Is It Legal to Get Paid for Job Referrals in Japan? (紹介代)

A friend messages you: “You know everyone — can you help me get a job at your company? I’ll pay you for it.” It feels harmless. You make the introduction, they get hired, and a thank-you envelope appears. So are job referral fees in Japan actually legal? The honest answer is: sometimes yes, often no, and the line sits much closer than most people expect. Japan regulates paid job introductions tightly under one main law, and getting it wrong can be a crime — not just an awkward conversation. This guide explains the rules in plain English so you can tell a legal 紹介代 (shōkaidai, an introduction or referral fee) from the kind that gets people arrested.

The law that governs job referral fees in Japan

Almost every question about paid job introductions in Japan comes back to one statute: the 職業安定法 (Shokugyō Antei Hō), usually translated as the Employment Security Act — we’ll call it the “ESA” from here. It’s Act No. 141 of 1947, and it’s been amended many times since, most recently to cover online job platforms. You can read the full text on the government’s law database, e-Gov 法令検索.

The ESA decides who is allowed to connect workers with jobs, and on what terms. It’s enforced by the 厚生労働省 (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, or “MHLW”) through the prefectural 労働局 (Rōdōkyoku, Labour Bureaus) and the 公共職業安定所 — the public employment offices everyone knows as Hello Work. If you want the government’s own plain explanation of job placement rules, the MHLW job-placement page is the right starting point. The core idea is simple: matching people to jobs is treated as a regulated activity, because in the past it was an area rife with exploitation.

Key terms, in plain English

The ESA uses a handful of similar-sounding terms that get mixed up constantly. The difference between them is exactly what decides whether you need a license — so it’s worth a minute to get them straight.

For the rest of this article, the term that matters most is 職業紹介 — job placement. That’s the act of mediating a hire between an employer and a seeker, and it’s the one the license rules are built around.

The general rule: license required, and the employer pays

Two rules sit at the heart of the ESA, and once you know them, most situations sort themselves out.

1. You need a license to do paid placement as a business

Running a fee-charging job placement business — 有料職業紹介事業 (yūryō shokugyō shōkai jigyō) — requires a license from the MHLW Minister under Article 30(1). And it’s not just paid work: even free placement done as a business generally needs a license or approval under Article 33. The takeaway is that “I only charge a little” or “I do it for free” doesn’t get you out of the licensing regime once you’re operating as a business.

2. Fees come from the employer — not the job seeker

This is the rule foreign job seekers most need to know. Under Article 32-3(2), a licensed agency generally may not collect a fee from the job seeker (求職者). The money comes from the employer (求人者) who posted the opening. So if anyone calling themselves a recruiter asks you to pay to be placed, treat it as a warning sign.

There are a few narrow exceptions where a small fee from the seeker is allowed — mostly historical job types: entertainers (芸能家), models (モデル), housekeepers (家政婦・家政夫), banquet servers (配ぜん人), cooks (調理師), and demonstration sales staff (マネキン). Even then it’s only a small reception fee — around ¥700, set by regulation — plus a separate carve-out for high earners (for example, people whose expected income tops about ¥7 million). These are the exceptions that prove the rule.

How much can a licensed agency charge the employer? Roughly two regimes apply. The 上限制手数料 (capped fee) is around 11% of the wages the worker is paid over the six months after placement. Alternatively, an agency can use the 届出制手数料 (filed fee), with a ceiling up to about 50% — though the real-world industry average tends to sit around 30–35%. These percentages move with the consumption tax, so treat them as “around” figures and check the current numbers in the MHLW fee guidelines (手数料要領, PDF).

Can a private individual take a 紹介代?

Here’s the question this whole article exists to answer. You’re not a company. You just introduced a friend to an opening, and they want to thank you with cash. Is that a crime?

The ESA only regulates placement done 「業として」 (gyō to shite, “as a business”). The MHLW’s own definition of “as a business” is doing the same act repeatedly or continuously, or doing it once with the intent to repeat it. So on paper, a genuine, isolated one-off introduction — helping one friend, accepting one modest thank-you — generally falls outside the licensing regime and isn’t treated as an illegal business. The MHLW spells out this “as a business” test in its operations manual (業務運営要領, PDF).

