Starting a company in Japan is not simple. Somehow, it is both traditional and modernised. This post is a summary of my journey doing it in Japan. Hopefully, you find it useful.
You can, of course, outsource this to a lawyer. But as you know, that can be quite expensive and I was unemployed at the time. :P
The first thing you need to do is check your visa type. Most foreigners come to Japan for work. In these cases, they hold a standard work visa. If you check your Residence Card (在留カード), you should see this: 技術・人文知識・国際業務 (Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services). The company hiring you is the sponsor of your visa. Under this status, while you are legally allowed to register and own a company, you cannot work full-time for your own company or receive executive remuneration from it.
You may ask (I actually asked this question): Can I work for my own company as a second job (副業) while continuing my main employment? The answer is, it depends. Some employers strictly disallow side jobs in their company regulations. You must check your company’s rules before proceeding.
Some people hold a Highly Skilled Professional visa (高度専門職). If you hold a 高度専門職 II visa, you are allowed to register a company and work for it, but since you still have a sponsoring organization, you must ensure your main employer permits side businesses. If you hold a 高度専門職 I visa, you can engage in business management, but only if the business is directly related to your primary sponsored activities.
If you are a Permanent Resident (永住者), you have no legal restrictions regarding employment or business ownership. However, you still need to check whether your primary employer allows side jobs.
[!WARNING] Crucial Immigration Update for 2026: If you do not have Permanent Residency or a Highly Skilled Professional visa and plan to apply for or switch to a Business Manager Visa (経営・管理) to run your company, be aware that Japanese immigration laws changed drastically on October 16, 2025.
- The minimum capital requirement has been raised from 5 million JPY to 30 million JPY.
- You must employ at least one full-time resident of Japan (Japanese citizen, PR, or spouse of a citizen/PR).
- You must secure a physical, independent office space; virtual offices are generally no longer accepted for new Business Manager Visa approvals.
If you are simply registering a company as a side business under an existing HSP II or PR status (where you don’t need a Business Manager Visa), the virtual office and low capital approach described below still works perfectly fine.
Once you have confirmed you can legally proceed, you need to ensure you have the following items. Having these ready will make your application much smoother.
Needless to say, there are countless forms and applications where a valid, local phone number is mandatory.
This is required to verify your startup capital. While the legal minimum capital can be as low as 1 JPY, you must prove you have that capital in a personal bank account before the corporate account is established.
For anyone who has lived in Japan for a while, you know how crucial personal seals are when you are involved any formal process. If you don’t have a registered stamp and certificate, you can obtain them at your local city hall (区役所).
While technically optional, the process would be incredibly difficult without one. During registration, you will need to authenticate your identity digitally multiple times.
If you have all of the above, congratulations! The rest is just following the process.
There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.
And Japan certainly makes naming things even harder. You must choose how to position your company type in the name:
株式会社xyz or xyz株式会社 (for a KK). Both are valid. Interestingly, having the type at the front (前株 - maekabu) is very common in Japan. You can mix Kanji, Katakana, Hiragana, English letters, and numbers.
Once you have a name, you need to decide on the company type: KK (株式会社 - Kabushiki-Kaisha) or GK (合同会社 - Godo-Kaisha).
I won’t cover all the differences here, but if you choose a KK, your corporate details must be published. This means you need a public company address.
If you plan to rent a physical office, that’s straightforward. But if you aren’t, you need an alternative address. If you live in an apartment building (マンション or アパート), your lease agreement likely prohibits using the residential address for corporate registration. If you live in a house (一戸建て), you can use it, but doing so exposes your private residence address on the public registry.
This is where a virtual office (バーチャルオフィス) comes to the rescue. These services rent out physical addresses to multiple corporations and forward any received mail to the representative’s actual residence. Note that if you use a virtual office, you must choose a bank that permits virtual office addresses for corporate accounts.
I personally used DMM for my virtual office.
Once your company structure is decided, you must choose whether to register completely on your own or use a helper SaaS platform.
My thinking was simple: I was opening a KK, and I am not a Japanese legal expert. Going full DIY was too much risk and effort. As a result, I chose freee会社設立.
