- There are two ways to claim, and the choice is made before you donate rather than after. Donating first and picking a route later is how people end up with neither.
- The one-stop exception has three conditions, all of which must hold. You are a salaried employee who does not otherwise need to file a tax return; you gave to no more than five municipalities in the year; and your application form reaches each of them by January 10 of the following year. Osaka City and Hiroshima City publish the first two, and both state that repeat donations to the same municipality count as one municipality. The January 10 arrival deadline appears in Kyoto City's completion example and on Sano City's pages.
- The exception changes the shape of the deduction, not just the paperwork. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications states that under the one-stop exception no deduction is made from income tax, and the equivalent amount comes out of residence tax instead. Everything is moved onto one side.
- The tax return route splits into three visible pieces: a deduction from income tax, a residence tax basic portion of 10 per cent, and a residence tax special portion that is capped at 20 per cent of your residence tax income levy. The applicable threshold amount is 2,000 yen, which you absorb either way.
- Filing a tax return cancels a one-stop application you have already sent. The National Tax Agency states this in its guidance on the deduction, and it applies even when the only reason you filed was a medical expense deduction. Hiroshima City and Nishitokyo City repeat it.
- If you take the return route, the certificate for the donation deduction is what makes it manageable. Furunavi issues it for download from your account page from January 10 of the year after the donation, generates it without a postal version, and covers only donations you made while logged in.
Once you have decided that furusato nozei makes sense for your tax position, one question remains and it is procedural. How do you actually claim the deduction? Japan gives you two mechanisms. They are not two ways of getting to the same place. They produce deductions of different composition, they have different deadlines, they fail in different ways, and one of them silently destroys the other if you use both.
Whether you have a deductible position at all is a separate question, and it is dealt with in the main article on furusato nozei for foreign residents. This page assumes you have settled that and are now choosing a route.
The reason this deserves a full article rather than a paragraph is that the default is wrong for a lot of foreign residents. The one-stop exception is presented everywhere as the easy option, and for a Japanese salaried employee who has lived in the same apartment for six years it genuinely is. The features that make it easy are the same features that make it fragile, and the fragility lands disproportionately on people whose address, employment and country of residence are all capable of changing inside a single year.
The two routes, described honestly
The one-stop exception is a substitute for filing. Instead of putting the donations on a tax return, you send a short application form to each municipality you gave to, and those municipalities pass the information to the municipality that levies your residence tax. You never deal with the tax office at all.
The tax return route is what it sounds like. You file a return, you enter the donations, and the deduction is calculated as part of the return. You need the receipts, or the consolidated certificate that replaces them.
Stated that way the exception looks obviously preferable. Fewer forms, no tax office, no filing season. Hold that thought until you have read what it does to the deduction itself.
The one-stop exception: the three conditions
You must not otherwise need to file a tax return
The exception exists for people whose tax is fully handled by their employer's year-end adjustment. Osaka City and Hiroshima City both state the condition in terms of a person who does not need to file an income tax return, typically a salaried employee.
This is a condition about your circumstances, not a preference you express. If something in your year obliges you to file, the exception is not available regardless of how much you would prefer it. Foreign residents hit this more often than average, because side income, income from outside Japan that is taxable here, and various one-off events all push people into filing.
No more than five municipalities
The exception is capped at five recipient municipalities in the year. Both Osaka City and Hiroshima City publish this, and both add the detail that saves a lot of people: repeat donations to the same municipality count as one municipality.
So three separate donations to one city is one municipality, not three. What matters is the number of distinct recipients across the calendar year, and it is a hard ceiling. Give to a sixth and the exception is gone for the whole year, not just for the sixth donation.
This is worth planning around, because the portals are built to encourage the opposite behaviour. Browsing by product rather than by municipality makes it very easy to accumulate recipients without noticing. If the exception is your plan, keep a list of municipality names, not a list of items.
January 10, and the word is "arrive"
The application form has to reach each recipient municipality by January 10 of the year following the donation. Kyoto City's completion example and Sano City's guidance both state it, and both frame it as an arrival deadline rather than a posting deadline.
That distinction is the whole point. A form posted on January 9 has not met the deadline unless it is in the municipality's hands by the tenth. For a December donation this leaves a genuinely short window, running through the New Year period when postal volumes are high and municipal offices are closed for several days.