Please don’t read that as a safe loophole. It isn’t. The “intent to repeat” part is judged on the facts, not on what you tell yourself — so even a first introduction that you’ve set up as a little side income can already count as a business. And the moment any of the following appears, you’ve almost certainly crossed into running an unlicensed 有料職業紹介事業, which is a crime under Article 30 → Article 64 (up to 1 year imprisonment or a ¥1,000,000 fine):

• You repeat it, or clearly plan to — a second introduction, a “rate,” a pattern.
• You advertise it — posting “I’ll find you a job for a fee” anywhere makes it a service.
• You charge the job seeker — the exact thing licensed agencies are barred from doing.
• You actually supply the worker to labor under someone’s command — that’s 労働者供給 (worker supply, Article 44), which is more serious still.

So the realistic picture is this: an informal paid referral is high-risk, and the gap between “harmless favor” and “unlicensed placement business” is narrow and easy to cross without noticing. If you’re hoping to make introducing people a recurring source of money, assume you need a license — because you almost certainly do.

Employee referral bonuses (リファラル採用) and Article 40

This is the part that trips up the most companies. Plenty of employers in Japan run a リファラル採用 (referral hiring) or 社員紹介制度 (employee-introduction) program: refer someone who gets hired, receive a bonus. Is that legal? It can be — but only if it’s done a specific way.

Article 40 of the ESA says an employer recruiting workers may not give 報酬 (hōshū, a reward or compensation) either to its own employees who help recruit, or to a commissioned outside recruiter — except wages or salary (賃金・給料), or compensation approved under Article 36(2). Read in plain English: an employee-referral bonus is legal only if it’s paid as wages.

In practice, that means the bonus has to be written into the company’s 就業規則 (shūgyō kisoku, the work rules) or 賃金規程 (wage regulations), with the amount and conditions fixed in advance — which is also what the Labor Standards Act (労働基準法第89条) requires for anything paid as wages. A discretionary, off-the-books cash “thank-you” handed out at a manager’s whim, outside the wage system, is exactly what Article 40 prohibits. That violation is penalized under Article 65 — up to 6 months imprisonment or a ¥300,000 fine. (Note that’s Article 65, not Article 64; the heavier Article 64 penalty is for unlicensed placement.)

One more trap: if an employee’s “referrals” become frequent and business-like — say they’re effectively running a side recruiting operation — it can tip out of the Article 40 wages exception and into unlicensed 職業紹介, which carries the heavier Article 64 penalty. And because a compliant referral bonus is paid as wages, it lands on your payslip and is taxed like ordinary income, which is worth keeping in mind alongside the other money matters foreign residents juggle — like furusato nozei (hometown tax) for foreigners.

The legal ways to earn — the compliance ladder

If you genuinely want to earn money from connecting people to jobs, there are legitimate routes. Think of them as a ladder, from the heaviest license down to plain advertising.

A. Get a paid-placement license (有料職業紹介事業, Article 30)

You apply to your prefectural 労働局 for the MHLW license. The main requirements: net assets (基準資産額) of at least ¥5,000,000 (five million yen) and cash or deposits of at least ¥1,500,000 per office; a trained 職業紹介責任者 (a designated job-placement manager who completes the MHLW course — somewhere around three years’ relevant experience is commonly cited); and a proper office with privacy and personal-data safeguards. The license runs three years, then renews every five. You charge the employer (around 11% capped, or up to roughly 50% filed), and you can’t place workers into construction work (建設業務) or port-transport work (港湾運送業務). Your 労働局 lists the details — see, for example, the Osaka Labour Bureau’s license page.

B. Commissioned recruitment (委託募集, Article 36)

An employer can ask a non-employee third party to recruit on its behalf. If that recruiter is paid, the employer needs MHLW permission (許可) under Article 36(1) plus approval of the amount (認可) under Article 36(2). If the recruiter is unpaid, only a notification (届出) is required under Article 36(3). Paying an outside recruiter without that permission is illegal — Article 36(1) → Article 64.

C. Pay it as wages (own employees, Article 40)

The referral-bonus route covered above: legal when it’s wages set out in the work rules, not a cash handout.

D. Run a job board or send traffic (募集情報等提供)

Advertising openings is not the same as introducing a person, so it needs no placement license. The 2022 reform (effective October 1, 2022) widened this category to cover internet job media and created 特定募集情報等提供事業 — providers that collect job-seeker data — who must file a notification (届出) with the MHLW before operating. The practical line to remember: posting listings or sending traffic to an employer’s own jobs page is advertising (generally fine); individually matching a specific candidate to a specific opening for a fee is 職業紹介 (needs a license). One recent tightening: from April 2025, these information providers are banned from offering お祝い金 (“congratulations money”) to job seekers. The MHLW keeps the current rules on its recruitment-information page (募集情報等提供事業).

