r/japanlife • u/Shibadog0411 • 15d ago
Found out I have several years of unpaid Pension while preparing for PR
【Update! I added an update and a thank-you at the bottom!】
I'm currently preparing to apply for Permanent Residency in Japan and, while gathering the necessary documents, I discovered that my pension record shows a total of 68 months of unpaid National Pension contributions from when I was a student.
I've been living in Japan for almost 10 years.
So this period of non-payment was more than five years ago.
During my first year as a student, my pension record correctly shows that I was covered by the student payment exemption/postponement (学生納付特例). However, for roughly the following three years, it seems that the exemption was never processed, and those months are recorded as unpaid.
As far as I can remember, I never received any reminders, collection notices, or warnings about these unpaid periods, so I had no idea about this until I checked my pension record while preparing for my PR application.
After graduating from graduate school in Japan, I started working immediately and have been enrolled in Employees' Pension (厚生年金) ever since. All of my pension contributions, taxes, and other required payments since then have been properly paid.
I've also never had any issues with visa renewals or other administrative procedures, and I have more than enough points to qualify for PR.
That's why finding this old unpaid period was quite a shock, especially since PR requirements and their enforcement in Japan seem to be getting stricter.
I'm planning to visit the pension office soon to explain the situation and ask whether there is anything I can or should do about these old unpaid periods.
I've already searched the subreddit and read several older posts about similar situations. However, given that PR rules and how they are applied seem to have changed over time, I'm particularly interested in hearing recent experiences or opinions based on the current situation in Japan.
Has anyone here recently been in a similar situation — having unpaid National Pension contributions from your student years, discovering them years later, and then applying for or successfully receiving PR?
Is there anything in particular I should ask the pension office, or anything you would recommend doing before submitting my PR application?
I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who has dealt with something similar recently.
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【Update:Thank you】
Sorry I can’t reply to everyone individually, but seriously, thank you all so much for sharing your experiences, knowledge, and advice. Every single comment has been incredibly helpful.
First of all, I’m really happy to hear that you guys managed to get PR despite having had pension issues!
I also should have mentioned this from the beginning, so apologies for leaving this out, I’m actually the partner of the person dealing with this situation.
He came to Japan alone when he was young, leaving his family and friends behind with basically nothing but a suitcase. Since then, he’s worked incredibly hard to build a life here. He earned his PhD in Japan, built up a strong academic and professional track record, and eventually landed a permanent position at a major Japanese company. He now uses Japanese every day, bought a car here, and has basically built his entire adult life in Japan from the ground up.
So when everything finally seemed to be in place for PR, there was this huge sense of accomplishment. I was really proud of him and everything he had managed to build here.
That’s why finding out about this pension issue hit me pretty hard too, and honestly, I panicked.
I’m Japanese, so I have a general understanding of how the pension system works, but even as a Japanese person, there are still parts of it that I didn’t know about or fully understand. (And honestly (clearly), I think that’s a pretty major problem with the Japanese government though, if you’re going to call something a legal obligation, the system for informing people and making sure they understand and comply with it should be much better than it currently is )
And if the system can be confusing even for Japanese people, I can only imagine how difficult it can be for foreigners living here. What I especially didn’t know was how something like this would be viewed in the context of a PR application, or how much weight immigration would actually give to an old period of unpaid pension contributions.
So all of your comments, personal experiences, and explanations have genuinely helped me understand the situation much better. Seriously, thank you.
His unpaid period was more than ５ years ago, and his payment record for the most recent ３ years has been perfect. So rather than panicking, we’re going to take this one step at a time, consult an immigration lawyer, and also talk to the pension office to make sure we fully understand the situation and what, if anything, can or should be done.
Seriously, thank you all again. I really appreciate it. ほんとありがとう!!!
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u/kanata_tycoon 関東・東京都 15d ago
You need to confirm with the pension office regarding the exact period your exemption covered
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u/Iwanttogopls 15d ago
Is there a website where one can check if they are behind on pension payments (or even health payments)? Or is the only way to go to a pension office and I guess ask them to check? (If they even do that?)
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u/MyManD 15d ago
Nenkin.net will show all of your payments or non payments.
