Japan Portal

Teach In Japan

Japan has many language conversation schools (Eikaiwa's) to cater for both children and adult classes. One can easily teach full-time at the one school, or part-time at different schools. To be eligible for visa sponsorship in Japan, a minimum 3-year University degree is required. Sometimes, it is still possible to attain sponsorship with a 2-year Diploma. However, it will depend on the school offering sponsorship and the teacher's past experiences.

Income levels vary between positions and qualifications of teachers. If you want to teach part-time at different schools, then you can typically earn between ¥2,800 to ¥3,500 per hour. However travelling between different schools can be time consuming and tiring. Transportation is mostly always reimbursed by the school.

Full-time salaries are usually calculated on a monthly basis. A typical full-time position at an Eikaiwa school would consist of 30 contact hours teaching per week, and pays ¥240,000 to ¥290,000 per month. The living costs are quite high, however the salary compensates for this.

Many teachers take on private students to supplement income from their regular teaching jobs which, depending on the particular school and contract signed, may be permitted or not. Even when teaching private students is specifically forbidden, many teachers still seem to take on a private student or two.

Taxes

Taxes in Japan are broken up into 2 major categories:

• National Tax
• Local Tax

After that, it gets very complicated! There are more than 25 additional taxes on "consumption", including everything from "bathing tax", "golf course utilisation" (no, this isn't a joke!) to "gasoline tax" (part of the reason prices are 2 to 3 times higher than in the USA). This may sound alarming, but the vast majority of these taxes are already included in the price.

An overview of the various tax types:

• Consumption Tax - Currently 5%.
• Income Tax - Japan bases income tax obligations on resident status: Permanent Residents or Non-Permanent Residents. If you are a resident of Japan, in most cases you will be responsible for income tax generated abroad. You may also be responsible for income generated in Japan even if you are a non-resident.
• Resident Tax - This tax is comprised of the Metropolitan Tax and Special City Resident Tax. They are usually lumped together and called "Shiminzei". As this tax is based on the previous year's income, foreigners are not required to pay this tax during their first year in the country.

Your income tax obligations as a foreigner in Japan can be quite complicated – it's highly recommended that you talk to a tax advisor before coming to Japan! Generally speaking, if you teach in Japan, the tax is a flat 6%.