How can a foreigner start a new business in Japan? (Visa, Company registration) (2)

In the modification of law in this year, this situation was improved.

The name of “Investment and Management” visa was changed to “Management” visa.

The point in the modification is that Management visa can be applied for by submitting the application form together with memorandum of associations and articles of associations of a pre-registered company without registering a company in advance.

With this Management visa, a foreigner can stay in Japan for at most 4 months.

スポンサーリンク

Although 4 months are short, it is still classified as long-term residence permission, which makes the foreigner can receive residence card from local government and makes the foreigner be registered in the population system.

Then, certainly he/she can also open a bank account, enrolled in the national health insurance system and pension system as well.

He/she can register his/her own company, too!

After registered his/her own company in 4 months, transferred share capital into the corporate bank account, he/she can apply for extension for management visa to stay for as long as 1 year to continue business operation in Japan.

So, even a single foreigner living overseas can now become an entrepreneur in Japan only by him/herself!!

But you still need to be noticed that there are still 2 conditions existing for applying for residence extension, which are (1) have at least 500 million yen as share capital, OR (2) have 2 full-time employees in your company. (However, this is just the lowest limitation. If the business obviously needs more share capital or more employees, you may still not be able to get the extension permission.)

Besides, since English usage is extremely limited in Japan, as a foreigner entrepreneur in Japan, you will need Japanese language ability together with your 500 million yen to start your business as a limited company in Japan.

So this is the overview of the modification in the laws this time. How do you feel?

For sure that this modification is not directly helpful to improve the environment for entrepreneurs or foreign capital investment, but at least for foreigners like me who can speak Japanese language and may be able to get 500 million yen with some efforts, it’s quite good news for me, and maybe also good for those medium or small-scale foreign companies who are willing to invest in Japan.