Japan's Minimum Wage Now Averages ¥1,177: All 47 Prefectures, the Dates, and What Indians Actually Earn

One hour behind a konbini counter in Tokyo is now worth at least ¥1,280 — roughly ₹768. That's not a good job. That's the legal floor, for any worker, of any nationality, including you.

In July this was still a projection. It isn't any more. On 3 September 2026 the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare published the answers from all 47 prefectural councils: the new national weighted average is ¥1,177 per hour, up ¥56 (5.0%) from ¥1,121 — a record-high level, and the second-largest average rise since the guideline system began in 1978 (MHLW, 3 Sep 2026).

The part almost nobody tells you: your prefecture's new rate does not start on 1 October. The 47 rates switch on at different times between 1 October and 2 December 2026, and ten prefectures — including Kyoto — wait until November or December.

Here's the confirmed number for your prefecture, the date it starts, what it's worth in rupees, and the honest month-by-month math.

Where things stand on 28 October

If you are reading this in late October, the first thing to check is whether your date has already passed. Counting MHLW's scheduled dates (Komichi's count):

• In force (34 prefectures): every prefecture with a start date up to 28 October — including Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Aichi, Osaka, Hyōgo, Hokkaidō, Ibaraki (18 Oct) and Gunma (3 Oct). All ten prefectures with the most Indian residents are now on the new rate.
• Starting this week (3): Aomori and Kōchi on 29 October, Yamagata on 30 October.
• Still to come (10): Yamanashi, Tokushima, Ehime and Ōita (1 Nov), Nagasaki (2 Nov), Saga (15 Nov), Kyoto (16 Nov), Iwate and Kumamoto (1 Dec), Okinawa (2 Dec).

One caution: these are the dates MHLW listed on 3 September. MHLW's own footnote says they can change if objections are filed. We found no notice of any change as of 28 October, but we could not check each prefecture's labour bureau — confirm yours before relying on an exact date.

What the 47 prefectures actually decided

Japan revises minimum wages every fiscal year. A central council sets a guideline in late July; each of the 47 prefectures then runs its own council and files an answer (答申); the prefectural labour bureau director then formally decides, and the rate takes effect on a date that prefecture chooses.

This year the guideline was a ¥55 average, which would have produced a ¥1,176 average (MHLW guideline release, 28 Jul 2026). The prefectures came in slightly higher — ¥1,177.

Every prefecture: the confirmed rate and start date

Source: MHLW 令和8年度地域別最低賃金額 答申状況 (別紙 PDF), 3 Sep 2026, read directly; every rate and date in the table was re-checked against that PDF on 28 Oct 2026. "Status" is Komichi's comparison of the scheduled date with 28 Oct. Rupee figures are Komichi's arithmetic at ~₹0.60/¥ (ECB rate via Frankfurter, 27 Oct 2026: ₹0.6027) and are indicative. Dates are scheduled and can shift if objections are filed.

Three things worth knowing about this year's round:

• The rise is big, but smaller than last year's. FY2025 was +¥66 (+6.3%). FY2026 is +¥56 (+5.0%). The floor is still climbing hard — just not quite as hard. If you are modelling several years of earnings, model a slowing climb, not a repeat of 2025.
• The regional gap narrowed again. The lowest rate is now 84.8% of the highest, up from 83.4% — the twelfth consecutive year of narrowing (MHLW). That's deliberate: the biggest raises went to the lowest-paying prefectures — Saga +¥65, Kagoshima +¥64, Kōchi and Okinawa +¥63 each, Miyazaki and Ibaraki +¥62. Tokyo, Kanagawa and Osaka got the smallest raises in the country (+¥54).
• Tokyo's premium is smaller than Tokyo's rent. Tokyo's floor is ~18% above Miyazaki's — about ¥33,800/month (~₹20,000) at full-time hours, Komichi's arithmetic. Tokyo rents are typically far higher than a regional city's. That trade-off is the whole argument in Cost of Living in Japan vs India.

Your raise probably doesn't start on 1 October

This is the detail that costs people money, because "the new minimum wage starts in October" is what every headline says — and for ten prefectures it isn't true.

37 prefectures switch over during October (15 of them on 1 October). Seven wait until November. Three wait until December. Until your prefecture's date, the old rate is still the legal floor, and your employer is not underpaying you by using it.

Source: MHLW 答申状況 table, 3 Sep 2026.

Kyoto is the one to flag. It is one of Japan's biggest student cities, and its new ¥1,180 floor doesn't apply until 16 November — six and a half weeks after Tokyo's. If you're a student in Kyoto budgeting an October jump in baito income, move it to mid-November.

The rates where Indians actually live

Indians in Japan are unusually concentrated: Greater Tokyo alone holds 59.6% of them, and the top ten prefectures hold 81.4% (Indians in Japan: the Numbers). So here is the join that matters — the ten prefectures with the most Indian residents, each with its confirmed new floor and start date. As of 28 October, all ten are in force.

Rates and dates: MHLW, 3 Sep 2026. Indian-population shares: Komichi's calculation from ISA resident statistics. Rupee figures are Komichi's arithmetic at ~₹0.60/¥.

A detail that puts the pace in perspective: Osaka's outgoing rate was ¥1,177 — exactly what the new national average is. The floor moves roughly one large prefecture's worth of ground every year.

Two practical notes. Ibaraki — fifth-largest Indian population, and one of this year's biggest raises (+¥62) — switched on 18 October, later than its Kantō neighbours. And if you're comparing a Kantō offer against a regional one, compare the rates net of rent, not the rates.

