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Useful information on social insurance, subsidies, and labor management.
Delivered in an easy-to-understand manner from the perspective of a labor consultant.
We've brought in freee HR. So what does a retained shakai hoken roumushi actually do?
Using freee HR for your own company's payroll and filings is different from engaging a qualified professional to handle the work. We explain electronic filing, professional scope and company approval responsibilities, alongside the HR Outsourcing Plan from 33,000 yen per month and initial setup from 88,000 yen, both including tax.
The year-end adjustment in freee — whose job is it?
freee HR has a year-end adjustment feature, and no licence is needed to run it for your own company. But the year-end adjustment is a tax procedure that settles over- and under-withheld income tax, and doing it for another party for a fee is work for a tax accountant. Even if a shakai hoken roumushi runs your payroll, the year-end adjustment is not included.
What a client company has to get right under the Freelance Act: terms, payment, and harassment response
When you commission work from a freelancer, "it is a commissioning contract, so labour law does not apply" is not the end of it. Disclosure of transaction terms applies to every order, the payment deadline to every order placed by a specified commissioning business, the seven prohibited acts to commissions of one month or more, and childcare and nursing-care consideration and 30 days' notice of termination to commissions of six months or more. Not every obligation applies to every client. From 1 January 2026, deducting bank transfer fees from the fee counts as a reduction in remuneration regardless of agreement.
Managing a workforce that moonlights: work rules, aggregating working hours, and health management
No provision of Japanese law says an employer must permit side jobs, but the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare guidelines say permitting them in principle is appropriate, and list four grounds on which an employer may prohibit or restrict them. Article 38, paragraph 1 of the Labour Standards Act aggregates working hours even across different employers, so a company that permits side jobs must design how it collects reports, who pays the premium wage, and how it protects health. The management model reduces that burden. As of 20 August 2026 the aggregation rule has not changed, and no bill to amend the Labour Standards Act has been submitted to the Diet.
Can a foreign employee's overseas family be added as health-insurance dependents?
Whether a foreign employee can add the family they left in their home country as health-insurance dependents turns on the "domestic residence requirement" added in April 2020 (Reiwa 2). In principle, only family members who have an address (a residence record) in Japan can be dependents. However, family members who fall under an "overseas special exception," such as a child studying abroad, may be added even while overseas. Family members overseas for the purpose of working are, in principle, outside the scope. It is the insurer, not the company, that certifies.
The line between outsourcing and employment is not settled by the contract
Even where there is a contract for services, if the reality is employment it is treated as employment. The judgment turns not on the title of the contract but on the facts: whether the person can refuse a request for work, whether they are under direction and supervision, whether they are constrained as to time and place. We set out the criteria from the Labor Standards Act Study Group report of December 19, 1985, and give the scope and limitation periods for retroactive claims in tables.
Hired a foreign worker? Notify Hello Work
Both when you hire a foreign worker and when one leaves, a notification to Hello Work is required (Act on Comprehensive Promotion of Labour Measures, Article 28, paragraph 1). You confirm the name, residence status and period of stay and then file. The form and deadline differ by employment insurance status, and failure to file carries a fine of up to 300,000 yen.
Hire one foreign employee — how many counters do you need?
Hiring one foreign employee sets at least three procedures moving at once — the residence-status application, labour and social insurance enrolment and notifications, and housing. Different licences are responsible for each, so each is a separate contract. We map the whole timeline, from offer to return home, on one page.
How far must working conditions be stated to foreign workers in their native language?
Stating working conditions is itself a duty under Article 15, paragraph 1 of the Labour Standards Act, but the article does not specify a language, so delivering a Japanese-only notice can satisfy the legal duty of statement. However, the guideline for the proper treatment of foreign workers (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Notification No. 276 of 2007) asks employers to endeavour to state the conditions in a way the worker can understand, using the native language or plain Japanese. The duty is in two tiers; the practical move is to use the foreign-language version of the model notice and to leave a record that it was delivered and understood.
What happens to the pension of an employee returning home?
A foreign employee returning home can, on certain conditions, claim the lump-sum withdrawal payment (Employees' Pension Insurance Act, Supplementary Provisions, Article 29). But the deadline is two years from departure, and receiving it deems the period never insured. For nationals of countries whose social security agreements totalise periods, claiming can mean losing more than you gain.
What changes for labour administration between technical intern training and the new system?
The biggest change for labour administration is that transfers at the worker's own initiative are recognised. In a system people can leave, the axis shifts from bringing people in to keeping them — treatment transparency, a working life-advisor arrangement, Japanese-language and skills development, and a wage curve. We work backwards from the structure of the application forms.
