Furusato nozei (ふるさと納税) lets anyone who pays Japanese income and residence tax — visa status is irrelevant — redirect part of next year's tax bill to regional municipalities, which thank you with local specialties worth up to 30% of the donation. Done within your personal limit, the whole exercise costs ¥2,000. It is the cheapest way there is to eat your way through the regions this site writes about.
Updated Aug 28, 2026, 12:00 AM
You donate to municipalities of your choice before December 31. The following year, the tax office gives almost all of it back: a slice as an income-tax refund, the rest carved off the residence-tax bills you would have paid from June onward. Everything you donated minus a flat ¥2,000 comes back — provided you stayed inside your personal deduction limit, which depends on your income and dependents.
The return gifts are the point of choosing one town over another. By regulation they are locally produced and capped at 30% of the donation, so a ¥10,000 donation to Yubari gets you roughly ¥3,000 of Yubari melon — paid for by tax you owed anyway.
Nothing here requires more Japanese than an online checkout.
Use the estimator below for a rough ceiling, then knock 10–20% off if you claim iDeCo, a housing loan or large medical deductions. Donations beyond the ceiling are pure donations — generous, but not what you came for.
Pick municipalities and their gifts, pay online. The payment date decides which tax year the donation belongs to; late December orders should not be left to the last evening.
If you donate to five or fewer municipalities and have no other reason to file a tax return, tick the One-Stop Exception box when donating; each municipality sends a one-page form that must arrive back at their office by January 10. Otherwise, list the donations in an ordinary tax return (mid-February to March 15).
A return filer sees an income-tax refund within weeks; everyone sees the residence-tax bill from June shrink. The June statement from your employer or city hall itemises the credit, so you can verify to the yen.
Eligibility has nothing to do with nationality or visa type and everything to do with paying Japanese tax. If income tax comes out of your salary and you are billed residence tax, the scheme is yours to use. What you need: a taxable income (roughly ¥2M+ a year before it becomes worthwhile), donations made in your own name — the name on the payment must be the taxpayer's, not a spouse's — and either the one-stop form or a tax return.
What you do not need: permanent residence, a Japanese spouse, or reading ability beyond an online shop's checkout. Municipalities post the forms; the portals handle the rest.
A two-input estimate for salary earners, matching the official reference table within a few percent. Your real ceiling moves with every deduction you claim.
Estimated annual ceiling
An estimate for salary income only, assuming ~15% social insurance and no other deductions. iDeCo, housing-loan and medical deductions all lower the real ceiling. Where it matters, verify with a full simulator or your tax office, and round down.
Municipalities credit the person named on the donation. Pay from a partner's account or a shared card in their name, and the deduction belongs to someone who may owe too little tax to use it.
Five municipalities or fewer; no other reason to file a return (a second income or medical claim voids it — then declare the donations in the return instead, including the one-stop ones); and each form must reach the municipality by January 10. Miss any of the three and the fallback is simply filing.
A ministry rule now bans portals from awarding shopping points on donations. Older English blog posts still sell the points angle; choose by gift and by region, because that is what remains.
Housing-loan credits, iDeCo and big medical deductions quietly shrink it. The estimate above is the optimistic end; staying ¥5,000–¥10,000 under it is the comfortable habit.
Every donation portal lists broadly the same municipalities. We link Rakuten's listings because most residents already hold the account, the checkout is the ordinary Rakuten one, and the donations sit in your order history like any purchase — one less unfamiliar system in a paperwork-heavy scheme. The listings are in Japanese; your browser's translation handles the descriptions, and the checkout is the part you already know.
Below, each prefecture links straight to its donation listings — the same regions whose crafts and foods the rest of this site documents. If you have read about a place here, its return gifts are the taste of the same terroir.
Browse all furusato nozei listings →
Japanese · opens in a new tab on Rakuten
Pick a region you have a connection to — or one whose products you got curious about here.
Japanese · opens in a new tab on Rakuten
Yes. Eligibility depends on paying Japanese income and residence tax, not on nationality or visa type. Any resident taxpayer — work visa, student with taxable income, permanent resident — can donate and claim the deduction. Tourists and anyone not paying Japanese residence tax get no benefit.
¥2,000, flat, per year — not per donation — as long as you stay within your personal deduction limit. Donate beyond the limit and the excess is a plain donation with no refund.
Donations count for the calendar year in which payment completes, so December 31 is the cutoff. One-Stop Exception forms must then reach each municipality by January 10; a tax return, if you file instead, is due mid-March.
Enough to complete an online checkout, which existing Rakuten users already manage. The one-stop form is a single page — name, address, MyNumber, two checkboxes — and machine translation covers it comfortably.
The main credit needs you registered as a resident on January 1 after the donation year. Leave before then and it is lost — only the small income-tax portion can be recovered through a final return. Treat your last year in Japan as a no-furusato year unless you are happy donating.
File a return and the income-tax slice refunds within weeks; the larger residence-tax credit arrives as smaller bills from the following June through May. One-stop users receive everything through the residence-tax route.