What currency do Gaishi (foreign) companies use for Japanese employees?

In Gaishi companies, what currency do Japanese employees get paid in (I assume Yen). Are there instances where Japanese citizens get paid in a currency other than the Yen?

16 comments
  1. Some crypto company pay employee in $hitCoins.

    Otherwise, no. Imagine the accounting nightmare doing stupid currency conversion each payday for a snowflake employee.

  2. Usually its paid in YEN. Though your contract can set your salary around dollars and pay in equiv. of yen for example. Mine does not do that unfortauntely…

  3. We get salary in yen, RSUs in USD. Seems like a pretty common setup from asking around.

  4. Everything will be in yen since it will be a waste of money for the company to deal with foreign currency

  5. Some gaishi employ Japanese people overseas then send them to Japan to manage stuff for a few years on their overseas salary.

    I had a friend who was basically totally against working for Japanese companies in that situation (he got paid US$100k a year as a manager at a foreign hotel in Kansai).

  6. Yen. Your salary may be *based* in another currency but in Japan, it will always be *paid* in yen.

  7. the only legal tender in japan is jpy

    (either those issued by the japanese central bank – you can damage those, or those by the ministry of finance – damaging them is a crime)

  8. So I have only ever been paid ten but I do have a friend who works for a company that does pay USD because it has all its contracts with the US Navy.

  9. At international organizations with offices in Japan (e.g. UN, IMF, World Bank…etc.), Japanese citizens who are considered “international staff” that rotate around the world and can be incidentally posted in the Japan office are paid in USD but have the option to deposit some or all of their salary in JPY at current exchange rates. Japanese local staff permanently based in Japan are paid in yen.

  10. Some people who take up a regional role get paid in USD, but definitely most are paid in yen

  11. It isn’t uncommon for gaishikei employees to be formally employed by an offshore entity of some kind (or a foreign parent company) with a secondment to the subsidiary in Japan, and then they may get two payments: one in yen from the Japanese employer to a Japanese bank account, and one in foreign currency from the foreign employer to a foreign bank account. They take out Japanese tax withholding from each yen payment, and then the employee has to file a kakutei shinkoku after the end of each year and pay taxes on their total income converted to yen (to the extent it’s taxable in Japan).

    This kind of arrangement is more common with foreign nationals who are transferred in on short-term assignments, but Japanese nationals at the executive level sometimes get this kind of package too.

  12. Obviously JPY. Think about it like this: If you worked at the Honda assembly plant in Alabama in the US, do you think they’d pay you in JPY or USD???

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