Section in charge: Shinjuku Pension Office, or Pension Section, Medical Insurance and Pension Division, Shinjuku City Office

●National Pension Plan
This is a pension plan managed by the national government to support the lives of the aged, disabled, and bereaved. All registered residents of Japan between 20 and 59 years of age is obliged by law to enroll in National Pension.

●Pension Plan Holders
Registered residents of Japan who are between 20 and 59 years of age

●National Pension Enrollment Procedure
If you are a registered resident under 20 years of age, you do not need to file an enrollment notification. The Japan Pension Service will send you information about enrolling in the National Pension plan within two weeks after your twentieth birthday. The enrollment date for the National Pension is the day before your twentieth birthday.
If you become a registered resident after reaching 20 years of age, you will have to complete enrollment procedures at the service counter of the municipal office administering your address. Your enrollment date is the date you become a registered resident, etc. The Japan Pension Service will send you information about enrolling in the National Pension plan after you complete enrollment procedures.

●How to Pay Your National Pension Premiums
Within two weeks after you reach 20 years of age, or after completing enrollment procedures, you will be sent invoices that you can use to pay your premiums. Please use these invoices to pay your premiums at a convenience store, etc. You can also choose to pay your premiums by account debit, credit card, or cashless payment using apps on your smartphone.

●If You’re Having Difficulty Paying Your National Pension Premiums
If you are having difficulty paying your premiums due to a low income or other reason, you can apply for a premium exemption/payment postponement or a student payment exception program. If your application is approved after screening your income from the previous year and other items, part or all of your premiums can be exempted or postponed.

●If You Work for a Japanese Company
If you work in a Japanese company, you are obliged to enroll in employees’ pension insurance. The employer completes the enrollment procedures, so please submit your pension notebook or basic pension number notification issued to you after enrolling in the National Pension to your employer.

●Basic Pension for the Elderly
You are entitled to receive this pension from the age of 65 if the combination of the period you paid the premium for the National Pension Plan and the period you were exempted from paying it totals ten years or more.

●Basic Pension for the Disabled
You are entitled to receive the basic pension for the disabled if you become disabled through illness or injury and undergo your first examination before your twentieth birthday, or while you are enrolled in the National Pension Plan. Complete payment of pension premiums is a requirement.

●Basic Pension for the Bereaved
If a National Pension Plan member passes away, the wife and child, husband and child or child of the deceased is entitled to receive the basic pension for the bereaved if the member had been paying the premium.

●If You Leave Japan
If you are not living in Japan when you become entitled to receive the pension, it will be sent to you.

●Lump Sum Withdrawal Payment System
To receive a Basic Elderly Pension, Basic Disability Pension or Basic Bereaved Family Pension, you must pay pension premiums for a designated period. There is a Lump-Sum Withdrawal Benefit program for short-term foreign residents who return to their home country without fulfilling the recipient eligibility period. A lump-sum benefit is paid upon request within two years of leaving Japan if you have paid pension premiums for more than six months.

●Social Security Agreement
Japan has closed the Social Security Agreement with several countries to prevent people from joining several pension systems simultaneously and to help them receive the pension they have paid for.
As of June 2022, Japan has signed agreements with Germany, Britain, South Korea, the United States, Belgium, France, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Switzerland, Hungary, India, Luxembourg, Philippines, Slovakia, China, Finland, and Sweden.
Please see the website of the Japan Pension Service for other details of the present situation.
URL： www.nenkin.go.jp/

April 1, 2023