---
title: "Transfers in Japan: How Employers Decide Who Moves"
description: Japanese employers can usually order a transfer without consent. Disputes start when they skip the weeks between the naiji and the formal order. Cases and data.
image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/covers-2026-10/can-you-refuse-a-transfer-in-japan-cover-en-2026-11.png
---

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en?hsLang=en)

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Organizations & Hiring

In this article

1. [How much power does a Japanese employer have to transfer staff?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/can-you-refuse-a-transfer-in-japan#s1)
2. [The contract you signed at hiring sets the limits](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/can-you-refuse-a-transfer-in-japan#s2)
3. [Family care is where the line has moved](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/can-you-refuse-a-transfer-in-japan#s3)
4. [What companies do between the naiji and the order](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/can-you-refuse-a-transfer-in-japan#s4)
5. [What a refusal costs the company](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/can-you-refuse-a-transfer-in-japan#s5)

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3. [Organizations & Hiring](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/tag/organizations-hiring)

# Transfers in Japan: How Employers Decide Who Moves

How companies choose who moves

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)8 min read

Contents5

1. [How much power does a Japanese employer have to transfer staff?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/can-you-refuse-a-transfer-in-japan#s1)
2. [The contract you signed at hiring sets the limits](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/can-you-refuse-a-transfer-in-japan#s2)
3. [Family care is where the line has moved](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/can-you-refuse-a-transfer-in-japan#s3)
4. [What companies do between the naiji and the order](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/can-you-refuse-a-transfer-in-japan#s4)
5. [What a refusal costs the company](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/can-you-refuse-a-transfer-in-japan#s5)

In Japan, an employer can usually order a transfer without the employee's consent. That is exactly why transfers go wrong. Companies lean on the legal power and skip the weeks between the informal notice and the formal order, which is where most disputes are actually decided.

At many Japanese companies, transfers follow a set rhythm. A draft of April's moves takes shape on the org chart early in the year. Then comes the naiji (内示), an informal heads-up from the manager. A few weeks later the formal order (辞令) is issued. What the company does between those two moments matters more than the order itself.

## How much power does a Japanese employer have to transfer staff?

A lot. If the work rules allow transfers and the contract doesn't limit the work location, the employer can order a move without individual consent. The leading case is Toa Paint, decided by the [Supreme Court of Japan on 14 July 1986](https://www.courts.go.jp/app/files/hanrei_jp/925/062925_hanrei.pdf). It held that an order is an abuse of rights, and void, only when:

- there is no business necessity;
- there is a necessity, but the real motive is improper;
- the disadvantage to the employee goes well beyond what an employee should normally be expected to accept.

The necessity bar is low. The court said it doesn't mean "nobody else could do this job." Anything that contributes to running the business rationally counts. Filling a vacancy, giving someone broader experience, or not leaving people at one site for too long would usually qualify.

The disadvantage bar was high. The employee in Toa Paint lived with his 71-year-old mother, his wife had just started work at a daycare, and they had a two-year-old daughter. The court still found the disadvantage acceptable.

So if the only question is "can we order this?", the answer is usually yes. Trouble starts when a company lets that answer replace the process.

## The contract you signed at hiring sets the limits

For any employment contract concluded on or after 1 April 2024, the employer must state in writing the initial workplace and duties, and also their "scope of change", meaning the range of places and jobs the employee could be moved to later ([MHLW, 2024 rules on stating working conditions](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/newpage_32105.html)). Fixed-term contracts need it at every renewal. For open-ended contracts signed before April 2024, the ministry's Q&A says the employer doesn't have to reissue it.

Read that next to the Supreme Court ruling of 26 April 2024 ([Shiga Prefecture Social Welfare Council case](https://www.courts.go.jp/app/files/hanrei_jp/928/092928_hanrei.pdf)). A technician of about 18 years was moved to a general-affairs post. The court held that where the parties agreed to limit the job type, the employer has no power to order a transfer outside it without the employee's individual consent. The abuse test never comes up, because the power doesn't exist. That case was about job type. My reading is that the same logic applies to an agreed location limit.

From the employer's side, the "scope of change" field in the Notice of Working Conditions is a decision about transfers years away, made on the day you hire. "Any location designated by the company" keeps your options open. A named city creates room for the employee to argue that moving them elsewhere needs their consent. I suspect a narrow scope helps hiring for some roles, but I haven't found data to show it. Whether courts will treat a stated scope as a binding location limit is also unsettled. The cases haven't piled up yet.

## Family care is where the line has moved

Article 26 of the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act says that when a relocation would make it hard for an employee to raise a child or care for family, the employer must take that situation into account ([e-Gov](https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/403AC0000000076)). It doesn't ban the transfer. It asks whether the employer found out the facts, listened, and looked at alternatives.

In the Nestlé Japan case, the Osaka High Court in April 2006 voided transfer orders for two employees who were caring for family members. And since 1 October 2025, employers must ask each employee individually about their preferences, including work location, and take them into account. This applies when an employee reports a pregnancy or birth, and again before the child turns three ([Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/seisakunitsuite/bunya/koyou_roudou/koyoukintou/ryouritsu/ikuji/law-amendment)).

