Part-time work (arubaito) is paid by the hour and floored by your prefecture's minimum wage — never by a national one. The FY2025 revision was the largest on record and pushed all 47 prefectures above ¥1,000 for the first time, but the new rates took effect on dates ranging from 1 October 2025 to 31 March 2026. For students and dependents the binding constraint is not the wage but the 28-hour weekly cap, counted across every job at once.
Key facts
- Highest floor
- Tokyo ¥1,226
- Lowest floor
- ¥1,023 (Kochi, Miyazaki, Okinawa)
- National weighted average
- ¥1,121, up ¥66 — a record rise
- Night premium
- +25% for hours after 22:00
- Student/dependent cap
- 28 h/week, all jobs combined
- Next revision
- October 2026
The legal floor, prefecture by prefecture
Japan sets its minimum wage per prefecture, not nationally. This is the lowest an employer may legally pay you for an hour of work — whatever the job, whatever your visa.
| City | FY2024 | FY2025 | Rise | In force from | Month at the 28-hour cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tokyo 東京 | ¥1,163 | ¥1,226 | +63 | 2025-10-03 | ¥148,000 |
| Yokohama 神奈川 | ¥1,162 | ¥1,225 | +63 | 2025-10-04 | ¥148,000 |
| Osaka 大阪 | ¥1,114 | ¥1,177 | +63 | 2025-10-16 | ¥142,000 |
| Saitama 埼玉 | ¥1,078 | ¥1,141 | +63 | 2025-11-01 | ¥138,000 |
| Nagoya 愛知 | ¥1,077 | ¥1,140 | +63 | 2025-10-18 | ¥138,000 |
| Chiba 千葉 | ¥1,076 | ¥1,140 | +64 | 2025-10-03 | ¥138,000 |
| Kyoto 京都 | ¥1,058 | ¥1,122 | +64 | 2025-11-21 | ¥136,000 |
| Kobe 兵庫 | ¥1,052 | ¥1,116 | +64 | 2025-10-04 | ¥135,000 |
| Sapporo 北海道 | ¥1,010 | ¥1,075 | +65 | 2025-10-04 | ¥130,000 |
| Fukuoka 福岡 | ¥992 | ¥1,057 | +65 | 2025-11-16 | ¥128,000 |
Monthly figures are the floor rate x 121 hours, before tax and insurance. They are the legal minimum for those hours, not a typical offer.
Highlighted dates are prefectures where the new rate did not take effect until December or later — in Akita, not until 31 March 2026. Until that date the old, lower rate was still the legal floor, and an employer paying it was not breaking the law.
The national weighted average rose from ¥1,055 to ¥1,121, the largest increase on record, and every one of the 47 prefectures is now above 1,000 yen for the first time. The next revision takes effect October 2026.
Official rates · FY2025 (令和7年度) · 厚生労働省 ↗
What the hour actually pays
The floor is set by law. What the market pays sits a little above it, and varies far more by what you can do than by where you stand:
| Job type | Urban hourly (typical) |
|---|---|
| Convenience store | ¥1,150–1,300 |
| Restaurant / café floor | ¥1,150–1,400 |
| Izakaya (evening–night) | ¥1,250–1,500 |
| Hotel housekeeping | ¥1,150–1,300 |
| Warehouse / sorting | ¥1,200–1,500 |
| Tourist retail / front desk (multilingual) | ¥1,300–1,600 |
| Language tutoring | ¥1,500–3,000 |
Two multipliers matter more than the base rate: the legal +25% after 22:00, and your languages. A bilingual student behind a hotel desk out-earns a monolingual one washing dishes by ¥300 or more an hour at the same visa cost.
The year every prefecture crossed ¥1,000 — on fourteen different dates
The FY2025 revision was the largest on record. The national weighted average rose ¥66 to ¥1,121, and for the first time since the system began, all 47 prefectures are above ¥1,000. The lowest floors in the country — Kochi, Miyazaki and Okinawa — are ¥1,023.
The raise was also deliberately uneven, and in your favour if you work outside the big cities. Kumamoto went up ¥82, Oita ¥81, Akita ¥80. Tokyo, Kanagawa and Saitama went up ¥63. The gap between the highest and lowest floor is narrowing, not widening.
Then comes the part almost nothing written in English mentions. Normally every prefecture revises on or around 1 October. This time, because the increases were so large, prefectural councils staggered the dates to spread the cost on small employers. Tochigi switched on 1 October 2025 and Tokyo on 3 October — but fourteen prefectures did not switch until 1 December or later, six waited until 2026, and Akita’s new rate only took effect on 31 March 2026, nearly six months behind Tokyo.
This has a practical consequence you can act on. If you worked in Gunma in January 2026 and were paid ¥985 an hour, your employer was not underpaying you: Gunma’s new ¥1,063 rate did not begin until 1 March. But if you were paid ¥985 in April, they were. Check the date, not the news. Your floor is your prefecture’s rate on the day the hours were worked, and both the current rate and its effective date are in the table above.
