---
title: Japan's Labor Inspectors Find Violations at 70% of Visits
description: In 2024 Japan's labor inspectors visited 142,477 workplaces and found violations at 70.1%. That is 3.7% of all workplaces, picked from leads, not at random.
image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/covers-2026-10/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate-cover-en-2026-10.png
---

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

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[日本語](https://nobusato.jp/ja/blog/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate)[English](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate)[中文](https://nobusato.jp/zh/blog/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate)

Japan by the Numbers

In this article

1. [What is the 70% a share of?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate#s1)
2. [How do the inspectors pick the 142,477?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate#s2)
3. [What do they find?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate#s3)
4. [What happens when it's a foreign subsidiary](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate#s4)

[Japan by the Numbers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/tag/japan-by-the-numbers)

# Japan's Labor Inspectors Find Violations at 70% of Visits

The list is built from leads, not drawn at random

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)7 min read

Contents4

1. [What is the 70% a share of?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate#s1)
2. [How do the inspectors pick the 142,477?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate#s2)
3. [What do they find?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate#s3)
4. [What happens when it's a foreign subsidiary](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-labor-inspection-violation-rate#s4)

Japan's labor standards inspectors find something wrong at seven out of ten workplaces they visit. In 2024 the Labour Standards Inspection Offices made 142,477 regular inspections and recorded violations of labor standards laws at 99,906 of them, 70.1%. The rate has stayed near 70% for five years. Before you read that as "most Japanese companies break the law," look at who gets visited.

## What is the 70% a share of?

It is a share of the 142,477 workplaces the inspectors chose to visit, not of all companies in Japan. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's 2024 Labour Standards Inspection Annual Report counts three kinds of visit. Regular inspections, called teiki kantoku, were 142,477. Complaint inspections, triggered by a worker's report, were 20,557. Follow-up inspections to confirm corrections were 13,843. Together, 176,877 visits. The 70% figure refers only to the first kind.

Now the bigger denominator. The same report cites the 2021 Economic Census: 3,823,470 workplaces in Japan fall under the Labor Standards Act. Divide 142,477 by 3.82 million and you get about 3.7%. On average, a given workplace sees a regular inspection once every twenty-some years. The whole system runs on 3,122 inspectors as of fiscal 2024.

So the honest reading of 70.1% is this: where the inspectors decide to go, they find a problem seven times out of ten. It is not a compliance rate for Japanese business.

## How do the inspectors pick the 142,477?

Not at random. A 2017 briefing from the ministry's Labour Standards Bureau to a Cabinet Office working group lays out the process. Each office first gathers information about its district: consultations and complaints from workers, past inspection results, which companies have filed their Article 36 overtime agreements. It then analyzes that by industry, type of problem and type of worker, and sets priorities, such as workplaces with long hours or workplaces that never filed an Article 36 agreement. The bureau and the offices agree an annual inspection plan, and a monthly meeting adjusts the following month's targets.

The same briefing gives inspection rates by company size for 2015. Workplaces with 1 to 99 workers had a 3.0% chance of a regular inspection that year. For 100 to 299 workers it was 15.2%. For 300 or more, 23.6%. The bigger you are, the more often someone looks.

Industry matters too. Of the 142,477 inspections in 2024, construction accounted for 50,290, more than a third. Manufacturing had 30,379, commerce 19,526, health and welfare 11,766, transport 6,049. The violation rates differ: construction 64.6%, manufacturing 74.3%, commerce 71.8%, health and welfare 73.7%, transport 74.9%. Construction is inspected the most and has the lowest rate of the five. My reading is that regular inspections include visits after workplace accidents, and construction sites have more accidents, so inspectors go there more often regardless of other signals.

Two targeted programs show how much selection drives the rate. In 2024, inspections of 11,355 workplaces that host technical intern trainees found violations at 73.2%. In 2025, inspections of 4,123 workplaces employing truck, bus and taxi drivers found violations at 81.2%. The sharper the targeting, the higher the rate. The list is built from leads, and the inspectors go where problems are already likely.

## What do they find?

Under the Labor Standards Act, the two most common items are both about time records. The annual report shows 19,848 workplaces, 13.9% of those inspected in 2024, in violation on working hours (Article 32), and 18,784, 13.2%, on overtime premium pay (Article 37). After that come written statements of working conditions (Article 15) at 14,250 workplaces, 10.0%; annual paid leave (Article 39) at 12,648, 8.9%; work rules (Article 89) at 10,457, 7.3%; and wage ledgers (Article 108) at 9,032, 6.3%.

