷病手当金) through employees' health insurance, payable for absences beyond three consecutive days at roughly two-thirds of pay. That is a health insurance benefit, not leave, and it is claimed separately.
When you change jobs
Paid leave does not transfer. Your service clock restarts, which means six months at the new employer before any entitlement at all. Worth building into the timing of a move, particularly if you have travel planned.
The phrases
- 有給休暇を取りたいです。 — Yūkyū kyūka o toritai desu. — I would like to take paid leave.
- 有給の残日数を教えてください。 — Yūkyū no zan-nissū o oshiete kudasai. — Please tell me my remaining leave balance.
- 私用のためです。 — Shiyō no tame desu. — It is for personal reasons.
- 半休は取れますか。 — Hankyū wa toremasu ka? — Can I take a half-day?
Where to confirm this
Guides are dated rather than undated: last reviewed 21 August 2026. This is an organisational aid, not legal or immigration advice — always confirm anything consequential with your ward office, the Immigration Services Agency, or a qualified professional.