Search

Search provisions, jump to a law or an article

Labor Contracts Act

労働契約法（ろうどうけいやくほう）

The rules of the individual labor contract: how it is formed and changed, and when a dismissal is void.

Text in force since
Promulgated
Articles
21
Amendments on the way
0
Read the textOpen on e-Gov

What this law does

  • A labor contract is formed when the worker agrees to work under the employer and the employer agrees to pay wages for that work.(Art. 6(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
Read the full overview
  • Where an employer has made work rules with reasonable working conditions known to workers, those rules become the terms of a contract being concluded, except for terms the parties agreed differently — and an agreed term worse than the work rules is replaced by the rules. An employer cannot worsen a worker's contract terms by changing the work rules without the worker's agreement, unless the changed rules are made known and the change is reasonable, judged by the disadvantage to workers, the need for the change, the content of the new rules and negotiations with the union; terms the parties agreed the rules could not change stay as agreed.(Art. 7(1), Art. 9(1), Art. 10(1), Art. 12(1), Art. 13(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
  • A dismissal that lacks objectively reasonable grounds and is not considered appropriate in general social terms is an abuse of right and void.(Art. 16(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
  • A worker whose two or more fixed-term contracts with the same employer add up to more than five years can, before the current contract ends, apply for a contract without a fixed term, and the employer is deemed to accept. The new contract starts when the current one ends, on the same terms apart from the fixed period unless otherwise agreed. A gap of six months or more between contracts (less for short contracts) restarts the count.(Art. 18(1), Art. 18(2)) (the provisions it rests on)
Article 1 states the law's own purpose
Forming a contractWork rulesDismissalFixed-term work

Contents

21 41 5 4 9

Amendments

A Japanese law is changed by another law or order that rewrites it — an . No amendment to this law is waiting to come into force. Its amendment history is below. The amendments this site has read the changes of are on this law's amendments page, provision by provision, in Japanese and English.

4 amendments already in force

Who it applies to

It applies to

  • Workers — anyone who works under an employer and is paid wages — and the employers who pay them.(Art. 2(1), Art. 2(2)) (the provisions it rests on)

It does not apply to

  • National and local public servants.(Art. 21(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
  • Labor contracts where the employer employs only relatives who live with it.(Art. 21(2)) (the provisions it rests on)
Special rules and exceptions (1)
  • Seafarers covered by the Mariners Act: Article 12 and the chapter on fixed-term contracts do not apply to them, and several other articles apply with the Mariners Act in place of the provisions they cite.(Art. 20(1), Art. 20(2)) (the provisions it rests on)
How it is enforced (1)
  • Its provisions state what holds between employer and worker — a dismissal is void, work rules become the terms of a contract — rather than duties backed by penalties.(Art. 16(1), Art. 7(1)) (the provisions it rests on)

How it connects to other laws

Cites this lawLawThis law cites it

It also names 5 laws not yet held here.

Where the translation comes from

  • 57
  • 18

The Ministry of Justice's translation is shown only where the Japanese it translates matches the law in force today. Everywhere else the English is a machine translation, marked on the paragraph itself.

Only the Japanese is the law, and no lawyer has reviewed the machine translation.

Sources

Everything this page rests on

  • e-Gov (Digital Agency)労働契約法 — the text in force from 2020-04-01Original
  • e-Gov (Digital Agency)労働契約法 — revision historyOriginal
  • Japanese Law Translation, Ministry of JusticeLabor Contracts Act — Ministry of Justice translationOriginal
  • Machine translation, not official
  • Written for this site with AIEnglish titles of amending laws, written for this site
  • Written for this site with AIDescriptions of each law, written for this site
  • Worked out by this site from e-Gov's text