The 28-hour rule is the real employer
On a student or dependent status, part-time work runs on the shikakugai katsudō permission and is capped at 28 hours a week across all jobs combined. Three mechanics people miss: the count includes every workplace at once; the paper trail of payroll and tax records reaches immigration at renewal; and long-vacation periods raise the student cap to 8 hours a day only within the school’s official calendar.
The cap, not the wage, is what sets your ceiling. Twenty-eight hours a week is about 121 hours a month — so at the Tokyo floor the cap earns roughly ¥148,000 gross, and at the lowest prefecture rates roughly ¥124,000. The column that actually decides is what is left after rent: Tokyo’s ¥170-an-hour edge over Fukuoka is worth about ¥20,000 a month at the cap, while the rent gap runs ¥30,000–50,000 the other way. That is why students in Kyoto, Fukuoka or Sapporo often bank more than students in Tokyo despite the lower wage.
Checking your own payslip
Three lines are worth verifying every month, and all three are checkable against the table above.
The base rate. Divide the base pay by the hours worked. If the result is below your prefecture’s rate for that month, you have a claim.
The night hours. Any hour between 22:00 and 05:00 must be paid at 1.25×. Convenience-store and izakaya shifts are where this most often goes missing.
The deductions. Charges for a uniform, training, or “register shortages” that drag your effective rate below the floor are violations, not customs. The labour standards office (労働基準監督署) takes these reports, several offer multilingual support, and your visa status does not weaken the claim.
Reading a baito offer like a contract
The habits from the employment-contract guide scale down to hourly work: get the rate, the shift pattern and the night and overtime treatment in writing before the first shift; check the first payslip against the hours you actually worked; and treat any employer paying cash without records as someone who has priced in your inability to complain.
Every floor in the table revises again in October 2026, and if FY2025 is any guide, not all of them on the same day.
Japanese you will use on this page (tap ▶)
| いらっしゃいませ。 Irasshaimase. Welcome (to the store). | |
| 袋はご利用ですか。 Fukuro wa goriyō desu ka. Would you like a bag? | |
| ポイントカードはお持ちですか。 Pointo kādo wa omochi desu ka. Do you have a point card? | |
| 年齢確認のボタンをお願いします。 Nenrei kakunin no botan o onegai shimasu. Please press the age-confirmation button. | |
| お支払いはいかがなさいますか。 Oshiharai wa ikaga nasaimasu ka. How would you like to pay? | |
| 六百円になります。 Roppyaku-en ni narimasu. That will be 600 yen. | |
| 八千円お預かりします。 Hassen-en oazukari shimasu. Out of 8,000 yen. |
Audio synthesized with VOICEVOX:Meimei Himari at standard pace for shadowing; real conversations run faster and carry accents.
Common mistakes & warnings
- The 28-hour cap is a visa matter, not a workplace rule — immigration counts hours across every job you hold, and violations surface at renewal through tax and payroll records. Exceeding it risks non-renewal for you and trouble for your school or sponsor.
- Your floor is your prefecture's rate on the date you worked, not the rate announced in the news. In FY2025 fourteen prefectures did not switch until December or later, so an employer paying the old rate in November was often still within the law.
- Cash-in-hand jobs with no payslip leave you unable to prove income or hours — that hurts you at visa renewal and makes wage theft unprovable. Always get payslips.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum wage for part-time work in Japan?
It depends on the prefecture, not the country. For FY2025 the range is ¥1,023 in Kochi, Miyazaki and Okinawa up to ¥1,226 in Tokyo, with a national weighted average of ¥1,121. This was the first year in which every one of the 47 prefectures was above ¥1,000.
When did the new minimum wage take effect?
Not on one date. Tochigi switched on 1 October 2025 and Tokyo on 3 October, but fourteen prefectures did not switch until 1 December or later, six waited until 2026, and Akita's new rate only took effect on 31 March 2026. Until your prefecture's date, the old lower rate was the legal floor.
How much can I earn on a student visa in Japan?
At the 28-hour cap you work about 121 hours a month. At the Tokyo floor that is roughly ¥148,000 gross before tax; at the lowest prefecture rates, roughly ¥124,000. Most baito pay a little above the floor, and hours after 22:00 carry a legal 25% premium.
Which part-time jobs pay best?
Anything using your languages — tutoring, tourist-facing retail, hotel front desk — tops the table at ¥1,300–3,000. Izakaya and late-night convenience shifts beat daytime equivalents through the night premium. Housekeeping and kitchen work hire easiest but sit nearest the floor.
Do students get any exception to the 28 hours?
During officially designated long school vacations the cap rises to 8 hours a day, roughly 40 a week. The school's calendar defines the vacation — confirm the dates in writing before adding shifts.
Will taxes be taken from part-time pay?
Yes. Income tax is withheld from payslips, and a resident who earned above the threshold owes resident tax the following June. Keep your gensen-chōshūhyō withholding slip; you need it for renewals and year-end filing.
Official sources
This page provides general information only and is not legal advice. Immigration rules change; always confirm details with the official sources listed above before making decisions.