The compressed part of the calendar is not the donation. It is the paperwork after it. A donation made on December 28 leaves under two weeks for a form to be completed, signed, accompanied by identity documents and physically delivered, across a holiday period. If you are donating late in December and intending to use the exception, treat the form as part of the same task rather than something to deal with in January.
What the exception does to your deduction
This is the part that almost never appears in an English summary, and it is the reason the choice is not simply about convenience.
Under the one-stop exception, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, income tax is left untouched: no deduction is taken from it, and an amount equivalent to the income tax deduction is subtracted from residence tax instead. The structure dates from the change that took effect on April 1, 2015, which is when the exception was introduced.
So the exception does not reduce your deduction. It relocates it. Where the return route takes part of the benefit out of income tax and part out of residence tax, the exception takes all of it out of residence tax.
For most people this is invisible. The total is the same and the money is the same money. It becomes visible the moment one of the two liabilities is uncertain, and for foreign residents the residence tax side is very often the uncertain one. It does not exist in a first partial year in Japan. It disappears if you are not resident on the following January 1. It is assessed by a specific municipality on the basis of a specific address, and an address change can disturb the assessment. Choosing the exception means choosing to place the entire benefit on that side.
If your departure from Japan is a realistic possibility within the deduction window, the interaction is severe enough to need its own treatment, and it is in the article on furusato nozei and leaving Japan. In short, an application assessed against a January 1 address is an application that a December move can undo.
What the tax return route actually gives you
The return route produces a deduction in three identifiable parts, as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications sets it out.
| Component | What it is |
|---|---|
| Income tax deduction | The donation, above the threshold, is treated as a donation deduction in your income tax calculation. |
| Residence tax basic portion | Ten per cent, applied to the donation above the threshold. |
| Residence tax special portion | The remainder, subject to a ceiling of 20 per cent of the residence tax income levy. |
| Applicable threshold amount | 2,000 yen. This is not returned under either route. |
The 20 per cent cap on the special portion is where the entire idea of an upper limit comes from. Below the point where the cap binds, the arithmetic behaves the way the promotional material describes it. Above that point the excess is simply a gift with no further tax effect. Nobody can tell you exactly where that point sits for you before the year has closed, and the ministry's published table of suggested amounts by income and family composition is described by the municipalities that reproduce it, Hashima City and Shizuoka City among them, as a guideline. What moves the figure, and the situations where it collapses to nothing, are covered in the article on the donation limit.
Two practical advantages of the return route are worth stating plainly. There is no ceiling on the number of recipient municipalities. And the deduction is not concentrated on residence tax, so an income tax deduction remains in play even in a year where your residence tax position is unusual.
Filing a return cancels a one-stop application you already sent
This is the single most damaging thing people do to themselves in this scheme, and it is done by accident, in good faith, months after the donation.
The National Tax Agency's guidance on the donation deduction states that where a person who has applied for the one-stop exception files an income tax return, the exception does not apply, and the donations must be entered on the return. Hiroshima City and Nishitokyo City publish the same point for their residents.
The reason for filing does not matter. The guidance specifically covers the case where the return was filed in order to claim a medical expense deduction. It is not an anti-avoidance rule and there is no notion of a good reason. Filing a return is the event that switches the exception off.
Reconstruct the sequence that catches people. You donate in October and post your one-stop forms in November. In March you file a return, because you had significant medical costs, or a small amount of other income, or you were told you might get something back. The return contains no mention of the donations, because you used the exception for those. The exception is now switched off and the donations are not on the return either. Nothing anywhere claims them.
The fix is mechanical: if you file a return for any reason at all, put the donations on it. That is why the receipts matter even when you believe you will never need them, and why keeping the paperwork is not optional under either route.