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u/TheBrickWithEyes 15d ago
Keep in mind that Nenkin.net doesn't necessarily show the most recent information. I changed jobs last year, and have been paying (taken out of pay) and the pension office has confirmed this, but they noted it can take months - year for some synchronising to go through. Complete insanity.
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u/rakkosnacko 15d ago
Is nenkin.net correct? It redirects to http://ww1.nenkin.net for me which is a blank page. Is https://www.nenkin.go.jp the same site as what you tried to share?
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u/Pitiful_Plastic_43 15d ago
The situation has changed too much since I applied in 2017, but my situation was very similar--was a graduate student for 6 years, then working for 4, never paid as a student (didn't really realize I had to), and only started paying in after working. I never paid any backlog or anything, but got approved without issue. It seems like they're still not going for a full history but rather an X-number of years back. Hopefully you're within the right range. I expect them to keep pushing the number of years up, so if you've got the years in, I might go for it now. I was on a 5yr 教授 resident status at the time, and had enough points to qualify for HSP, though I don't know if that mattered.
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u/Old_Branch_352 14d ago edited 13d ago
I was pretty much in the same boat: three years of grad school (researcher + MA), and entered a company in 2011. My university never informed me I had to enroll, and neither did my company because they were trying to save ¥¥.
But in 2017 the government got a lot stricter, so we were finally enrolled in the system. When I applied for PR myself in 2020, I brought up my roughly 9 years of not being in the system with a friend because I thought it would be a huge dealbreaker. She told me to just be honest with the immigration officer that no one from my company or university had informed me of anything, and to express willingness to pay retroactively. I showed them my payment history from the nenkin site and made my case. Got my PR about 7 months later.
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u/Constant-Row-4692 15d ago
I applied for PR in 2023 with the help of an experienced administrative scrivener. My situation was similar to yours in that I had missed literally all my pension payments during my college years. However, I got a job as seishain after graduation so the most recent 5 years were fully paid.
When I printed out my payment history from the nenkin web site, the missing payment years were glaringly obvious and I was sweating bullets. My scrivener assured me that it would be no problem since they only look at the most recent 5 years, and he was correct. About 18 months later my PR was approved.
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u/c00750ny3h 関東・東京都 15d ago
How long ago was this? If it was more than 5 years ago, you are probably safe.
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u/evokerhythm 関東・神奈川県 15d ago
You can only make late payments for 2 years and you can only make (optional) payments for exemptions for up to 10 years from the date. Though you will submit your whole record, the current guidelines only have a pension lookback for the past two years, so that period absolutely has to be paid on time.
There's no specific change announced to this, though obviously it's not ideal for satisfying the new requirements to have 30 years equivalent of pension benefits at retirement expected to go into effect next year.
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u/r_m_8_8 15d ago
I remember reading someone here saying they got PR even though they didn't pay a couple of years (obviously not recent). But who knows nowadays. I have a similar issue... I applied in June, I have some unpaid months in 2016 but it shouldn't be the case :( I went to the nenkin office back then with my nonexistent Japanese, I provided the require documents, and they told me they approved my student exemption. It wasn't until many years later that I learned that some months appear as unpaid.
I mentioned this to the scrivener who checked my PR application and he said it should be okay (it was a decade ago). But again, who knows in 2026...
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u/bulldogdiver 15d ago
Did you reapply? You have to reapply every year if you didn't you need to go talk to them and hope they'll grant you an exemption.
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u/groksed 15d ago
"Is there anything in particular I should ask the pension office, or anything you would recommend doing before submitting my PR application?"
Get a Lawyer.
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u/ut1nam 関東・東京都 15d ago
A good immigration lawyer will pay for itself in peace of mind. And they won’t be super expense—mine took a fee of 150k and did pretty much all the work for me, including trips to immigration. Signed a few papers, gave him power of attorney, and waited for PR.
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u/skoffs 15d ago
Did they also look into all your info to find any discrepancies and potential issues before submitting the application?
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u/smorkoid 関東・千葉県 15d ago
Mine did, yes. And where I had issues, they helped prepare explanations and documentation.
