Freelancer Taxes in Japan — Your First Year

Your first year as a freelancer in Japan

Going freelance in Japan means trading a company's payroll department for a set of forms with names like 確定申告 (kakutei shinkoku, final tax return), 青色申告 (aoiro shinkoku, blue return), and 白色申告 (shiro shinkoku, white return). None of this is exotic once you've done it once, but the first year is where most people either overpay, underfile, or panic unnecessarily. This guide walks through the shape of the system — not a substitute for professional advice, just a map of the terrain.

Step one: registering as a freelancer

When you start earning as a sole proprietor, the standard first move is filing a 開業届 (kaigyou todoke, notification of business commencement) at your local tax office. It's a short form, it's free, and it's what puts you on record as running a business rather than just receiving occasional payments. If you plan to apply for 青色申告 status (more on that below), the 開業届 is typically filed around the same time as the blue-return application, since the approval has its own deadline logic tied to when your business started.

Do you actually have to file?

This is the part that trips people up most. The National Tax Agency's filing requirement (NTA No.2020) is not a revenue threshold — it's a tax-due test. In plain terms: you generally need to file if, after subtracting your deductions from your income, there is a positive amount of tax owed. That means someone with substantial revenue but equally substantial expenses and deductions could land at zero tax owed and not be required to file, while someone with more modest income and few deductions could still owe something and need to file. There is no clean "you must file if you earn over ¥X" line — the calculation runs through income minus deductions minus more deductions, and only the result at the end tells you whether filing is required.

One deduction that everyone runs into is the basic deduction (基礎控除, NTA No.1199). As of the 2025–2026 tax years, this is no longer a single fixed figure — it's a range, roughly ¥480,000 up to ¥950,000, depending on your total income level and residency status. Because this deduction alone varies by situation, it's another reason a flat revenue threshold doesn't exist. If you're unsure whether last year's numbers put you on the hook, our overview at do I need to file taxes in Japan walks through the logic in more detail, and if your income was mostly from a side gig alongside employment, the ¥200,000 side-income rule covers that specific case.

青色申告 vs 白色申告: what's the actual difference

白色申告 (white return) is the simpler path. Bookkeeping requirements are lighter, and there's no special deduction attached to it — you report income and expenses and that's largely it.

青色申告 (blue return) asks more of you upfront but pays it back. You need advance approval — filing a 青色申告承認申請書 (blue return approval application) before you can use it — and you're expected to keep proper books. In exchange, you become eligible for the 青色申告特別控除 (blue return special deduction), which comes in tiers:

• Up to ¥650,000 — double-entry bookkeeping, filed electronically via e-Tax
• Up to ¥550,000 — double-entry bookkeeping, filed on paper
• Up to ¥100,000 — simpler bookkeeping

Those figures are the standard tiers, but tax rules get revisited, so confirm the current amounts before you file rather than assuming last year's numbers still apply. The practical takeaway: if you're going to be freelancing for more than a token amount, the 青色 approval process is usually worth doing early, since you can't retroactively claim the higher deduction after the fact.

Invoicing and consumption tax

Since October 2023, Japan has run the qualified invoice system (適格請求書等保存方式 / インボイス制度). Many freelancers who work with business clients register as a 適格請求書発行事業者 (qualified invoice issuer) so their invoices are compliant and their clients can properly claim input tax credits on payments to them. Whether registration makes sense depends on who your clients are and how your income is structured — but clean, invoice-system-compliant billing is now just part of how freelance work runs in Japan, so it's worth understanding early rather than retrofitting it later.

Keeping this manageable through the year

The single best habit for a freelancer's first year is recording income and expenses as they happen rather than reconstructing them in March. Cloud accounting tools exist specifically to take that running record and turn it into a 青色 or 白色 return, including the e-Tax export format the NTA expects — you don't need to build a return from scratch by hand. If you're also comparing how this differs from the year-end adjustment employees go through, see 年末調整 vs 確定申告 for that contrast.

A note on scope: everything above describes the general case for a freelancer who was a resident all year. Partial-year residency, non-resident status, and tax treaty situations involve additional rules that go beyond what a general guide can responsibly cover — those are worth a session with a professional. For quick answers to common questions, our FAQ is a good next stop.

Tools that do the heavy lifting

Cloud accounting software prepares the 青色/白色 return and the e-Tax export for you, from a running record kept through the year.