Required Health Insurance for Foreigners Residing in Japan

Many foreigners come to Japan, work in various industries, and are never aware that they are breaking the law. Some of the biggest eikaiwa (English conversation) school companies set up new foreign teachers with private insurance through companies that are usually based outside of Japan. These eikaiwa companies, if aware at all, usually don’t inform their newly hired foreign teachers about an important health insurance requirement in Japan. This is the requirement that all foreigners who live in Japan for a year or more enroll in one of Japan’s public health insurance schemes. Many believe that these eikaiwa companies have selfish reasons for not informing new teachers of this requirement, some of which include:  setting up foreign teachers with insurance through partner companies, or not wanting the higher cost of public health insurance to be an influencing factor in whether the foreign teacher returns to his or her home country at the end of a contract. Whether these beliefs are justified or not is beside the point; the law is the law.

Check out the Tokyo Metropolitan Government website – click here

 Here’s a quote from the website: “As a rule, foreigners who have completed foreign resident registration and have a status of residence of at least one year must join the National Health Insurance scheme.”

There are some technicalities that probably make it safe to avoid enrolling in public health insurance in Japan during the first year of residence, but one should seriously consider enrolling at the one-year mark. Some foreigners, unaware of the law, have enrolled in public insurance after two or more years of living in Japan for reasons such as marrying a Japanese citizen or becoming self-employed, and have been faced with mandatory back payments of premiums for all the time they had lived in Japan without properly enrolling. Some weren’t shown any leniency even when they claimed ignorance of the requirement.

Full-time workers in Japan must be enrolled in a public scheme known as Employee Health Insurance through Social Insurance, called Shakai Hoken (社会保険) in Japanese. Other-than-full-time employees usually enroll in National Health Insurance, called Kokumin Kenkou Hoken (国民健康保険) in Japanese.

Enrollment in National Health Insurance is done at one’s local ward, town, or city office. Ward offices are found in wards of cities like Tokyo and are called kuyakusho (区役所). The Shibuya Ward office (渋谷区役所) is an example. Town offices are called yakuba (役場) and city offices are called shiyakusho (市役所).

Enrollment in Employee Health Insurance through the Social Insurance Agency is done by one’s employer automatically, if the employee qualifies. For more information on the Social Insurance Agency and related health insurance, check out the link below.

Social Insurance Agency website – click here

Please leave a comment if you have any questions. I’ll do what I can to help you find the answers you’re looking for.