Additional leave compliance rules and complexities

Annual leave

Employers must pay overtime for any hours an employee works in excess of 40 per week. Employees must not work more than 4 hours of overtime a day, 45 hours a month, or 360 hours a year. The amount of annual leave an employee gets each year depends on their length of service. If they’ve been in the role for 6 months, they get 10 days’ paid leave each year. This extends to 11 days’ paid leave after they’ve been in the role for 18 months. The amount of paid leave they can take in a year then rises gradually with every subsequent year they spend in the role, capping at 20 days’ paid annual leave once they’ve been in the role for 6.5 years. Japanese employees can accumulate up to two years of unused annual leave.

Japanese employers also include up to 3 months of unpaid family care leave, work-related injury leave, and bereavement leave. Employees who are in charge of funeral arrangements are allowed to take extra bereavement leave.

Sick leave

Japan has no mandatory sick leave. Employees usually draw from their paid annual leave if they need to take time off to recover from an illness or injury.

Maternity and paternity leave

Maternity leave stands at 14 weeks. Mothers can take up to 6 weeks before the birth, and 8 weeks after the birth. Fathers can take up to 12 months’ paid leave, so long as they’ve been with the same employer for at least a year.