Group home night shifts and "night duty" (shukuchoku): how they differ for labour management
At a group home, whether a worker is on a "night shift" or "night duty (shukuchoku)" changes labour management completely. A night shift is working time spent doing ordinary care and monitoring during the late-night hours (10 p.m. to 5 a.m.), and requires a late-night premium (25% or more) plus a 36 Agreement and overtime premium if it is overtime. Night duty, by contrast, involves only light, intermittent work such as patrolling and answering the phone, and — with the permission of the director of the labour standards inspection office — is exempt from the rules on working hours, breaks and days off (Labor Standards Act, Article 41, item 3). But even if it is called "night duty," if the reality is care and monitoring, it is treated as a night shift. This article explains the difference with a practical eye on how to think about the actual work schedule.
Can working hours differ between busy and quiet months? Choosing between variable working hours and flexitime
A company whose busy and quiet seasons differ sharply can redistribute working hours over a month or a year. It is not, however, a way to make overtime pay disappear. Four schemes are available — the one-month, one-year and one-week variable working hour systems and flexitime — and the procedure and the ceilings differ for each. The one-month system can be introduced either by a labour-management agreement or by the rules of employment; the one-year system requires a labour-management agreement. Flexitime needs no filing when the settlement period is one month or less. The one-year system caps a day at 10 hours, a week at 52 hours, the year at 280 working days and consecutive working days at six, and the 44-hour special measure can no longer be used.
Does "one person, 60 client companies" work in labour too?
A tax accountant running 60 client companies with zero staff has become a talking point. But the first thing he did was not automation — it was drawing the line between what gets automated and what a human looks at. The same is possible in labour, but the line falls in a different place. Accounting data flows in on its own; in labour, a fact only comes into being once someone tells you about it.
Is a home-care helper's travel and standby time working time? How to pay wages and set up rules
A home-care helper's travel time counts as working time when the employer orders the travel for work and the free use of that time is not guaranteed to the worker. Standby time the worker is ordered to spend at the office or elsewhere is judged the same way. Time that counts as working time is subject to wages, and when converted to an hourly figure it must not fall below the minimum wage (Minimum Wage Act, Article 4). Whether a specific block of time counts as working time is ultimately decided by the Labour Standards Inspection Office or the courts.
Childcare short-time work benefit — when, how much, and who receives it
The childcare short-time work benefit (ikuji jitan shugyo kyufu), created on April 1, 2025 under the Employment Insurance Act (Article 61-12), pays up to 10% of the monthly wage actually paid to an insured worker who shortens their prescribed working hours to raise a child under age 2. The recipient is the worker, not the company, but the employer usually files the application with Hello Work every two months. This article organizes the requirements, how the 10% is calculated, the order of the application, and how social insurance premiums change when hours are shortened.
What changed in the 2025 revision of the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act? Work rules, individual notification, and intention confirmation that companies must put in place
The Child Care and Family Care Leave Act was amended by Act No. 42 of 2024 (promulgated May 31, 2024) and came into force in two stages on April 1, 2025 and October 1, 2025. What companies must do goes beyond revising work rules: at each stage (pregnancy/childbirth notice, before a child turns 3, when caregiving arises, and around age 40), they must operate individual notification, intention confirmation, intention hearing, consideration of the intentions heard, information provision, and employment environment development. In particular, from October 2025, companies must select and introduce two or more of five flexible work measures for employees raising children aged 3 to pre-elementary-school.
The Employment for Skill Development system — what to do now
The system takes effect in April 2027, but the procedures have already begun. Pre-enforcement applications for supervising support organisation licences are being accepted now, and pre-enforcement applications for training-employment plan certification open on September 1, 2026. The technical intern training side has deadlines too. We lay out the calendar from primary sources.
What goes into the "treatment" sections of a training-employment plan?
The certification application includes four forms that explain treatment in writing — the contract and conditions document, the statement of important matters, and two statements of remuneration, accommodation and amounts collected. A form that asks about accommodation and collections means the housing charge you collect is subject to review — and it connects straight to in-kind compensation in social insurance.
How do you revise the work rules before receiving workers?
Receiving foreign workers does not itself change the obligation to have work rules. What changes is the distance between the rules and reality. Work rules function only when made known to workers, and posting them solely in a language the person cannot read raises the question of whether that is sufficient. With transfers as a premise, the provisions on lent property, housing and costs become the new battleground.
Shall we start by reviewing how you work?
四葉社会保険労務士事務所 (Kohinata, Bunkyo-ku; a 5-minute walk from Myogadani Station on the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line) helps you, starting with a review of your current labour practices.
LINE connects you directly to our representative, Joji Uramatsu. Messages are accepted 24/7 and answered in order.
5 min walk from Myogadani Sta. (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line)｜Tue & Wed 10:00–19:00 / Mon, Thu–Sun 18:00–19:00