Safety and health items fall under a different law and are counted separately. The Tokyo Labour Bureau's 2024 results are a useful reference, and there safety standards and health checkups top the list: 14,195 workplaces inspected, 70.2% with violations, safety standards at 20.0%, health checkups 15.8%, working hours 15.5%, overtime pay 12.7%.

Seven in ten inspected workplaces had a violation, and the two most common Labor Standards Act items both come down to time records

Regular inspections in 2024. Violation items as a share of workplaces inspected (142,477), Labor Standards Act items only; safety and health law items are counted separately. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2024 Labour Standards Inspection Annual Report

The two items decided by time recordsOther items

**Workplaces with a violation**　out of 142,477 inspected

- Regular inspections99,906 with violations

  70.1%

**Most common items**　share of workplaces inspected

- Working hoursArt. 32, 19,848

  13.9%
- Overtime premium payArt. 37, 18,784

  13.2%
- Written working conditionsArt. 15, 14,250

  10.0%
- Annual paid leaveArt. 39, 12,648

  8.9%
- Work rulesArt. 89, 10,457

  7.3%
- Wage ledgersArt. 108, 9,032

  6.3%

The 70% describes the companies on the list. How the list is built tells you more than the 70%.

Figure 1. In 2024, Japan's labor standards offices made 142,477 regular inspections and found violations at 99,906 workplaces (70.1%); under the Labor Standards Act the most common items were working hours (19,848 workplaces, 13.9%) and overtime premium pay (18,784, 13.2%).

## What happens when it's a foreign subsidiary

The inspectors do not care who owns the shares. They care whether an Article 36 overtime agreement exists and has been filed, whether the company itself records start and finish times rather than relying on self-reports, and whether overtime pay is calculated from actual hours on the correct base wage. Most violations in the top two categories trace back to one of those.

The usual situation in a foreign subsidiary is not bad intent. It is that nobody owns the subject. The expatriate head is busy with the business, payroll is outsourced to a labor consultant, attendance runs on trust. Japanese employees say nothing, but they often keep their own records. Then someone resigns, files a complaint, an inspection follows, and several years of overtime get recalculated at once. I looked at what Japanese overtime numbers actually say in [Overtime in Japan: 13 hours a month, or 21?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-overtime-two-numbers?hsLang=en)

I wrote about what to settle in a new entity's first ninety days in [Set the rules in the first ninety days, or don't bother](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/set-the-rules-in-the-first-ninety-days?hsLang=en). In the inspector's frame it comes down to this: before the first employee starts, file the Article 36 agreement, record attendance with a clock-in system, and include allowances in the base for overtime pay. None of it costs much. Paying after an inspection means paying three years back.

One thing the annual report cannot answer. A violation rate that sits at 70% for five years could mean the inspectors are consistently good at picking targets, or it could mean small Japanese companies are generally loose about time management. I can't separate the two, and there is no random sample to compare against. What I can say is narrower: when the inspectors walk in, seven companies out of ten will be told to fix something. Starting from the denominator is the habit behind [Japan by the Numbers: Check Who Was Counted](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/guide-japan-by-the-numbers?hsLang=en).

This article is general information, not legal advice. For your company's working-hour management, Article 36 agreements or dealings with a labor standards office in Japan, consult a licensed labor and social security attorney (sharoushi) or a lawyer. Figures come from published Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and prefectural labour bureau materials, as of October 2026.

Sources (as of October 2026)

- [Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2024 Labour Standards Inspection Annual Report, 77th edition (inspection counts by type, industry and violation item; covered workplaces; inspector headcount)](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/roudoukijun/kantoku01/dl/r06.pdf)
- [Okinawa Labour Bureau, 2024 inspection results (January 30, 2026; includes the five-year national violation rate)](https://jsite.mhlw.go.jp/okinawa-roudoukyoku/content/contents/002547693.pdf)
- [Tokyo Labour Bureau, 2024 regular inspection results (December 9, 2025)](https://jsite.mhlw.go.jp/tokyo-roudoukyoku/content/contents/002488364.pdf)
- [Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Labour Standards Bureau, briefing to the task force on labor inspection (April 6, 2017; target selection and inspection rates by size)](https://www8.cao.go.jp/kisei-kaikaku/suishin/meeting/wg/roudou/20170406/170406roudou06.pdf)
- [Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, inspections of workplaces hosting technical intern trainees, 2024 (September 26, 2025)](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/001660601.pdf)
- [Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, inspections of workplaces employing commercial drivers, 2025 (August 6, 2026)](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/newpage_75192.html)
- [Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Working hours and days off (Article 36 agreements; guideline on recording working hours)](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/koyou_roudou/roudoukijun/roudouzikan/index.html)

---

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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