Foreign workers: separate regimes, and the broker problem

If you work with foreign staff, watch out for a common and costly misunderstanding. Being a 登録支援機関 (a registered support organization for 特定技能 / Specified Skilled Worker visa holders) or a 監理団体 (a supervising organization for the technical-intern and incoming 育成就労 systems) does not give you the right to place workers for a fee. Those are separate regimes with their own purposes — you still need a separate 有料職業紹介 license to introduce a foreign worker to an employer for money, as the MHLW makes clear in its guidance on placing foreign workers (PDF). Note too that dispatching a 特定技能1号 worker is generally not allowed; placement is allowed only with a license.

This is exactly where illegal brokers thrive, charging foreign workers enormous fees to “arrange” a job — and it’s a major enforcement focus, partly because a large share of foreign technical interns have reportedly been gathered through individual intermediaries. If you want to understand the system foreign workers are moving into and why broker oversight is tightening, see our explainer on Japan’s new ikusei shūrō (育成就労) foreign-worker system.

Penalties — and real enforcement

The ESA isn’t a paper tiger. Here’s what the key penalties look like (with one important update: as of June 1, 2025, Japan replaced its old 懲役/禁錮 prison terms with a single 拘禁刑, which we translate here simply as “imprisonment” — see the Ministry of Justice’s explainer on the new 拘禁刑 (PDF)):

• Article 64 — unlicensed paid placement (Article 30) or paid commissioned recruitment without permission (Article 36(1)): up to 1 year imprisonment or a ¥1,000,000 fine.
• Article 65 — improper recruiter compensation (Article 40) or false advertising: up to 6 months imprisonment or a ¥300,000 fine.
• Article 63 (the most severe) — recruiting through violence, threats or confinement, or for work harmful to public morals: 1 to 10 years imprisonment, or a ¥200,000–¥3,000,000 fine.
• Article 67 (両罰規定, dual liability) — when an employee or agent breaks these rules in the course of business, the company is punished too, not just the individual.

And these aren’t hypothetical. People have been arrested for repeatedly introducing workers to companies for a brokerage fee (仲介手数料) over the course of about a year — textbook unlicensed placement. There have been broker cases involving the illegal placement of foreign technical interns. Recruiting people for 闇バイト (“dark part-time work,” meaning illegal gigs) reportedly produced Japan’s first arrest under the ESA in autumn 2023. And the Tokyo Labour Bureau has issued business-suspension orders against unlicensed operators. The pattern is consistent: do it repeatedly, charge for it, or target vulnerable workers, and enforcement follows.

FAQ

My friend got a job through me — can I accept a thank-you fee?

A genuine one-off favor with a modest thank-you generally sits outside the licensing rules, because the ESA only catches placement done “as a business.” But this is not a reliable loophole: do it for pay repeatedly, advertise it, charge the job seeker, or set up even a first introduction as side income, and it becomes unlicensed placement — up to 1 year imprisonment or ¥1,000,000. The safest answer is to treat any paid referral as risky.

Isn’t my company’s employee-referral bonus illegal?

Not if it’s done correctly. A リファラル採用 bonus is legal when it’s paid as wages and written into the 就業規則 / 賃金規程 with the amount and conditions set in advance. An off-the-books, discretionary cash bonus outside the wage system can break Article 40, with a penalty under Article 65 (up to 6 months / ¥300,000).

How do I legally get paid to introduce workers?

Get a 有料職業紹介 license from your 労働局 (you’ll need at least ¥5,000,000 in net assets and a trained responsible person), and charge the employer — around 11% capped, or up to roughly 50% on the filed scale. You can’t bill the job seeker, and you can’t place construction or port-transport work.

Can a recruiter charge me, the job seeker?

Generally no. Under Article 32-3(2), licensed agencies collect their fee from the employer, not the seeker. The only exceptions are narrow, historical categories like entertainers, models, and housekeepers, and a carve-out for high earners. If a “recruiter” demands an upfront placement fee from you, be very cautious.

Is running a job board the same as job placement?

No. A job board is 募集情報等提供 — advertising openings — which needs no placement license, though you must file a 届出 if you collect job-seeker data. The line you can’t cross is individually matching a specific candidate to a specific job for a fee; that’s 職業紹介, and it needs a license.

The bottom line

Job referral fees in Japan are legal in clearly defined boxes — a licensed agency charging the employer, a referral bonus paid as wages, commissioned recruitment with permission, or a plain job board — and risky almost everywhere else. The instinct to take a quiet cash thank-you for “knowing a guy” is exactly where well-meaning people stumble into unlicensed placement. When in doubt, push the arrangement into one of the legal boxes, or don’t take the money. Your friendship — and your record — are worth more than a 紹介代.