Myth-bust: "the minimum wage doesn't really apply to foreigners"

You may hear this from a friend-of-a-friend or, worse, from a recruiter. It is false. Under Japan's Minimum Wage Act the floor applies to all workers in Japan — part-time, full-time, student, foreign, everyone (MHLW regional minimum wage tables). There is no "foreigner rate", no "trainee discount" for SSW workers, and the Ikusei Shūrō system launching in April 2027 keeps the same protection.

So any offer below your prefecture's minimum is a red flag — either an error or an unlawful underpayment. You don't need to argue; you need the number and the date. (For what fair full-time offers look like by sector, see Jobs in Demand in Japan for Indians.)

What to do if your payslip is under the floor

First check the date — if your prefecture hasn't switched yet, the old rate is still lawful. If it has, and you're still being paid the old rate, raise it with your employer in writing; back pay is owed from the effective date.

A practical tip for the weeks after a switch: look at your first payslip that covers days on or after your prefecture's date, and check that your hourly rate (or your monthly pay divided by your contracted hours) is at least the new figure. Exactly which pay period it first shows up in depends on your employer's payroll cut-off, so ask HR if it isn't clear.

If that doesn't work, MHLW runs phone lines you can use in English, without your employer's involvement (MHLW consultation directory in English):

• Labour Standards Advice Hotline — free: English 0120-531-401. Weekdays 5pm–10pm, weekends and holidays 9am–9pm. This is the one to use, because it runs after the government offices close.
• Telephone Consultation Service for Foreign Workers — paid call: English 0570-001-701. Mon–Fri, 10am–3pm (closed 12–1pm).
• In person: your prefecture's Labour Standards Inspection Office (労働基準監督署). Several labour bureaux — Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Ibaraki, Aichi, Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka and others — staff a foreign-worker consultation desk with English-speaking advisors on set days.

Worth being straight about one thing: these lines cover 13 languages, and Hindi is not one of them (English, Nepali, Chinese, Vietnamese and others are). For most Indian readers English is the working language here, and Tokyo's foreign-worker support room runs English Monday to Friday.

The honest baito math for students

Student residence status allows part-time work up to 28 hours per week with the standard permission, rising to up to 8 hours a day during long university holidays (Student Life in Japan for Indians). Here is what the confirmed floor turns that into — gross, before deductions, assuming you actually get the shifts:

(Komichi's arithmetic at confirmed FY2026 rates; ₹ at ~₹0.60/¥, late October 2026 — currency moves, so treat conversions as indicative.)

Now the honest part. The 28-hour cap is a legal maximum, not a plan. Between classes, exams, commutes and the reality that employers don't guarantee hours, a realistic plan is to budget on 15–20 hours a week — and your studies are what your visa, and your future salary, actually depend on. Budget on the realistic row; treat anything above it as bonus.

Set against typical student costs — roughly ¥100,000–150,000/month in Tokyo, ¥60,000–90,000 in regional cities (see Student Life in Japan for Indians) — the picture is unchanged by this year's raise: baito at the new floor can cover most of a modest regional budget; in Tokyo it is a strong supplement, not a funding plan.

If you're a worker: the floor is rising under your offer too

For SSW and other full-time workers, minimum wage is the floor, not the market — most SSW roles already pay above it (see SSW Visa from India). The floor still matters in three ways:

• Offer sanity-check. A 40-hour week at Tokyo's new floor is roughly ¥222,000/month gross (~₹1.33 lakh, Komichi's arithmetic). If a full-time Tokyo offer sits near or below that, you are being offered the legal minimum, whatever the brochure calls it.
• Overtime rides on the base. Hourly-calculated overtime is a multiple of your base rate, and a rising floor tends to pull entry-level bands up with it.
• Where you live changes both sides. Tokyo's floor is ~18% above the lowest prefecture; Tokyo rent is typically much higher. Run both sides before choosing.

What you actually keep depends on deductions and living costs, so put real numbers into the Japan Salary Calculator and the Japan Tax Calculator before building a plan on a headline rate.

One caution on the rupee figures. In our September version the yen had firmed to about ₹0.62 per yen. By 27 October it was back to about ₹0.60 (ECB rate via Frankfurter) — so the same ¥1,177 hour is worth roughly 3% fewer rupees than it looked six weeks ago, with nothing changed in Japan. That cuts both ways and it can move again. Plan in yen; convert at the end.

Correction: the ¥1,500 target has moved

An earlier version of this article said the government's goal was a ¥1,500 national average within the 2020s. That was the 2025 position, and it has since been softened.

The Cabinet's Basic Policy 2026, adopted 21 July 2026, restates the ¥1,500 target this way: continue efforts toward the 2020s goal, but "achieve a national average of ¥1,500 as early as possible, by the early 2030s at the latest" (Cabinet Office, 経済財政運営と改革の基本方針2026, p.11). The same document commits to continuing to narrow the gap between the highest and lowest prefectures — which is exactly what this year's answers did.

What that means in practice, as arithmetic: getting from ¥1,177 to ¥1,500 needs about 27% more. At this year's 5.0% pace that is roughly five more years (around FY2031); at 3.0–3.5% a year it is seven to eight (around FY2033–34). Komichi's calculation, compounded — and the honest reading is that "early 2030s" is the planning assumption, not "2029".

For a multi-year stay this is still the direction you want: wages at the bottom of the Japanese market have risen every single year. Just don't build a 2030 budget on a 2020s promise.

The bottom line

Japan's wage floor has taken its second-largest jump on record — ¥1,177 average, ¥1,280 in Tokyo — and it protects you exactly as it protects a Japanese worker. The raise arrives on your prefecture's date, not October's headline date: 34 prefectures are already on the new rate, and the rest follow by 2 December. Know your number, know your date, budget on realistic hours rather than the legal cap, and check the first payslip after the switch. Your first move today: put your expected city and hours into the Japan Salary Calculator and see your real monthly number in ¥ and ₹.