If you are aiming for a subsidy, the form of the first contract decides it

In short: Under the Regular Employment Conversion Course of the Career Up Subsidy (キャリアアップ助成金), the amount changes according to whether you converted a fixed-term contract worker, or an indefinite-term contract worker, into a regular employee. Which of the two you choose at the moment you take a part-timer on decides the amount a year later. You cannot change it after the fact.

Articles about subsidies usually start from "how much you can get," but what actually fixes the amount is the contract at the entrance. And that entrance decision is made long before conversion to regular employment is on anyone's mind — it is already settled when you first take the person on as a part-timer. This article deals only with how to choose the form of the contract, not with the subsidy scheme itself. For the scheme as a whole, see Support with subsidy applications.

Why does the amount change between fixed-term and indefinite-term?

Because the scheme is designed so that the closer to a regular employee you start from, the smaller the support.

Moving someone from a fixed-term contract (a contract with a defined period) to regular employment is assessed as a larger improvement in the worker's position than moving them from an indefinite-term contract (a contract with no defined period) to regular employment. Hence the difference in amount.

Status before conversion	Small and medium-sized enterprise	Large enterprise
From a fixed-term contract worker	400,000 yen (per payment period)	300,000 yen (per payment period)
From an indefinite-term contract worker	200,000 yen (per payment period)	150,000 yen (per payment period)

(Career Up Subsidy payment guidelines 1005. Dated April 8, 2026 / 令和8年4月8日付け. Amounts are revised; see the last question below and the sources section.)

"Per payment period" is the next branch. The payment periods become two only where the person concerned falls within the priority support target persons (重点支援対象者). If they do not, it ends after one period.

	Small and medium-sized enterprise	Large enterprise
Priority support target person, from fixed-term	800,000 yen (400,000 yen × 2 periods)	600,000 yen (300,000 yen × 2 periods)
Priority support target person, from indefinite-term	400,000 yen (200,000 yen × 2 periods)	300,000 yen (150,000 yen × 2 periods)
Otherwise, from fixed-term	400,000 yen (1 period)	300,000 yen (1 period)
Otherwise, from indefinite-term	200,000 yen (1 period)	150,000 yen (1 period)

For converting the very same one person, the gap runs between 800,000 yen and 200,000 yen. A factor of four.

Priority support target persons include fixed-term employed workers three or more years from being taken on, those less than three years from being taken on whose period of regular employment over the past five years totals one year or less and who have not been in regular employment in the past year, dispatched workers, mothers in single-mother households and others (payment guidelines 0235).

This is the crux in practice. Have someone work on a fixed-term contract for three years or more and then convert them, and you reach the maximum. Switch them to an indefinite-term contract along the way out of a wish to "give them some stability," and the later conversion becomes a conversion from indefinite term, and the amount drops. A well-meant conversion to indefinite term reduces the subsidy.

Under the indefinite-term conversion rule (Article 18 of the Labor Contracts Act, 労働契約法, Act No. 128 of 2007), once the total exceeds five years the contract becomes indefinite on the worker's own application. Do you go all the way to regular employment without waiting five years, or do you pass through indefinite-term conversion? You need to have this outlook from the start.

Note also that from fiscal year 2026 (令和8年度) an addition for publication on Shokuba-Lab (しょくばらぼ) and similar sites was newly created (200,000 yen for small and medium-sized enterprises). Together with the addition for newly setting out a regular-employee conversion system or a diverse regular-employee system, it can be received only once each per covered place of business.

The cap on payment applications is 20 people per place of business per fiscal year (excluding a second application for the same person).

By when must the plan be submitted?

By the day before the day the conversion or other measure is carried out. If you have not submitted it, that alone means no payment.

Payment guidelines 0401 provide that, except where there is a natural disaster or other unavoidable reason, the Career Up Plan must be submitted to the Director of the competent Prefectural Labour Bureau "by the day before the course implementation date (or, where that day falls on a holiday of the administrative agency, by the day after that holiday of the administrative agency)."

	Content
Submission deadline	By the day before the course implementation date (the conversion date). If the preceding day is a Saturday, Sunday, public holiday or a year-end/new-year holiday, by the day after the holiday
Plan period	Three years or more and five years or less (payment guidelines 0302-he)
Where to submit	The Director of the competent Prefectural Labour Bureau. Submission via Hello Work is possible only where the Labour Bureau has delegated it

"By the day before" is not a deadline to be shaved. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's pamphlet also says to "submit with time to spare, for example one month before the course implementation date." If there is a defect in the plan, it is sent back, and the conversion date arrives in the meantime.

Because the plan period has to be three years or more, you can use it in the sense of "we are converting next month, so we submit the plan this month," but the plan itself has to be written out three years ahead. That holds even if there is only one person's conversion in prospect.

What happens if you employ family members?

They are not eligible. Payment guidelines 1003-ni provide, as a requirement for the target worker, that the person must be "a person other than a relative within the third degree of kinship of the business owner or a director of the covered place of business that carried out the conversion or direct employment (meaning blood relatives within the third degree among those provided for in Article 725, item 1 of the Civil Code, the spouse provided for in item 2 of the same Article, and relatives by affinity provided for in item 3 of the same Article)."

Even the period over which this is judged is fixed. Q-8 of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's Q&A (dated July 29, 2026 / 令和8年7月29日) states, for the Regular Employment Conversion Course, that it runs "from the day six months before the day preceding the date of conversion or direct employment, counted back from that day, up to the time of the payment application." Even if the relationship changes immediately before the conversion, they look back six months.

