Can You Set Up a Company in Japan Without Living There?

This is usually the first question, and it is asked in the wrong order. Founders ask whether they can register a Japanese company from abroad, when the question that decides their timeline is whether they can operate one from abroad. The two have different answers.

You can incorporate a Japanese company without living in Japan, and without ever holding a Japanese visa. Running that company as its manager, from inside Japan, is a separate matter governed by immigration rules that changed substantially in October 2025.

This guide separates the two, and marks the points in the process where someone still has to be physically present.

What changed in 2015

Until March 2015, a Japanese company needed at least one representative director resident in Japan. For a KK that was a representative director; for a GK, a representative of the managing member. In practice this meant a foreign founder had to find a Japanese resident willing to take on a legally binding role before the company could exist at all.

On 16 March 2015 the Ministry of Justice began accepting registrations where no representative director resides in Japan. All directors and shareholders may now live overseas and the company is still validly incorporated.

One exception is worth knowing if you are considering a branch rather than a subsidiary: the residency requirement was not abolished for branch offices of foreign companies. A branch still needs a representative in Japan. If you are weighing structures, that difference belongs in the comparison alongside the ones we cover in KK or GK?

What you can do without setting foot in Japan

Most of the process is paperwork that a firm can run on your behalf under a power of attorney. The two places founders get stuck are the capital payment and the bank account, and they are stuck for different reasons.

The capital payment: solved on paper, awkward in practice

Paid-in capital has to be paid into a bank account and evidenced — for a KK this follows from Article 34 of the Companies Act. The circularity is obvious: the company does not exist yet, so it has no account, and a non-resident founder usually cannot open a personal Japanese account either.

The Ministry of Justice addressed this in a notification dated 17 March 2017, which allows the payment to be made through the account of a director. Where every incorporator and initial director lives outside Japan, it is possible in the alternative to use the account of a third party who is neither.

So the rule is not the obstacle. The obstacle is that the arrangement depends on someone’s cooperation and on a firm willing to structure it correctly, and the evidence has to satisfy the Legal Affairs Bureau. This is the part of a remote incorporation where the choice of adviser actually matters — and it is worth asking, before you engage anyone, exactly whose account they intend to use and what they will produce as proof.

Seals, and what replaces them for a non-resident

Japanese registration procedure is built around the registered seal and the seal certificate that proves it. A non-resident has neither, because a seal certificate is issued by a Japanese municipality to a registered resident.

The substitute is a signature certificate — a document from your own country’s authority, or from the Japanese embassy or consulate covering you, attesting that the signature is yours. Requirements differ by consulate and by what the receiving bureau will accept, so this is a question to put to your firm early rather than late. It is also the item most likely to add weeks to a remote incorporation, because it moves at the speed of a consular appointment.

The bank account is the real wall

Incorporation ends with a registered company. It does not end with a working one, because the corporate bank account is a separate application to a private bank that applies its own criteria, and those criteria have tightened. A company whose representative director lives overseas, with no office presence and no Japanese track record, is close to the hardest case a Japanese bank sees.

We cover what banks actually examine, and why this step catches people who assumed registration was the hard part, in opening a corporate bank account in Japan. If you are incorporating remotely with the intention of moving later, read it before you decide the order of operations — for many founders the account is the reason to bring the visa forward rather than leave it to the end.

A registered company is not permission to run it from Japan

This is the distinction that the phrase “set up a company in Japan” hides. Owning shares in a Japanese company, and being registered as its director, do not by themselves give you any right to live in Japan or to manage the business from here.

Managing it from inside Japan is what the Business Manager Visa is for, and that status now requires JPY 30 million in paid-in capital, at least one full-time employee, Japanese at CEFR B2 (held by you or that employee), three years of management experience or an equivalent qualification, independent premises, and a business plan verified by a qualified professional. The detail is in what the October 2025 rules actually require.