Which route fits which situation
| Your circumstances | The route that fits |
|---|---|
| Salaried, one employer, year-end adjustment done for you, no plans to file, stable address, gave to a handful of municipalities | The one-stop exception. This is the case it was designed for and there is no reason to make it harder. |
| You have any reason to file a return: other income, medical expenses, a first-year housing loan deduction, anything at all | The tax return. Do not send one-stop forms in parallel and hope. Filing cancels them. |
| You gave to more than five municipalities | The tax return. The exception is unavailable for the year once the sixth recipient is added. |
| Your address on the coming January 1 may not be the address on the form | The tax return, or at minimum an assumption that it will be your fallback. An address mismatch is a published ground for the exception not applying. |
| Your residence tax position for the following fiscal year is uncertain | The tax return, because it keeps an income tax deduction in play rather than resting the whole benefit on residence tax. |
| You are not sure yet | Stay under five municipalities and keep every receipt. That combination preserves both options until you have to decide. |
The last row is the practical advice for most readers of this site. Both routes remain open if you have not exceeded five recipients and you still have your documents. Neither can be recovered from a position where you have eleven recipients and no paperwork.
Decide the route first, then pick the municipalities
If the one-stop exception is your plan, the number of distinct recipients is the constraint to manage while you browse, and five is the ceiling. Furunavi is published in Japanese with no language switch, so it is easier to arrive with the decision already made than to work it out on the page. Keep a note of municipality names as you go rather than product names.
The document that makes the return route survivable
The traditional objection to filing is the paperwork: a separate receipt from every municipality, arriving on no particular schedule, each one needed at filing time. That objection is weaker than it used to be.
Furunavi issues a certificate for the donation deduction covering the donations recorded on your account. From January 10 of the year after you donated, it appears on your account page ready to download. It is produced for you rather than requested, no paper copy is sent out, and its coverage stops at donations placed while you were signed in.
Three consequences follow, and they are all decisions you make before donating rather than after.
Donate while logged in. A guest checkout produces a donation that the certificate will not cover, and you will be back to assembling paper. Use one account rather than several, because a certificate covers the account it belongs to. And keep the account reachable, including the registered email address, into the following January, since January 10 is when the document appears and not before.
The individual receipts are a different matter, and here the honest answer is that nobody will give you a date. Because the receipt is a document the municipality issues, Furunavi says it cannot answer questions about when delivery will happen. That is a straightforward position and it should shape your planning rather than worry you: do not schedule anything around a receipt arriving, and do not donate in the week before you change address. If you are moving inside Japan around the same period, the broader sequence of what has to be notified and when is in the checklist for moving within Japan.
Identity documents differ by route and by municipality
Both routes require you to establish who you are and to supply My Number information, and neither the portal nor this article can tell you exactly which documents your recipient municipality wants. The requirement is set by the municipality receiving the donation, so the list that governs your case is the one published on that municipality's own page.
This matters more than it sounds for foreign residents, because the guidance you are most likely to read first is the portal's, and portal guidance is written for the general case. The full treatment, including which municipalities publish the zairyu card as acceptable photo identification and what to do when a portal's list does not mention it, is in the article on documents and the zairyu card. Read it before you post a one-stop form, because a form rejected for identity documents in early January is a form that cannot be corrected in time.
How you pay, and why it matters for this decision
Furunavi accepts credit cards, along with Furunavi Money, Amazon Pay, PayPay, Rakuten Pay and d-barai, among other methods including bank transfer, and states that the available methods differ by municipality. Two donations made on the same afternoon can offer different options because they are going to different places.
Where you have the choice, a card or one of the smartphone payment services is the better fit for either route. The transaction completes inside the portal in one session, the record lands on your account with a fixed date attached, and that record is what the consolidated certificate is built from. Bank transfer, postal transfer, cash by registered mail and payment at a municipal counter all move part of the transaction outside the portal, which makes the trail harder to reconstruct at exactly the point in the calendar where you have least time.
One thing not to factor in at all is point rewards. Furunavi states that the awarding of Furunavi Coins for donations ended at the end of September 2025, and that donations made on or after October 1, 2025 are outside it even where a review is posted. Coins already held expire at the end of the month twelve months after they were granted. Choose your route on the tax mechanics and your payment method on the record it leaves.
A calendar, since both routes are deadline-driven
Through the autumn, keep a running list of recipient municipalities and stop at five if the exception is your plan. In December, finish donating early enough that forms can be completed rather than posted in a rush, and do not donate at all in the days before an address change. Through early January, get the one-stop forms into the hands of each municipality by January 10, remembering that arrival is the test. From January 10 onwards, the consolidated certificate is downloadable if you are going the return route. In the filing season that follows, if you file a return for any reason, put the donations on it, because filing has switched the exception off.