On top of that, co-residing relatives are as a rule not employment insurance insured persons (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, "雇用保険に関する業務取扱要領" 20351(1)-ri). Employment-related subsidies presuppose that the applicant is the business owner of a covered place of business for employment insurance, and the target worker is an insured person too. You fall outside twice over, right at the entrance.

If you are considering bringing family members into the company, please read Three places people stumble when putting family on the payroll first.

What should you decide at the entrance?

At the moment you take a part-timer on, decide these four things.

1. Fixed-term contract or indefinite-term contract — this is where the factor-of-four gap opens up
2. How many years you expect before conversion to regular employment — three years or more on a fixed-term contract reaches the priority support target persons
3. The relationship with the indefinite-term conversion rule (five years in total) — beyond five years, the contract becomes indefinite on the worker's own application
4. Whether the person is a relative within the third degree — if they are, there is no need to consider the subsidy at all

And you need to set out the regular-employee conversion system itself in your work rules or the like. There is an addition where you newly set out such a system and then convert, but without a system in the first place there is no basis for the conversion. The obligation to draw up work rules starts at 10 or more workers regularly employed, but the provision is needed even below 10 (How many employees make work rules mandatory, and what applies no matter how few).

The social insurance enrollment criteria for short-hours hiring are covered in What happens to social insurance when you hire for short hours. Below 20 hours a week you cannot enroll the person in employment insurance, and without employment insurance they are not eligible for the subsidy either. Designing working hours is part of the entrance decision too.

Frequently asked questions

Q. We have already made the contract indefinite-term. Can we put it back to fixed-term?
A. Returning an indefinite-term contract to a fixed-term contract amounts to a disadvantageous change of working conditions. Even with the person's consent, a shape that looks like it was reverted in order to obtain a subsidy is not desirable. If they are already on an indefinite term, taking it as a conversion from indefinite term is the straightforward course. The amount is lower, but it is safer than an application that does not meet the requirements.

Q. The conversion date is set for next week. Can we submit the plan now?
A. If it reaches the Director of the competent Prefectural Labour Bureau by the day before the conversion date (or, where that day is a holiday, by the day after the holiday), it is formally in time. But because a plan with defects will not be accepted, the schedule is tight in practice. Pushing the conversion date back is sometimes the safer option. Please talk to us, including about rearranging the schedule.

Q. Are the amounts in this article final as stated?
A. No. The amounts in this article are based on the payment guidelines and leaflet dated April 8, 2026 (令和8年4月8日付け). The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare states that "we revise the payment application forms each time the scheme is reviewed. The payment application forms and the amounts paid change according to the date on which the work under each course was carried out," and in fact two versions were issued in fiscal 2026 as well, an April 1 version and an April 8 version. When you apply, always check against the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's latest payment guidelines.

Q. Can we ask you to handle only the subsidy application?
A. A subsidy application requires the work rules, wage ledgers, attendance records and other documents to be consistent with one another. If we take on the application alone, cut off from day-to-day labor management, we may end up submitting without noticing inconsistencies in the documents. At Yotsuba we accept this work on the premise of a retainer agreement. For how we think about fees, see the fee schedule.

Sources for this article

• キャリアアップ助成金支給要領（令和8年4月8日付け） Career Up Subsidy payment guidelines dated April 8, 2026: 0235 (priority support target persons), 0302-he (plan period), 0401 (submission of the plan), 1003-ni (exclusion of relatives within the third degree), 1005 (amounts, cap on the number of people, additions)
• キャリアアップ助成金Q&A（令和8年7月29日） Career Up Subsidy Q&A dated July 29, 2026: Q-8 (the period over which relatives are judged)
• キャリアアップ助成金（正社員化コース）リーフレット 令和8年4月8日版 (leaflet, April 8, 2026 version)
• キャリアアップ助成金のご案内（令和8年度版）パンフレット (as of 令和8年4月8日現在)
• 雇用関係助成金に共通の支給要領（令和8年4月8日付け）0301 (being the business owner of a covered place of business for employment insurance)
• 民法 (Civil Code, Act No. 89 of 1896), Article 725 items 1, 2 and 3
• Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 「雇用保険に関する業務取扱要領（適用関係）」 20351(1)-ri (co-residing relatives)
• 労働契約法 (Labor Contracts Act, Act No. 128 of 2007), Article 18 (the indefinite-term conversion rule)
• The payment guidelines and the amounts paid are revised every fiscal year, and also part-way through a fiscal year. All amounts in this article are based on materials dated April 8, 2026 (令和8年4月8日), are highly likely not to apply to work carried out in fiscal 2027 (令和9年度) or later, and may be revised even within fiscal 2026 (令和8年度). When you apply, always check against the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's latest payment guidelines

This article does not go so far as to decide whom you should consult. Drawing up and submitting the Career Up Plan, framing the provisions for a regular-employee conversion system, checking the requirements for target workers, and the payment application are the work of a Shakai Hoken Roumushi (Certified Social Insurance and Labor Consultant). Grants for capital investment and the like go to 四葉行政書士事務所 (a separate business entity; you enter into a separate contract with each office), and the tax treatment of subsidy income goes to a tax accountant; in each case we will point you to them and you engage them directly. This office does not accept referral fees. The cost of consulting 四葉社会保険労務士事務所 is set out in the fee schedule, and the questions we are asked most often are collected on the FAQ page.

This article is general information. Judgments that fit your particular circumstances are made by a qualified professional after a meeting. Written by Joji Uramatsu (Shakai Hoken Roumushi (Certified Social Insurance and Labor Consultant), Gyoseishoshi (Certified Administrative Procedures Legal Specialist), Registered Real Estate Transaction Specialist).