The English term for 定款 (Teikan) is Articles of Incorporation. It contains all the structural and operational details of your company. One of the most critical parts of the 定款 is deciding the business categories (事業目的) your company will operate in. While you are free to add many, it is recommended to focus on the core activities related to your business. It is also highly recommended to include this catch-all clause at the end of your list:
前各号に附帯又は関連する一切の業務
(Any and all businesses incidental or related to the preceding items)
If you need to add or change business categories later, you have to file an amendment with the Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局), which costs a registration tax fee.
If you use Freee, they will introduce a partnering judicial scrivener or notary. Once you input your company details, address, and business categories into Freee, they will generate the 定款 for you.
To proceed with this, you will need to provide:
You must prove that you actually possess the capital claimed in your 定款. This is verified using your personal bank account. You need to show:
You can simply take screenshots of your online bank account app showing the transaction and account details, then upload them to Freee. The platform provides detailed, step-by-step guides on exactly how to capture these screenshots.
[!NOTE] This step is only required if you are establishing a KK (株式会社). GK (合同会社) establishments do not require notary certification of the 定款.
This step requires a basic level of Japanese or someone to help you because an interview with a notary public is required. Fortunately, the interview can be conducted online.
To do this online, you must have a My Number Card because this formal legal process requires digital signatures, which you can complete using your card reader or a smartphone that supports My Number Card authentication.
The process can be quite demanding. Essentially, you must:
If you use Freee, it will guide you through submitting the application to the bureau. Your documents will be reviewed by officials first. If anything is incorrect, the application will be sent back for corrections. In my experience, I had to resubmit a few materials before the application was approved and the interview was scheduled. Once approved, the interview itself is mostly a formality.
After this step, you can take a deep breath—the hardest part is over. You will receive the certified 定款 from the notary, and shortly after, your corporate number (法人番号).
While some of these processes can technically be completed online, a system glitch at the Legal Affairs Bureau prevented me from doing so. I went to the physical office and picked up:
These physical documents are required when applying for a corporate bank account.
While you are at the Legal Affairs Bureau, it is highly recommended to apply for your Corporate Seal Card (印鑑カード) at the same time. Freee provides all the necessary guidance for this. The registration date on these certificates is officially your company’s establishment date.
If you plan to pay any salaries (including to yourself), you must notify the Pension Office (年金事務所).
[!IMPORTANT] Under Japanese law, enrolling in social insurance (社会保険 - health insurance and pension) is legally mandatory for corporate entities (both KK and GK) from the day of establishment, even if you are the sole director/employee.
You must also file corporate registration notifications with your local national and municipal tax offices within 2 months of establishment. When doing so, make sure to submit the 青色申告の承認申請 (Application for Approval of Blue Tax Return) as it offers substantial tax benefits and deductions.
We have made it so far! This is the final major step.
Unfortunately, opening a corporate bank account in Japan is again, very hard.
From what I heard getting approval at major megabanks (like MUFG, SMBC, or Mizuho) is highly unlikely for new startups. Therefore, I recommend going directly to online-focused banks like GMO Aozora Net Bank or Rakuten Bank. After researching, I chose GMO.
Even with online banks, you must fill out a big form, submit your company’s official documents, verify your identity, and wait for approval.
Getting the approval was not easy in my case.
I run an online service and use Paddle as my Merchant of Record/payment processor. The bank reviewers had a very hard time understanding how money flowed between my users, Paddle, and my company’s bank account. Because Paddle operates primarily in English and does not issue standard Japanese invoices or receipts, the bank reviewers repeatedly sent back my applications.
My application was rejected multiple times because the reviewers couldn’t clearly identify my business intent. Customer support couldn’t give me direct reasons but dropped subtle hints. After a month of back-and-forth rejections, I realized I needed to hold their hands through the process.
I put together a comprehensive, illustrated guide in Japanese: showing exactly how a user signs up for my service, selects a plan, pays via Paddle, and how the payouts are recorded on the Paddle dashboard before being transferred to my bank account. I submitted this visual walkthrough, and finally, I was approved!
Some key rules of thumb for this stage: