Taking a paycut to move Japan?

10 comments

1. This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.

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   **Taking a paycut to move Japan?**

   Hi folks,

   I’m a software engineer in my late 20’s based out of Vancouver, and I have received an option to move to Tokyo with a 10.2M yen salary. I’m having trouble gauging whether I would actually be taking a paycut when adjusting to cost of living in Japan, as I would like to have a similar standard of living and savings rate as in Canada. Researching online it seems like Tokyo is roughly 30%-40% cheaper, but I’m having trouble getting the math to work.

   My salary is currently 142k CAD (15.4M yen), and take home after taxes is roughly 101k CAD (11M yen). I’m having trouble calculating the post-tax amount on the salary in Japan, as it looks like there is some special rules (i.e first year is less taxes, seems like that hit comes in the next year?). But the number I’m using is 7.48M yen (68k CAD). So if my math is correct roughly a 32% paycut which is in line with the cost of living difference.

   I would be fully remote, so I’m looking at a 2LDK apartment with a 140k yen monthly budget in the outer wards. I’m currently paying 1600 CAD here for a 1bdrm which is considered cheap, so having 2 bedrooms would be an upgrade for me. The issue is that I’m currently saving 3500 CAD per month (381k yen), which seems to be unrealistic on a 10M salary.

   I definitely am excited for an opportunity to live & work in a new country, potentially making it my new home as buying a home would actually be possible unlike here in Vancouver. I was wondering if anyone here thinks making the move would be a good idea as I want to be cautious with making such a big decision.

   Some additional info if it helps:

   * I would be moving alone so no partner or dependents or pets
   * I speak 0 Japanese, however I would continue working as normal on my current team. I would plan on learning over time
   * My company has a presence in Japan and they would help take care of all the visa/immigration stuff
   * I would plan to remain with my current company for a long time as I do enjoy working here. However if I do leave, I would only be interested in working for foreign companies in a similar salary range and generous PTO (I have unlimited but take roughly 6 weeks annually)
   * My RSU’s will continue to vest in Japan for 4 years (50k USD annually), however they will fall off a cliff after adjusting to local salaries so I’m treating this as a bonus and not including it with the base salary

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2. I think anybody moving to Japan should ask themselves this question: how long do you want to stay in Japan or how long do you envision yourself staying in Japan?

   If it’s only for a few years, then I would take that generous PTO that you do have and take some time off to enjoy the country without having to deal with the bureaucracy that comes with being a foreigner in Japan and still keep your current salary.

   If you want to leave and work at another company in Japan, well, PTO is highly dependent on the company and but it’s much wiser (in my opinion) to err on the side of less PTO rather than more as a rule of thumb in Japan, e*ven if the company is a foreign one.* There’s no guarantee the culture is going to be foreign especially if the majority of workers are Japanese.

3. Remember that the life itself is cheaper. Not just the rent, unless you eat fruit for every lunch

4. [removed]

5. I mean life in general is cheaper in Japan and if you live like a local you’ll be fine. New grad salary is 2M-4M yen and people get by fine on it. Majority of Japanese software devs are forsure not making 10M yen, so you’re doing good there. Experienced devs will be around 5M-8M yen, but this depends on location, the company, years of experience.. etc, but most likely not above 10M unless you’re at faang or some other top company.
   Like one of the other comments mentioned how long do you see yourself in Japan? I know this would be hard to answer without actually spending time there though.

6. You’ll be fine. I run a team in Japan and think most of my team is earning less than 7M a year and they’ve got families. They mostly live in outer Tokyo.

7. Your math sounds about right. It’s for sure cheaper cost of living in Japan. You can get at or near same standard with some cultural devaitions such as living space and food etc.

   The issues becomes your retirement. Once you work in Japan you make a Japanese pension but if you plan to retire in your home country this may not be satisfactory or enough.

8. The housing situation in Vancouver is insane.
   But you need to thinking of it a few ways..
   In the current market allows people in Van to invest and effectively save money in this property. The natural path would be to get that starter home ( if that is even a thing anymore) then sell and slowly move up.

   In Japan houses lose value but are cheap.

   This might seems unrelated to your situation but the money you are saving now would effectively to be used to break into this market… somehow.

   If you leave your current situation to Japan you will be able to get a larger apartment, you will have great experiences, maybe you’ll meet your future partner, you can buy a house if you plan to save long enough.
   But it will be increasingly difficult to move back as you will no longer be saving money or inventing in property… unless there is some magically market crash that we have been talking about for over 15 years…

   So ultimately it’s your decision and you should do what you want. Coming out for a few year won’t hurt.

   Best of luck!

9. Just stay where you are. If you think 10m yen is a low salary, you’re going to be unhappy here.

10. If it helps your career long term, it might be worth it. But, if not, sounds like a bad move.