Japanese Version

　As written in my previous blog, revision in Pension Law will be enforced in April 2021, that will extend upper limit for calculation of lump sum withdrawal payment, from the current 3 years to 5 years. Scope of cases that the new upper limit of 5 years is applied is publicized at Japan Pension Service (JPS) web site in January 2021.

　As in JPS web site (in Japanese), scope of cases is as follows, to which the revised 5 year upper limit is applied.

• National Pension
  • A withdrawal application submitted in April 2021 or later by an applicant whose last month of paid contribution is April 2021 or later.
• Employee Pension
  • A withdrawal application submitted in April 2021 or later by an applicant whose last month of enrollment is April 2021 or later.
    • Note that the last month of enrollment is the previous month of the month that an exit date from pension program belongs to, and that an exit date is the following day of the last employment date. More specifically:
    • If your last employment date is April 29th 2021 or earlier, then your last month of enrollment is March 2021 or earlier, so that the old upper limit of 36 months (3 years) is applied.
    • If your last employment date is April 30th 2021 or later, then your last month of enrollment is April 2021 or later, so that the new upper limit of 60 months (5 years) is applied.

　In other words, the old 36 month (3 year) upper limit is applied to an applicant whose last month of paid contribution or of enrollment is March 2021 or earlier, even if lump sum withdrawal is applied in April 2021 or later.

References

• Revisions in Pension laws Enacted: Lump-sum Withdrawal – Upper Limit Extended to 5 years from 3 years in April 2021　(Blog post in this site)
• Japan Pension Service – Overview of Revision (PDF in Japanese)
• Japan Pension Service – Overview of Lump Sum Withdrawal (Web site in Japanese)

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