How to Claim Overseas Dependents on Your Japanese Tax Return
Already sending money home? Japan's fuyou deduction could cut your tax bill — but the rules changed in 2023. Here's who qualifies and what documents HR needs.
Every November, your HR team sends around the year-end tax adjustment form. You fill in the sections you understand, skip the ones that look complicated, and hand it back. The overseas dependent section — 国外居住親族 — is one most foreign engineers skip.
If you are already sending money home, you may be leaving a real tax deduction unclaimed.
What the Fuyou Deduction Actually Is
Fuyou koujou (扶養控除) is Japan’s dependent deduction. Each qualifying dependent reduces your taxable income — not your tax bill directly, but the income on which your tax is calculated.
The basic amounts for a general dependent are:
- ¥380,000 reduction in taxable income for national income tax
- ¥330,000 reduction for inhabitant tax (住民税)
If the overseas parent is 70 or older, the income-tax扶養控除 can be higher: ¥480,000 for an elderly dependent rather than the general ¥380,000. That is one reason this deduction matters so much for people supporting parents abroad.
As a rough example, for an engineer on roughly ¥7M annual salary, one qualifying general overseas dependent can easily be worth around six figures of tax savings once income tax and inhabitant tax are combined. The exact number depends on your actual tax rates and whether the dependent is in the general or elderly category.
This is not a rebate. It reduces your base before tax is applied — which is why it matters more at higher income levels.
What the 2023 Rule Change Did
The rules around non-resident dependents were tightened from January 1, 2023. A lot of English summaries make this sound like the deduction was eliminated. It was not.
What changed is that the 30–69 age bracket now requires one of three additional conditions. Outside that bracket, the deduction still exists — but it still requires the normal relationship and remittance documents.
One important point: clearing the age/document rule does not automatically make someone a valid dependent. The relative still has to fit the broader dependent rules, including the income threshold discussed later in this article.
Here is the current age-based picture:
| Dependent’s age | General eligibility | What you need |
|---|---|---|
| Under 30 | Eligible | Relationship documents + remittance documents |
| 30–69 | Conditional — see below | One of three specific exceptions |
| 70 and older | Eligible | Relationship documents + remittance documents |
The change was specifically targeted at the perception that a ¥480,000 income limit — low by Tokyo standards — was easily met by relatives in lower-cost economies who were not actually financially dependent. The NTA’s response was not to ban the deduction, but to require proof of actual financial support for working-age relatives.
The Three Exceptions for Ages 30–69
If the parent or relative you want to claim is between 30 and 69, they still qualify if they fall into one of these three categories:
| Exception | What it means | Documentation |
|---|---|---|
| Student abroad | Relative has established a domicile outside Japan for education | Relationship documents + remittance documents + study-abroad document such as student visa / enrollment proof |
| Disabled | Relative has a recognized physical or mental disability | Relationship documents + remittance documents + disability certification |
| ¥380,000 support | You sent ¥380,000 or more to this specific person during the calendar year | Relationship documents + 38万円送金書類 proving that year’s total to that person reached ¥380,000 |
The third exception is the one most relevant to engineers supporting working-age parents. But the first two do not waive the normal remittance-document requirement. NTA’s current guidance still asks for both the relationship documents and the remittance documents in those cases as well.
What Documents HR Actually Needs
Two categories of documents are always central. You submit these during year-end adjustment (by your company’s November or December deadline) or include them when filing your own return by March 15.
Category 1 — Proof of relationship
An official document issued by a government body confirming the family link. Valid examples:
- Birth certificate (proving the parent-child relationship)
- Household registration document (戸籍謄本 or equivalent from the home country)
If the document is not in Japanese or English, you must include a Japanese translation. The document must show the relative’s name, date of birth, and address.
Category 2 — Proof of remittance
A document issued by a financial institution or licensed remittance provider showing that funds were transferred from you to the specific relative. NTA guidance also accepts certain card-company or electronic-payment documents when they fit the published categories. The NTA does not accept:
- Cash given in person
- Transfers to a shared family account where the recipient is unclear
- Informal transfers with no provider record
The document must clearly identify the sender (you), the recipient (the dependent), and the amount sent. One detail that matters: for year-end adjustment or final return, the NTA’s default rule is that you submit or present all remittance documents for that year. If you made 3 or more payments to the same relative, you can instead use the NTA’s 送金関係書類の明細書 together with the first and last remittance documents for that year.