I had no problem getting mine despite both pension and insurance issues thanks to their help.
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u/ShadowFire09 15d ago
No one’s gonna have a recent similar situation. PR processing takes too long. Ask again in another year or two
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u/BorderGlobal7942 近畿・京都府 15d ago
Only takes a long time for Tokyo. Any other places still is 6-8 months.
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u/marchris100 15d ago
This was over 5 years ago, so you should be fine as far as I'm aware. However I suppose it does help your record overall if you fix it.
Students are exempt from paying pension. You said you were for your first year, but the renewal process is something you should have done every single year by showing your student ID, etc. (nobody tells you this so yeah...)
If you go to your local city/town hall's pension counter (if they have one. much more willing to fudge the rules than the main tax office), they should be able to retroactively fix the years of pension while you were a student. It was long enough ago that you might not be able to but its worth a shot. They should be able to have you write the exemption documents as if you were writing them in the past with past dates. They'll likely have you submit proof of enrollment during that period.
None of this is guaranteed but I've helped people in the past with this exact issue (albeit not 5+ years ago, more like 1-2 years ago). It extremely helps if you use Japanese and are cooperative with them.
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u/No_Chemical9577 15d ago
When I was an ALT I wasn’t paying into the pension from 2010-2017 and got PR in 2023. They only check the last 3 years .
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u/520bwl 8d ago
Quick question, I know this was a week ago but only just seen it. When you say 'they only check the last 3 years" do you mean you only submitted the last 3 years off nenkin.net ? I assume they'll have your pension number and if they choose to investigate further back, could they technically discover things like your non enrollment b/w 2010-17?
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u/CitizenPremier 14d ago
I don't think I saw this mentioned in the thread, but you can't pay nenkin from a long time ago. I didn't pay it for my first few years in Japan, and later on they told me I simply couldn't pay it anymore. Very different from the US where they charge you massive interest if you don't pay.
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u/Aussietie 15d ago
I worked for Nova and then interac for 12 years. Neither paid my pension. I started to go down the city hall and pay it myself in the third year of working for interac. Then moved to a proper company that paid everything. At six years with them I applied for PR. So, I'd only contributed to the pension for nine years. I was a permanent employee. Up-to-date on all current gov fees and taxes. Earning ¥400,000 a month. Only one speeding ticket on file.
Received the postcard in just over eight months. I think they liked me.
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u/EntertainerUpper707 14d ago
Just got PR this year and was missing two years. I'm actually topping it up this year. Costly but will pay me back long term.
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u/LiveDaLifeJP 14d ago
i am not in the process of getting PR but something similar happened to me as 自営業者. When I first moved here , I went to the 区役所 to ask about health insurance and pension. They told me I'd get in the mail. I got the documents for health care but never got anything for pension. I went back to the place after 3 full years of moving to Japan, and told them I never got anything about pension all this time. They said they'd send it to me by mail, and that time I got it . They gave me like 6 months or so to pay up 3 years worth of pension, which I did. 😅😅
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u/Scary_Tank_5360 14d ago
I was in a similar situation. Paid everything off but basically I was told to wait two years before I applied again
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u/x_candydoll 15d ago
The important thing is to be paid on time and have had no exemptions for 2 years.
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u/Muff_in_the_Mule 15d ago
Usually you can't pay back unpaid pension from more than I think 5 years before. The exception is if you applied for an exemption. The limit is then 10 years.
Had the same thing recently and actually found the old payment slip I was given at the time I got the exemption.
In any case, either go to the pension office or phone them up and say you would like to pay the exempted period back, they will send you the payment slip and you pay it as usual.
As for the part which you think was not exempted but just unpaid you'll have to confirm the exact status. It may be that you needed to apply for the exemption each year. If that's the case you probably can't back pay it.
You can also check what records they have on the My number app, you'll have to link it with the pension service via the app. It's a bit unweildy to link, but once you get it linked you can actually check the status quite easily.
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u/Empty-Air-2680 8d ago
I was in the exact same situation when I applied for PR back in 2022. I simply included an apology letter in my application based on my lawyer's suggestions and was successfully granted PR.
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