What makes Japanese HR unique
Japanese HR has a fundamentally different structure from global HR. Four mandatory elements:
1. **My Number (マイナンバー)**: A 12-digit citizen ID. Collection, encrypted storage, and use-limitation are legal obligations 2. **Year-end tax adjustment (年末調整)**: Concentrated work Oct–Dec 3. **Social insurance (社会保険)**: Health, pension, employment, workers' comp, with e-filing at hire/leave 4. **Pay slips (給与明細)**: Monthly electronic pay-slip generation
Global HR (BambooHR, Workday, etc.) handles none of these.
Criteria
- **My Number collection + encrypted storage**
- **Year-end adjustment automation** (employee self-entry → aggregation)
- **Social insurance e-filing** (e-Gov integration)
- **Automatic pay-slip generation** + bank transfer integration
- **Affordable plans for teams under 20**
- **freee/Yayoi accounting integration**
Picks
SmartHR Leader in Japanese SMB/mid-market HR. Integrates social insurance e-filing, year-end portal, My Number management. From low tens of thousands JPY/month for a 20-person team.
freee HR (freee 人事労務) Native pairing with freee accounting. Especially popular with startups. Clean UI.
jinjer Modular attendance/payroll/year-end. Pay only for what you need.
Kaonavi (カオナビ) Talent management (skills, performance, career paths). Stronger on HR management than payroll.
Jobcan Attendance/shift specialist. Payroll is a separate module.
HRMOS / HRBrain Evaluation, 1:1s, surveys — HR management layer.
Common stacks
- **Seed to 10 people**: freee HR (or SmartHR) + freee accounting
- **10–50 people**: SmartHR + jinjer attendance + Kaonavi
- **50+ people**: SmartHR + Kaonavi + HRMOS
Pitfalls to avoid
- My Number in Excel: legal violation. HR SaaS or dedicated vault required
- Starting year-end adjustment in November: set up at least from September
- Running paper-based filing alongside: without e-Gov integration, you do the work twice
Japanese HR has many "small but mandatory" requirements. You always need at least one local HR SaaS from day one.