For the 30–69 age group claiming under the ¥380,000 exception, the aggregate to that specific person must reach ¥380,000 during the year.
Which Remittance Services Generate Valid Records
If you are already using one of these, you may have easier documentation. If not, switching to a provider that issues clean year-end remittance records can make next year’s claim much simpler.
Smiles Mobile Remittance — offers an annual remittance certificate from the app. If the sender, recipient, and yearly transfers are clearly shown, that can make HR review easier.
Seven Bank — provides international transfer records accessible from your account. This is useful because the records are issued through a regulated financial channel.
Kyodai Remittance — issues a Remittance History document that many users rely on for year-end adjustment paperwork.
Wise — may work if the exported records clearly show the required sender / recipient / amount information, but the format is less standardized for Japanese HR teams. Confirm early.
Revolut — can generate transaction statements and transfer confirmations from the app. This can work well if the downloaded records clearly show the sender, recipient, dates, and amounts for each remittance.
PayForex — offers downloadable overseas remittance certificates and annual remittance certificate delivery. That makes it one of the cleaner options if you want tax-season-ready documentation without assembling records manually.
SMBC Trust Bank (PRESTIA) — issues formal overseas remittance records through online banking, which can be useful if you want bank-style documentation rather than app-based transfer history.
How to Actually Claim It
If your company runs nenmatsu chosei (most salaried engineers):
Submit your documents to HR before their deadline — typically late November. You will fill in the dependent section of the adjustment form and attach the two document categories above. If HR is comfortable with overseas dependent claims, they can process everything through year-end adjustment. If they are unsure or conservative about the paperwork, it is also common for them to tell you to claim it yourself via kakutei shinkoku.
If you missed the HR deadline:
File a kakutei shinkoku (確定申告, final tax return) by March 15 of the following year. You can do this at your local tax office or online via the NTA’s e-Tax system. The same documents apply. If you have missed this deduction for prior years, you can also file an amended return (更正の請求) for up to five years back.
HR saying no does not necessarily mean you are ineligible. In many cases it just means your company does not want to review overseas-dependent paperwork through year-end adjustment, and you need to claim it yourself through kakutei shinkoku.
If you have overseas income or side income:
You will likely need to file kakutei shinkoku anyway. The dependent deduction is claimed on the same return.
One timing note: national income tax and municipal inhabitant tax do not always move in perfect sync. If your payroll withholding changes first and your resident-tax bill reflects the deduction later, that timing gap is normal.
2025–2026 Threshold Update
One more piece of good news. The threshold that determines whether a relative qualifies as a dependent at all is being revised upward for the 2025 tax year and after.
| Period | Dependent income threshold | Salary-only rough equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-2025 | ¥480,000 income | Roughly ¥1,030,000 salary gross |
| 2025 / 2026 | ¥580,000 income | Roughly ¥1,230,000 salary gross |
This is an income threshold, not a gross-salary threshold. For relatives who earn only salary income, the rough gross-salary equivalent moves from about ¥1.03M to about ¥1.23M under the 2025 change. The documentation requirements introduced in 2023 remain in place — but more people will clear the income bar.
If you want to use Wise for the remittance trail discussed above, you can sign up with my link and get either a free card or zero fees on a transfer up to ¥75,000, depending on the offer Wise is showing at the time.
If you want to use Revolut for the remittance trail discussed above, you can sign up free with my link. The free Standard plan currently gives you up to ¥25,000/month of ATM withdrawals with no Revolut fee, weekday FX up to ¥300,000/month with no extra fee, free virtual and single-use cards you can manage in-app, and access to cashback offers with selected online merchants in Revolut Shops.
Key sources: NTA English guidance on exemption for non-resident dependents, NTA’s Tax Answer on 扶養控除, NTA on elderly dependent deduction amounts, NTA’s procedure page for the remittance-document detail sheet, NTA on salary-income deduction, SMBC Trust Bank on overseas remittance records for annual tax reports, Seven Bank international money transfer service, Kyodai Remittance remittance history documentation, Revolut on transaction statements and account statements, and PayForex on downloadable remittance certificates and annual remittance certificate delivery.
