Best Time to Hire a Chef From Japan: Calendar and Plan

The single fact that should change your recruiting behaviour: restaurant bonuses in Japan average only 0.40 to 0.46 months of pay, and barely half of establishments pay one at all, so a bonus rarely blocks a chef from moving. What does affect timing is Golden Week and the year-end period, when replies slow and offices close, Japan's two-week statutory notice period (plan for longer in practice), and whichever visa's lead time you are working against. This page gives the dates we could verify and a worked backward plan from a fixed start date.

1. Bonus months rarely block a move

The common assumption is that a chef in Japan waits for a bonus before resigning. In the restaurant sector, MHLW's Monthly Labour Survey shows that assumption mostly does not hold: in the eating and drinking services industry, only 50.9% of establishments paid a summer bonus in 2025 and 51.3% paid a year-end bonus, and at the establishments that did pay, the average came to 0.40 months of regular pay in summer and 0.46 months at year-end (¥78,097 and ¥90,551 per worker). For comparison, all-industry averages at paying establishments were roughly five times larger (¥426,337 and ¥424,889), which is the figure most people have in mind when they assume bonus timing matters.

So for most cooks, waiting for a bonus costs little and a move is not obviously timed around one. It matters more at hotels or large groups, where bonuses run closer to the all-industry figure. Ask each candidate directly when their bonus is paid and whether leaving before it would cost them; if it would, time the start date after it or consider a sign-on payment instead of guessing from the averages. See chef salary negotiation.

2. The fixed points in the Japanese year

• School year: 1 April to 31 March, set in law for elementary schools and the general pattern, so most students graduate in March and start work in April.
• Public holidays in 2027 (Cabinet Office): 1 January, 11 January, 11 February, 23 February, 21 and 22 March, 29 April, 3 to 5 May, 19 July, 11 August, 20 and 23 September, 11 October, 3 and 23 November. Late April to early May is Golden Week. Obon in mid-August is not itself a public holiday, though 11 August (Mountain Day) is.
• Bonus periods: MHLW measures summer bonuses as those paid June to August and year-end bonuses as those paid November to January.

3. A recruiter's blackout calendar

The dates above matter less as a list than as a set of dead weeks for scheduling. None of the following is an official rule; it is the practical read of the calendar above.

Build a week of slack around each of these into any deadline that depends on the chef's side moving quickly, including the document collection in employment certificate translation for a visa.

4. How quickly a chef can leave

Under Civil Code Article 627, where employment has no fixed term, either party may give notice at any time, and employment ends two weeks after notice is given. Contracts and work rules may ask for longer, and a chef may want to leave on good terms with their current kitchen, especially if they might return to Japan later. In practice, plan for more than two weeks unless the candidate tells you otherwise.

Then add visa time. Some verified lead times: Australia requires two job advertisements of at least four weeks each in the four months before nomination; Canada's low-wage LMIA requires eight consecutive weeks of advertising, then processing that averaged 82 business days in August 2026; US H-2B labour certification is filed 75 to 90 days before the date of need. See budgeting an international chef hire for the full table by country.

5. Culinary school graduates: a different calendar

Universities follow a government-set hiring schedule (for 2027 graduates: publicity from 1 March, selection from 1 June, formal offers from 1 October), but that schedule is aimed at universities, not culinary schools, and we found no official hiring calendar specific to them. Recruiting culinary-school graduates and alumni is different enough from this page's calendar, and important enough on its own, that it has its own page: see recruiting from Japanese culinary schools for the routes that work, a ready Japanese job posting, and that page's own school-year calendar.

6. A worked backward plan from a fixed start date

Pick your target start date and work backward using the lead times for your route. Worked example for a Canadian low-wage LMIA hire targeting 1 April, using the verified lead times above (adjust the route and figures to your own country from budgeting an international chef hire):

The same method works for any route: start from your target date, subtract the visa processing time, subtract the advertising or testing period before that, then subtract the notice period and a buffer for Japan's blackout weeks in section 3.

7. What the data does not tell you

We looked for official data on which months cooks in Japan change jobs and found no monthly breakdown for the occupation, so we cannot say chefs "usually move in April" or "after Obon" as a matter of data. What official data does show is that demand at home is strong: MHLW's job openings to applicants ratio for food preparation workers (including part-time) was 2.18 in July 2026, against 1.05 for all occupations. Recruit steadily through the year rather than relying on one season. For where chefs look for jobs, see where Japanese chefs look for jobs abroad, and for the ad itself, writing a job ad for chefs in Japan.

General information, not legal or immigration advice. Dates and schedules change each year; check the current year's official announcements before planning a hire.