Founders who incorporate remotely sometimes do so precisely because those thresholds are out of reach today. That is a legitimate sequence — the company can exist and trade while you build toward the criteria — but it should be a decision, not a discovery. The Startup Visa is the usual route for people who need to be in Japan while preparing rather than after qualifying.

Which firms handle incorporation from abroad

Of the firms in our directory, 16 state that they can act for founders who are outside Japan — seven company formation specialists, six tax and accounting firms and three immigration practices. They are listed under setting up a Japanese company from overseas.

Fee transparency in that group follows the pattern we find everywhere in this market: four publish their fees, two publish part of them, and ten publish none. Remote work is where an unpublished fee is most expensive to discover late, because the extras — proxy attendance, consular documents, translation, courier, the capital payment arrangement — are exactly the items that sit outside a headline package price.

What to ask before you engage anyone

Five questions separate a firm that has done this from a firm that is about to learn on your file.

• Whose bank account will receive the paid-in capital, and what will you file as evidence of it?
• What form of signature certification do you need from me, and from which authority?
• Is proxy attendance at the notary and the Legal Affairs Bureau included in your fee or billed separately?
• Will you introduce the company to a bank, and what has your success rate been for non-resident representative directors?
• If I later apply for the Business Manager Visa, does anything about how you incorporate now make that application harder?

The last one is the one people forget. Capital, office and structure decisions made for convenience during a remote incorporation can sit badly against visa criteria a year later — and unwinding them costs more than getting them right the first time.

Our directory records which firms cover which parts of this, which of them publish fees, and when each listing was last checked against the firm’s own site. It cannot tell you whether your own plan will work. For that you need a licensed professional, and this guide is not a substitute for one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I set up a Japanese company without living in Japan?

Yes. Since 16 March 2015 the Ministry of Justice accepts registrations where no representative director resides in Japan, so all directors and shareholders may live overseas and the company is still validly incorporated. One exception: the residency requirement was not abolished for branch offices of foreign companies, which still need a representative in Japan.

Which steps can be done from abroad, and which cannot?

Deciding the company type, drafting and notarising the articles, filing the registration and being appointed representative director can all be done remotely, by proxy where attendance is needed. Paying in the capital is possible but awkward. Opening the corporate bank account is, in practice, not — and holding the Business Manager Visa requires residence.

How is the capital paid in if the company has no bank account yet?

A Ministry of Justice notification dated 17 March 2017 allows the payment to be made through the account of a director, and where every incorporator and initial director lives outside Japan, through the account of a third party who is neither. The rule is not the obstacle; the obstacle is that the arrangement depends on someone’s cooperation and on a firm willing to structure it so the evidence satisfies the Legal Affairs Bureau. Ask, before engaging anyone, exactly whose account they intend to use and what they will produce as proof.

I have no Japanese seal. What do I use instead?

A signature certificate — a document from your own country’s authority, or from the Japanese embassy or consulate covering you, attesting that the signature is yours. A seal certificate is issued only to registered residents, so a non-resident cannot obtain one. Requirements differ by consulate, and this is the item most likely to add weeks to a remote incorporation because it moves at the speed of a consular appointment.

Does owning a Japanese company let me live in Japan?

No. Owning shares and being registered as a director give you no right to reside in Japan or to manage the business from here. That is what the Business Manager Visa is for, and it now requires JPY 30 million in paid-in capital, a full-time employee, Japanese at CEFR B2 held by you or that employee, three years of management experience or an equivalent qualification, independent premises, and a business plan verified by a qualified professional.

Which firms can incorporate a company for someone outside Japan?

Of the firms in this directory, 16 state that they can act for founders who are abroad — seven company formation specialists, six tax and accounting firms and three immigration practices. Fee transparency in that group follows the usual pattern: four publish their fees, two publish part of them, and ten publish none. Remote work is where an unpublished fee is most expensive to discover late, because proxy attendance, consular documents, translation and courier costs sit outside a headline package price.