Japan New Hire Onboarding Checklist 入社手続きチェックリスト

The offer letter (内定通知書) creates the conditional employment contract once accepted by the candidate. Send promptly after verbal acceptance to lock in the hire and start the joining clock.

The October 1 naitei ceremony is the conventional formal welcome for new graduates joining the following April. Send the invitation in early September with date, venue, schedule, dress code, and RSVP.

Bundle these four pre-joining documents together about one to two months before the start date. Sending them piecemeal is the most common Japan-onboarding mistake. The cover letter (送付状) stitches the bundle into one legible package.

Required by Article 43 of the Industrial Safety and Health Act Enforcement Order (労働安全衛生規則第43条) unless the worker provides a health-check certificate dated within the prior three months. Either direct the new hire to a partner clinic that bills you directly, or reimburse against a receipt up to a stated cap.

Confirm the payroll cutoff and pay day, the gross monthly base, allowances, deductions, and the resident-tax election (special vs. ordinary collection). Run a dry-run payroll calculation before the first real one so the new hire's first payslip is correct.

Hardware lead times can stretch four to eight weeks for some configurations; security badges require a couple of business days at minimum. Get the order in well before the start date so the new hire's Day 1 desk is populated rather than waiting on parts.

Provision accounts ahead of Day 1 but keep them deactivated until the start date so the new hire can log in on the first morning without IT-ticket back-and-forth. Send credentials via a separate channel (e.g., personal SMS) on Day 1 itself.

Brief the team that someone new is joining, pick a buddy who is not the manager (so the new hire has two listening ears), and plan a first-day lunch or welcome moment. The single highest-leverage Day 1 design decision is who eats lunch with the new hire.

The pension book (年金手帳) was abolished in April 2022. The Basic Pension Number is now obtained from the Basic Pension Number Notification (基礎年金番号通知書), from a prior pay slip, from the Japan Pension Service online account (ねんきんネット), or via the My Number Card linkage. Required for the social insurance enrollment filing in Phase 4.

Issued by the previous employer at separation. Contains the Employment Insurance Number (雇用保険番号) that follows the worker for life. If lost, Hello Work can reissue or look it up by previous employer details, so missing-card is not a blocker.

Issued by the previous employer covering year-to-date earnings and withholding. Required for the year-end tax adjustment (年末調整) at the new employer when the hire is mid-year. New graduates and first-time employees do not have one.

Mandatory for tax withholding and social-insurance filings. The new hire presents either a My Number Card (マイナンバーカード, contains both number and photo ID) or a Notification Card (通知カード) plus a separate photo ID. Also collect dependents' My Numbers if claiming dependent deductions. APPI safeguards require strict storage controls; many SMBs store only the last four digits in their HRIS and keep the full number in a locked file.

Bank name, branch (支店), account type (普通 / 当座), account number, and accountholder name in katakana. Collect a passbook copy or cash card copy to verify spelling. Note that Japanese payroll banks usually require the accountholder name to match the employee's registered katakana name exactly, including dots and long-vowel marks. We do not yet ship a generator for this form; the field requirements are uniform enough across employers that a one-page bilingual generator would be useful. Flag added to the build queue.

The National Tax Agency form that sets the employee's income-tax withholding rate. The new hire must submit one even if they have no dependents; without it, withholding defaults to the highest bracket. Refresh annually in November or December for the new tax year. The official PDF can be downloaded from the NTA; we do not yet have a fill-in generator, which is on the build queue.

Filed alongside the health-insurance enrollment to register dependents (spouse, children, elderly parents). Each dependent requires proof of relationship and income evidence showing income under the dependent threshold (¥1.3M / year). Issued by the relevant health insurance association (健康保険組合) or the Japan Health Insurance Association (協会けんぽ).

Registers a dependent spouse as a Category 3 insured person under the National Pension. Filed with the same packet as the health-insurance dependents notification. Without it, the spouse remains a Category 1 insured person and owes their own monthly national-pension contribution.

Commute allowance is contractual not statutory, but virtually every Japanese employer pays it. Collect the route (home station, transfer points, work station), the train operator, the monthly pass cost, and any evidence (route screenshot, pass receipt). The non-taxable cap is ¥150,000 / month for public transport. We do not yet ship a generator for this declaration; it is a strong candidate for a future template.

Name, relationship, address, and phone number of at least one emergency contact. Often paired with the personal information consent so the employee is on notice that the contact will only be reached in genuine emergencies. Also a generator candidate.

Final-education certificate, requested from the school by the new hire. Universities typically issue these in Japanese only; for foreign degrees an English original plus a Japanese translation is the norm. Verifies the educational claim on the resume.

Photocopies of any licenses or certifications the role requires or that trigger allowances: 弁護士 / 公認会計士 / 税理士 / 社会保険労務士 / TOEIC scores / IT vendor certifications / driving license for company-car roles. Verifies the qualification claim and supports a qualification allowance (資格手当) if applicable.

Result of the pre-employment health check arranged in Phase 1. Must cover the eleven statutory items: medical history, work history, subjective and objective symptoms, height and weight, vision and hearing, chest X-ray, blood pressure, anemia screening, liver function, blood lipids, blood sugar, urinalysis, electrocardiogram. Keep the result on file as occupational-health evidence.

A signed undertaking from a relative or close associate to compensate the employer for losses caused by the employee's intentional or grossly negligent acts, subject to the 2020 Civil Code cap. Less common at modern companies than it used to be, but still standard at traditional employers and for trust-sensitive roles.

A short undertaking covering compliance with work rules, confidentiality, conflict of interest, and good-faith conduct. The Japanese counterpart of a US offer-acceptance letter for the cultural and ethical dimension of employment.