Not asking is now a failure in itself. A useful exercise when a name goes onto the draft: write down what the company actually knows about that person's life, and what it doesn't. The second list is usually longer.

## What companies do between the naiji and the order

A naiji isn't defined by any statute. It is an advance notice, and the binding instruction is the formal order that follows. An employee who asks for time, or explains a family situation, isn't being insubordinate.

Toa Paint followed exactly this sequence. In September 1973 the sales employee was sounded out about Hiroshima and said no. He was offered Nagoya and said no again. A formal Nagoya order came on 30 October. He refused it and was dismissed for misconduct the following January. The court treated his refusal of the formal order as the ground for discipline. Seen from the employer's side, the company had two chances to listen before it ever gave an order.

Most large employers do listen. A 2016 survey by the [Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JILPT)](https://www.jil.go.jp/kokunai/blt/backnumber/2017/10/021-033.pdf) got answers from 1,852 companies with 300 or more regular employees, 1,133 of which transfer staff.

Only 3.2% of companies move staff with serious family reasons as planned

1,133 companies that transfer staff. Measures taken when an employee has sufficient family reasons and cannot accept a transfer (multiple answers). 1,852 companies with 300+ regular employees responded. JILPT survey on corporate transfers, 2016

**When the employee can't relocate**　what the company does

- Take them off the transfer list in advance

  64.7%
- Delay the transfer, then move them

  40.9%
- Move them to a nearby site instead

  22.9%
- No measure, transfer as planned

  3.2%

Hearing people out after the naiji is standard practice. Most companies already do it.

Figure 1. In JILPT's 2016 survey (multiple answers), when an employee had sufficient family reasons and could not relocate, 64.7% of the 1,133 companies that transfer staff took them off the list in advance, 40.9% delayed the move and 22.9% sent them to a nearby site; only 3.2% transferred them as planned with no measure.

83.7% had a way for employees to raise family circumstances. Across all respondents, 64.1% paid a monthly allowance for staff relocating without their family (tanshin funin) and 55.1% paid for trips home. The survey is from 2016, so today's numbers may differ. The point holds anyway. Timing, expected length, allowances and trips home have long been on the table at most of these companies.

As a process, it looks like this. After the naiji, get the employee's situation as facts. Who needs care, how often, and what the employee does for them. Which daycare or school, and what a move would break. "Family reasons" on its own gives HR nothing to work with, so the person asking has to draw out the specifics. Consider alternatives, write down what you heard and what you decided, and only then issue the order. In my reading, that record is where Article 26's duty of consideration ends up being tested.

## What a refusal costs the company

Refusing a valid order without good reason breaches a work instruction, and discipline can follow, up to dismissal as in Toa Paint. A dismissal still has to be objectively reasonable and socially appropriate, so one refusal doesn't automatically make it lawful. As I wrote in [a look at Japan's labor tribunal cases](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-labor-tribunal-cases?hsLang=en), about 70% end in mediation. Even if the company wins, the seat it wanted filled stays empty for months.

The quieter loss is the person who goes. Someone who moves unwillingly and quits a year or two later will rarely write "the transfer" on the exit form. That is the same gap I described in [why exit surveys never tell you why people left](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/why-exit-surveys-lie?hsLang=en).

In the [four-layer model](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/method-four-layers?hsLang=en), a transfer mostly hits the context layer. Core and equipment don't change overnight. The manager, the customers and the distance from family all change at once. When choosing who to move, look at how much strain that person's context can take, separately from how good they are.

Most of whether a transfer gets refused is settled long before the order. One line written into the contract on hiring day, and whether anyone asked about the employee's life after the naiji. Those are the two places a company actually controls.

This post is general information as of November 2026, not legal advice on any specific situation. Before issuing a transfer order or considering discipline for a refusal, consult an employment lawyer or a licensed labor and social security attorney (sharoshi) in Japan.

Sources (as of November 2026)

- [Supreme Court of Japan, Second Petty Bench, 14 July 1986 (Toa Paint case)](https://www.courts.go.jp/app/files/hanrei_jp/925/062925_hanrei.pdf)
- [Supreme Court of Japan, 26 April 2024 (Shiga Prefecture Social Welfare Council case)](https://www.courts.go.jp/app/files/hanrei_jp/928/092928_hanrei.pdf)
- [MHLW, revised rules on stating working conditions (April 2024)](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/newpage_32105.html)
- [e-Gov, Child Care and Family Care Leave Act (Article 26)](https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/403AC0000000076)
- [MHLW, amendments to the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act (April and October 2025)](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/seisakunitsuite/bunya/koyou_roudou/koyoukintou/ryouritsu/ikuji/law-amendment)
- [JILPT, survey on corporate transfers (Business Labor Trend, October 2017)](https://www.jil.go.jp/kokunai/blt/backnumber/2017/10/021-033.pdf)

---

Author

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)

Launching in Japan, starting with people and systems. I write about building organizations, sales teams and technology organizations in Japan, in English, Japanese and Chinese.

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