support & custody

January 10, 2018

Calculating child support in Japan

Calculating child support in Japan is done by comparing the total income of each of the child’s parents.  Therefore, how the total income of each parent is calculated is critical to determining how much child support will be paid.  To set an easy to use standard for determining total income, the  Japanese courts use parents’ tax returns to prove total income.  For parents who are employed by a company, the “paid amount” as shown on the tax return will be used as the parent’s total income.  For parents who are self-employed, the “taxable income” will be used as the total […]
May 22, 2017

Is there any way to prove paternity through the family court in Japan?

Normally, a child born in wedlock, or within 200 days of the start of a marriage, or 300 days from the dissolution of a marriage, will be presumed to be the child of the husband.  However, in the case of a child born outside of these circumstances the court may order a paternity test to determine the father of the child in order to assign responsibility for child support.
November 11, 2016

Can you participate in a Japanese family court mediation in English?

As international marriages and divorces increase in Japan, in order to lessen the difficulties for non-Japanese speaking spouses, most Japanese family courts are staffed with mediators that can speak English.  However, these mediators may be of varying levels of skill and sometimes it may be easier to bring an attorney or bi-lingual friend to the mediation to help interpret.  The court should be informed of this beforehand and in some cases the approval of the other spouse may be required.
October 24, 2016

Does the Japanese government provide any support for single parents?

Raising a child as a single parent is difficult for many reasons but one of the major hurdles is usually the economic strain of raising a child, or children, alone on a single income.  In order to ease the economic stress of single parents, the Japanese government offers single parents a Child Support Allowance.