Do You Have to File Crypto Tax in Japan? 200,000 Yen Rule

The single most common entry point into Japanese crypto tax is not "how much will I owe" but "do I have to file at all". The answer for most salaried people turns on one figure, and on a distinction that catches almost everyone: the figure is about income, not about how much you withdrew to your bank.

The rule itself

NTA Tax Answer No.1900, which lists the salaried employees who must file an income tax return, includes a person whose combined total of salary income not covered by year end adjustment and other categories of income exceeds 200,000 yen. Crypto profit is one of those other categories. The same page separately requires a return from anyone whose annual salary income exceeds 20,000,000 yen, regardless of the 200,000 yen figure.

So the ordinary case is: one employer, year end adjustment done by that employer, salary under the higher threshold, and crypto profit for the calendar year of 200,000 yen or less. That person is not required to file an income tax return on account of the crypto.

What the 200,000 yen is measured on

This is where people get it wrong, in both directions.

The measure is your crypto income for the year, which is gross revenue minus the cost of what you disposed of and the expenses directly required for the disposal. It is not your total sale proceeds, and it is not the amount you moved to your bank account. Someone who sold 3,000,000 yen of Bitcoin that cost 2,950,000 yen has 50,000 yen of income, not 3,000,000 yen.

Going the other way: leaving the money on the exchange changes nothing. In Japan a crypto to crypto swap is itself a taxable disposal valued in yen, so a year of active trading with no fiat withdrawal at all can easily produce more than 200,000 yen of income. So can staking, mining and lending rewards, which under FAQ section 1-7 are brought into gross revenue at their market value at the time of receipt.

The trap: this is an income tax rule only

No.1900 is a page about who must file an income tax return. It says nothing about resident tax. Resident tax is administered by your municipality on its own terms, and the 200,000 yen line does not automatically carry across to it. If your crypto income for the year is under 200,000 yen and you therefore skip the income tax return, check your city or ward office's own filing requirement rather than assuming there is nothing to do.

If you do have to file

Crypto profit is reported in the annual final return as miscellaneous income. Japan's tax year is the calendar year, and the filing window for the previous year runs roughly from 16 February to 15 March. Miscellaneous income is aggregated with your other income and taxed at progressive national rates of 5% to 45% plus a flat 10% resident tax, so the effective ceiling is around 55%.

Two consequences follow from that structure. First, a crypto gain can push part of your salary into a higher bracket, so the marginal cost of the gain is not the rate you paid last year. Second, a loss is not a shield: under FAQ section 2-11, a loss arising in the computation of miscellaneous income cannot be offset against salary or other income, because the Income Tax Act limits offsetting to real estate, business, forestry and capital gains income.

Records to keep even if you do not have to file

Being under the threshold this year does not make the year disappear. Your acquisition cost carries forward, so the year you sell properly is the year that needs this year's records.

• The annual transaction report from each Japanese exchange. FAQ section 2-7 describes it as the primary way to establish purchase and sale amounts for domestic exchange activity.
• For overseas exchanges and person to person trades, bank statements and trade history, which is the fallback the same section describes.
• The date and yen value of every reward received.

If the history is already gone, FAQ section 2-7 permits treating the acquisition cost of a sold crypto asset as 5% of the sale price. That is a backstop, not a plan, and it is almost always worse than real records.

Our Japan crypto tax guide covers the calculation in full, and crypto tax reports shows what a filing ready set of numbers looks like.

General information, not tax advice. Verify current figures and your own position with the National Tax Agency or a qualified tax professional.