Offices in Japan typically run 09:00–18:00 local time, Monday to Friday. That is about 45 hours a week across 5 working days. Nine to six is the conventional office day, and overtime is common on top of it.
We use the time zone your browser reports. Change it if that is not where you work — the hours below are yours, not UTC.
The Labor Standards Act sets the limit at eight hours a day and 40 a week. Anything beyond is lawful only under a written labour-management agreement filed with the labour inspectorate, known as a "36 agreement" after Article 36. Since April 2019 (April 2020 for smaller firms) that overtime is capped at 45 hours a month and 360 a year, with exceptional ceilings of 720 a year and under 100 in any month.
Four national holidays fall between 29 April and 5 May — Shōwa Day, Constitution Memorial Day, Greenery Day and Children's Day — and with the weekends around them many firms close for a week, known as Golden Week. Mid-August brings Obon, which is not a national holiday but is when many companies close for several days. Both are poor weeks to expect an answer from Tokyo.
Source: Cabinet Office, Government of Japan — National holidays (国民の祝日)
The law requires a break of at least 45 minutes in a day over six hours and an hour in a day over eight, and it must by default be given to everyone at the same time. In practice most offices stop from 12:00 to 13:00 together. For a European caller that hour is early morning and irrelevant; for Sydney or Singapore it falls inside the only overlap there is.
Source: Labor Standards Act (労働基準法), art. 34 (e-Gov law search)
Hours you share with Japan, computed from each country's own working day rather than a blanket nine-to-five.
Japan keeps the Saturday and Sunday weekend, so the days line up with most of Europe and the Americas.
The day also runs later than the nine-to-five most tools assume: 09:00–18:00 rather than 09:00–17:00.
A national convention for offices. Individual employers, shift work and retail vary.
Times, offsets and sun positions on this page are computed live from the IANA timezone database and the NOAA solar algorithm, so they do not depend on the review dates below.
09:00–18:00 local time is the usual office day, about 9 hours. Nine to six is the conventional office day, and overtime is common on top of it.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. The rest days are Saturday and Sunday.
No. Saturday is a rest day in Japan.
No. Sunday is a rest day in Japan.
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