# 中小企業退職金共済法 / Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Retirement Allowance Cooperative Act — 第十八条 (Article 18) This is the Markdown twin of https://japanlaw.org/en/sme-retirement-allowance-act/art-18. Every law, and how to address a provision: https://japanlaw.org/llms.txt. The same laws as MCP tools (no sign-in): https://japanlaw.org/mcp. - Law: 中小企業退職金共済法 (Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Retirement Allowance Cooperative Act), 昭和三十四年法律第百六十号 - English title "Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Retirement Allowance Cooperative Act": Ministry of Justice translation database, which lists the title - Kind: Act — the distinction between 法律 (Act), 政令 (Cabinet Order), 省令 (Ministerial Order) and 条例 (local ordinance) decides who may issue it and what it may say. - Provision: 第十八条 (Article 18)（掛金納付月数の通算） — address `art-18` - Text in force since: 2025-06-01 - URL (the page that opens at this provision): https://japanlaw.org/en/sme-retirement-allowance-act/art-18 - e-Gov law ID: 334AC0000000160 — never renamed. A permanent link, `/l/{lawId}/{address}` on this site, redirects to the page. - Every provision below carries its address and its URL on the line under it. - Japanese text: e-Gov 法令検索, Digital Agency (デジタル庁). English: as marked on each line below. Only the Japanese as published by the government has legal effect; the text below is a copy of it. Every English rendering below is a translation and says which kind: the Ministry of Justice's translation, or this site's machine translation, whose model and date the Sources list names. They are never merged and never substituted for one another. --- ### 第十八条（掛金納付月数の通算） — Aggregation of the Number of Months of Paid Premiums caption: machine translation, not official art-18 · https://japanlaw.org/en/sme-retirement-allowance-act/art-18 **第一項** 被共済者が退職した後三年以内に、退職金を請求しないで再び中小企業者に雇用されて被共済者（当該請求をしたとした場合にその者に支給されることとなる退職金に相当する額の全部又は一部が第三十一条第一項の規定により同項に規定する団体に引き渡された被共済者を除く。）となり、かつ、その者の申出があつた場合において、退職前に締結されていた退職金共済契約に係る掛金納付月数が十二月以上であるとき、又は当該掛金納付月数が十二月未満であり、かつ、その退職が当該被共済者の責めに帰すべき事由若しくはその都合（厚生労働省令で定めるやむを得ない事情に基づくものを除く。）によるものでないと厚生労働大臣が認めたときは、厚生労働省令で定めるところにより、前後の退職金共済契約に係る掛金納付月数を通算することができる。この場合において、退職金等の額の算定に関し必要な事項は、厚生労働省令で定める。 art-18/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/en/sme-retirement-allowance-act/art-18/par-1 Where, within three years after a covered employee's retirement, that person, without claiming a retirement allowance, is again employed by a small and medium-sized enterprise and becomes a covered employee (excluding a covered employee for whom all or part of the amount equivalent to the retirement allowance that would be paid to that person had that claim been made has been transferred, pursuant to the provisions of Article 31, paragraph (1), to the body prescribed in that paragraph), and that person has made an application, if the number of months of paid premiums under the retirement allowance mutual aid contract concluded before the retirement is 12 months or more, or if that number of months is less than 12 months and the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare finds that the retirement was not due to a reason attributable to that covered employee or to that covered employee's convenience (excluding that based on unavoidable circumstances specified by Order of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare), the numbers of months of paid premiums under the earlier and later retirement allowance mutual aid contracts may be aggregated, as provided by Order of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. In this case, the matters necessary for calculating the amount of the retirement allowance, etc. are specified by Order of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. machine translation, not official --- ## Cites - art-18/par-1: 第三十一条第一項 → 中小企業退職金共済法 第三十一条第一項 (Article 31, paragraph (1)), art-31/par-1 — https://japanlaw.org/en/sme-retirement-allowance-act/art-31/par-1 ## Cited by 4 provisions cite this one. No official source publishes this direction. - 中小企業退職金共済法 第八十六条第二項（船員に関する特例） — https://japanlaw.org/en/sme-retirement-allowance-act/art-86/par-2 - 中小企業退職金共済法 第八十六条第三項（船員に関する特例） — https://japanlaw.org/en/sme-retirement-allowance-act/art-86/par-3 - 中小企業退職金共済法 附則第六条第一項 — https://japanlaw.org/en/sme-retirement-allowance-act/suppl-3611-37/art-6/par-1 - 中小企業退職金共済法 附則第三条第一項（掛金納付月数の通算等に関する経過措置） — https://japanlaw.org/en/sme-retirement-allowance-act/suppl-4271-17/art-3/par-1 --- ## Sources - e-Gov 法令検索, Digital Agency (デジタル庁) — 中小企業退職金共済法 — the text in force from 2025-06-01 (https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/334AC0000000160/20250601_504AC0000000068), retrieved 2026-11-06 - Japanese Law Translation Database System, Ministry of Justice (法務省) — 中小企業退職金共済法 — its English title as the Ministry of Justice's translation database lists it (https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/1775), retrieved 2026-09-23 - claude-sonnet-5-5 — Machine translation, batch sme-retirement-allowance-act-20261106T173426-004, translated 2026-11-07 - This site's parser, version 225 — 中小企業退職金共済法 — structure, counts, cross-references and defined terms, computed 2026-11-06