Health Insurance & Pension

The MEXT Mutual Aid Association: Employment Health Insurance and Pension System

Researchers on full-time contracts are enrolled in both MEXT’s “Mutual Aid Association” (文部科学省共済組合, Monbukagakusho Kyosai Kumiai) health insurance and pension schemes.

Payments are automatically deducted from your salary. While insurance premiums are determined by the employee’s salary, they constitute roughly 15% of one’s monthly salary.

Health Insurance

Once enrolled, employees are only required to pay 30% of the cost of their medical bills (including dental).

Pension

The National Pension system is a basic public pension system which is designed to provide people with the common pension benefits. These benefits are called "Basic Pension” (Kiso Nenkin 基礎年金).

The Employees’ Pension Insurance (EPI 厚生年金) system provides “earning-related pension” on top of the Basic Pension. All full-time employees at UTokyo and other national universities are enrolled in MEXT Mutual Aid Associations Pension Plan (“Kyosai”), which consists of EPI and National Pension.

If you are non-Japanese and you have a short coverage period under the National Pension system or the Employees' Pension Insurance system (Kyosai), you can apply for lump-sum withdrawal payments. Once you are certain that you are no longer covered by these pension systems, you may file the application for the payments within two years of leaving Japan.

〉For more information 

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Mutual Aid Association

3.9　Employment Health Insurance and Pension System　…便利帳 Guide Book - For_foreign_reseachers

便利帳 Guide Book - Lump-sum_Withdrawal_Payments(Japanese Only)

Last updated : October 09, 2025