The one instruction that covers every branch of that calendar is to keep the paperwork. Both routes tolerate a change of plan if you still have your documents. Neither tolerates a change of plan if you do not.
FAQ
Can I use the one-stop exception and also file a tax return?
No, and this is the error that costs people the whole deduction. The National Tax Agency states that where someone who applied for the exception files an income tax return, the exception does not apply and the donations have to be entered on the return. It makes no difference why you filed, and it explicitly covers filing for a medical expense deduction. If you file, put the donations on the return.
What counts as five municipalities?
Five distinct recipients across the calendar year. Osaka City and Hiroshima City both state that repeat donations to the same municipality count as one municipality, so three donations to one city is one, not three. The count is what matters, and exceeding it removes the exception for the year rather than for the extra donation.
Is January 10 a posting deadline or an arrival deadline?
Arrival. Kyoto City's completion example and Sano City both frame the requirement as the form reaching the recipient municipality by January 10 of the year following the donation. Posting it on the ninth does not satisfy that. Since the period immediately before includes the New Year closure, a late-December donation leaves a genuinely tight window and the form should be treated as part of the donation rather than as a separate January task.
Does the one-stop exception give me a smaller deduction?
It changes where the deduction comes from rather than shrinking it. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications states that under the exception no deduction is made from income tax and the equivalent amount is deducted from residence tax instead. The practical significance is that the whole benefit then depends on a residence tax income levy being charged to you, which is a safe assumption for a long-term resident and much less safe for someone in a first partial year or with a departure in view.
What are the parts of the deduction on the return route?
Three. A deduction from income tax, a residence tax basic portion of 10 per cent, and a residence tax special portion which is capped at 20 per cent of your residence tax income levy. The applicable threshold amount is 2,000 yen and is not returned under either route. The cap on the special portion is the mechanism behind the widely quoted upper limit, and the published tables of suggested amounts are guidelines rather than a calculation of your figure.
I donated as a guest. Can I still use the consolidated certificate?
Not for that donation. Furunavi's certificate for the donation deduction covers donations made while logged in, is downloadable from the account page from January 10 of the year following the donation, and has no postal version. A guest donation sits outside the account record, so you will need the municipality's own receipt for it. Donating logged in, on one account, avoids the problem entirely.
When will my receipts arrive?
There is no published timescale and Furunavi says so directly: because the receipt is issued by the municipality, it cannot answer questions about when it will be delivered. Plan on the assumption that it arrives when it arrives. Photograph or scan each one on the day it comes, and avoid donating immediately before an address change, because a receipt posted to an address you have left is difficult to recover.
Which identity documents do I need?
Whichever ones the recipient municipality asks for. The requirement is set by the municipality receiving the donation, not by the portal, so the only list that governs your case is on that municipality's page. This matters if you are relying on a zairyu card, because portal guidance written for the general case does not necessarily mention it even where municipalities accept it. Check before you post a one-stop form, since there is no time to correct one after January 10.
Can I do all of this in English?
Not on the portal. Furunavi is published in Japanese only, with no language switch and no translated help pages, and the municipal forms are in Japanese as well. What works is understanding the route you have chosen before you open anything, so that you are recognising fields rather than deciphering them. The tax vocabulary is where machine translation is least reliable and where a mistake is most expensive.
If I change my mind, can I switch routes?
In one direction, easily. Sending one-stop forms and then filing a return moves you onto the return route, and the donations simply go on the return; that is the documented consequence of filing. Going the other way is not available, because the exception has a January 10 arrival deadline that does not reopen. Practically, keep to five municipalities or fewer and keep your receipts, and you retain the choice for as long as it is available at all.
Route settled, paperwork understood, now the easy part
If you are taking the exception, count municipalities rather than items and keep the January 10 arrival deadline in view from the moment you donate. If you are filing a return, donate logged in so the consolidated certificate covers everything. Either way, paying by card or a smartphone payment method keeps the record in one place, and the methods on offer depend on the municipality you choose.