APPI (Act on Protection of Personal Information / 個人情報保護法) requires explicit notice of the purposes for which personal data is used. Covers basic employment uses by default and broader uses (group sharing, marketing, cross-border transfer) by explicit opt-in. Use the generator to toggle on or off the uses that apply.

A standalone confidentiality undertaking that names specific categories of confidential information and survives termination. Many companies fold equivalent terms into the employment contract; a separate NDA is best practice when the role accesses trade secrets, customer data, or unpublished M&A information.

Copy both sides of the 在留カード. Verify the status of residence allows the specific work (e.g., Engineer / Specialist in Humanities / International Services) and note the expiry date for renewal tracking. Required for the foreign-worker employment notification filed in Phase 4.

Required by Labor Standards Act Article 15. Must state hire date, work location, scope of duties (and scope-of-change wording per the April 2024 amendment), working hours, holidays and leave, wage components and pay day, retirement and termination terms. Electronic delivery permitted with the employee's consent since 2019. In practice, most employers fold this into the employment contract so a separate notice is rarely issued.

The signed bilateral contract. Pick the form that matches the engagement: permanent (正社員), fixed-term (契約社員), part-time (アルバイト), or senior re-employment (嘱託). All four templates pre-include the post-April-2024 scope-of-change wording, the eleven statutory working-condition items, and optional clauses (telework, harassment, side work).

Required by Labor Standards Act Article 89 for employers with ten or more regular employees. The 就業規則 covers working hours, holidays, leave, wage rules (or refers to a separate wage regulation), termination, discipline, safety, and welfare. Must be made known to all employees; common practice is to require signature of acknowledgement on Day 1. Employers with under ten employees are not legally required to have one but benefit operationally from a written version.

Either part of the work rules or maintained as a separate document. Sets the wage components (base, allowances, overtime calculation formulas), pay schedule, deductions, and revision triggers. The new hire should know how their pay is built and recomputed.

Required to be in the work rules if the employer pays retirement allowance. Covers eligibility, accrual formula, vesting, payment timing, and conditions for forfeiture. SMBs that do not offer retirement allowance can skip this document but should make the absence explicit in the contract.

Information security policy, IT usage policy, harassment prevention policy, anti-bribery policy, social-media policy, expense policy. These are usually grouped and acknowledged together. Required scope grows with company size; for SMBs the harassment-prevention policy is the legally-required minimum since June 2022 amendments to the harassment-prevention statutes.

Required to establish trade-secret protection under the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (不正競争防止法). Defines which information is treated as a trade secret, the access controls applied, and the consequences of misuse. Pair with the NDA in Phase 2.

Article 21 of APPI requires either prior public announcement of purposes or individual notice. The personal information consent form (Phase 2) covers the active-consent half; this notice is the passive-disclosure half. Many companies post it on the company website and reference it in the consent form.

Manager meets the new hire at the door. Walk the office, introduce immediate team members by name and role. For remote hires, a recorded office walkthrough plus a 30-minute introduction call with each team member over the first week.

Laptop, monitor, peripherals, security badge, building keys, parking pass if relevant. Have the new hire sign an equipment receipt covering the asset list and return obligation at separation.

Email, Slack, calendar, the payroll-self-service portal, the ATS, the HRIS, and any role-specific systems. Walk through setting up 2FA on each. Confirm the new hire can actually log in before they leave for the day.

Schedule one focused session (typically 60-90 minutes) for the work rules (就業規則), wage rules (賃金規程), harassment prevention, security, and IT-use policies. Collect signed acknowledgement at the end so the file is complete on Day 1.

Walk through a sample pay slip line by line: gross base, allowances, gross before deductions, social insurance employee share, employment insurance employee share, income tax withholding, resident tax (after year one), net pay. The Japan payroll calculator is a useful prop.

Paid leave (年次有給休暇) accrues at the six-month anniversary at 10 statutory days, increasing each year. Special leave categories (special leave for marriage, bereavement, maternity, paternity, childcare, nursing care, menstrual leave) are governed by the work rules. Make sure the new hire knows the request and approval process before they need to use one.

State the probation length (3 or 6 months typically), the review date, what the evaluation looks at, and what the outcomes are (permanent confirmation, extension, non-confirmation). Removes ambiguity that often drives early-tenure anxiety.

Buddy is not the manager. Buddy is someone at a similar level who can answer "how does this team actually work" questions without the new hire worrying about evaluation. First-day lunch is the single highest-leverage design choice for Day 1 sentiment.

Manager and new hire sit down. Two-way conversation on what is going well, what is missing, what is confusing. Capture written notes; this is where evidence for the probation decision starts to form.

Same format as 30-day, with explicit calibration against the role expectations. If concerns are surfacing, name them clearly so the new hire has 30 days to address them before the formal review.

Formal review against documented criteria. Manager assesses skills, conduct, fit, and reliability. Outcome is one of: confirm permanent employment, extend probation (only if work rules allow), or document a non-confirmation decision. The first is the default; the latter two carry legal weight.

The standard outcome. Confirms permanent status, may include a salary adjustment, may include a title change, may unlock additional benefits (retirement allowance accrual, etc.). Use the generator with optional clauses for the relevant additions.

Permitted only if the work rules explicitly allow it and the employer can show a reasonable basis. Document the reason and the new review date; case law treats indefinite or repeated extensions as a constructive non-confirmation requiring the same dismissal safeguards.

A decision not to confirm is treated as a dismissal under Japanese case law. Requires the same safeguards: objective and reasonable cause, plus the 30-day advance notice (or pay-in-lieu) required by Labor Standards Act Article 20. Best done with input from a 社会保険労務士 or labor counsel.

If the work rules link benefits to permanent status (retirement allowance accrual start, stock-option grant, training budget, paid leave bump), trigger them now. Update the new hire's file and confirm enrollment.