Japan's 2026 Permanent Residency Draft: Income & Pension Gates Explained

In late July 2026, major Japanese newspapers reported that the Immigration Services Agency (ISA) is preparing stricter permanent residency (永住許可) guidelines. The draft would add clearer financial tests under the long-standing “independent livelihood” pillar, plus sharper “national interest” factors such as Japanese language ability and children’s school enrollment. If you are an expat planning PR, you need two things at once: a calm reading of what was actually reported, and a way to run the numbers without treating a draft as law.

What the three legal pillars still are

The Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law continues to rest permanent residency on three pillars:

1. Good conduct (素行善良) — criminal history, fulfillment of public obligations (taxes, pension, health insurance, immigration reporting).
2. Independent livelihood (独立の生計) — assets or skills sufficient to live without becoming a public burden.
3. National interest (国益適合) — whether granting PR is deemed in Japan’s interest, including residence history and integration factors.

The July 2026 reporting focuses on making pillars (2) and (3) more concrete—not inventing a fourth pillar.

Reported financial gates

1. Income above the average Japanese household

Coverage from Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi/Kyodo and others says applicants would, in principle, need income above the average for Japanese households, continuously. The government has not published which statistic that is. Commentators often cite the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions: ¥5,752,000 average household income for 2024 (survey released mid-2026). The same survey’s median is lower (about ¥4.51M), which is a reminder that “average” is not “typical.”

Also unresolved: whether immigration will look at individual income, household income, how many past years count as “continuous,” and how savings offset an income gap for younger applicants (Asahi noted assets can help and that younger applicants may face a lower supplementary bar).

2. Projected pension ≈ 30 years of Employees’ Pension at that income

The second reported test is that projected pension benefits should reach the level someone would receive after 30 years of enrollment in Employees’ Pension (厚生年金) at the relevant income level. If the projection falls short, savings and other financial assets may make up the difference.

That idea is powerful for expats who arrived in their 30s or 40s: even a solid salary may not produce a “30-year kosei career” by retirement. Modeling needs your past Kosei / National Pension months, how long you plan to keep working under Kosei, and optionally the earnings-related figure on your ねんきん定期便 (Pension Coverage Notice).

Spouse route: longer waits reported

Under the current guideline, spouses of Japanese nationals, permanent residents, or special permanent residents can often apply after three years of marriage and one year of residence. Reporting says the draft would raise that to five years of marriage and three years of residence. Whether spouses remain partly exempt from independent-livelihood tests under the new text has not been clearly reported.

National interest: language, systems, and school enrollment

Draft language described in the press also tightens national-interest evaluation: Japanese ability around an “independent user” level, understanding of Japanese systems and rules, and negative evaluation if a school-age child is not enrolled in school. These are qualitative and hard to score in a calculator—but they matter as much as salary for some families.

Timing: newspapers do not fully agree

Outlets describe a target revision around 1 October 2026, with application to filings from April 2027 in several accounts. Yomiuri-style summaries split “income from October” vs “other rules from next April,” while Asahi-style summaries mention possible retroactivity of income standards to applications filed since April of the current year. Until ISA publishes final wording, do not plan your life around a single effective date.

How unofficial calculators estimate the pension gate

Because ISA has not released a formula, transparent tools (including YenWise and the well-known open simulator by Sam Yip) use a simplified pension model:

• Cap pensionable pay using standard monthly remuneration and bonus caps.
• Accrue an earnings-related portion with a simplified monthly coefficient.
• Build a benchmark B as roughly 30 years of that accrual at the household-average income H, plus a basic-pension piece (either pro-rated to 30 years or full amount).
• Project your pension P from past enrollment + future work; shortfall S = max(0, B − P).
• Convert S to an asset ballpark with an assumed number of years (often 25)—that conversion is an author assumption, not something the newspapers published.

That is enough to compare scenarios (“What if I work to 65?” “What if H is the median instead of the mean?”) without pretending the government has endorsed the spreadsheet.

What you should do now

1. Keep taxes, health insurance, and pension payments current—good conduct is still non-negotiable.
2. Download or file your latest ねんきん定期便 and tax certificates so you can document history.
3. Run a sensitivity check on income and career length with the PR new-criteria calculator.
4. If you are on a spouse route, re-read the reported 5-year / 3-year change and talk to a specialist before changing plans.
5. Watch the ISA permanent residency guideline page for the final text and public-comment outcomes.

Related YenWise tools

• PR New Criteria Calculator — income & pension draft gates
• Income Tax Calculator — take-home under 2026 tax rules
• Pension Lump-Sum Calculator — if you may leave Japan instead of applying for PR
• iDeCo Calculator — long-term retirement savings alongside public pension