Most English-language coverage of the October 2025 reform is written for people who have not applied yet. If you already hold the Business Manager status, your situation is different, and quieter: nothing happened to you on 16 October 2025, and nothing will happen at your next renewal either. The date that matters to you is 16 October 2028.
That is three years to restructure a company that was built to satisfy a JPY 5 million standard so that it satisfies a JPY 30 million one. It sounds like a long time. It is one, possibly two, renewal cycles.
What the transitional measure actually says
The Immigration Services Agency set a grace period running from 16 October 2025 to 16 October 2028. During that window, an existing holder applying to renew does not have to strictly satisfy the new criteria, provided the business is in sound condition and tax obligations have been met.
Read the condition rather than the headline. The exemption is not automatic and it is not unconditional — it rests on the business being sound and on tax compliance. A holder who has been filing late, or whose company has been dormant, is relying on a measure whose stated condition they may not meet.
After 16 October 2028, the revised standards apply in full.
The gap you are actually closing
| Requirement | Old standard you were approved under | What you need by Oct 2028 |
|---|---|---|
| Capital / business assets | JPY 5 million | JPY 30 million |
| Employees | Capital or two employees | Capital and one full-time employee |
| Japanese | None | CEFR B2 — JLPT N2, BJT 400, or equivalent, held by you or a full-time employee |
| Background | None | Three years’ management experience or a relevant degree |
| Business plan | Not formally vetted | Verified by a qualified professional |
| Office | Loosely applied | Independent premises |
For most existing holders the capital line is the whole problem and the rest is administration. Going from JPY 5 million to JPY 30 million is a capital increase, which is a registration procedure with its own tax, not a bookkeeping entry.
Why three years is less than it sounds
Two of the requirements have lead times that are not yours to control.
The employee. Recruiting a full-time employee who holds a status permitting the work is a hiring problem in a tight labour market. If you also intend that person to carry the language requirement, you are recruiting for N2 as well, and the pool narrows again. We cover who qualifies and what the employer’s social insurance share adds in hiring your first employee in Japan.
The verified business plan. The plan has to be confirmed by an SME management consultant, CPA or tax accountant, and the firm that has handled your visa renewals for years is quite possibly not registered as one. Of the firms in our directory, three are registered and they are all tax practices. If yours is not, that is a second professional to find and brief.
Neither of those can be done in the fortnight before a renewal, which is when visa work usually gets attention.
The sequencing trap
The measure exempts you from the new criteria until 2028. It does not exempt you from the ordinary renewal criteria, and it does not stack: if your renewal falls in, say, mid-2028, you may be looking at an application decided close to the deadline against standards you have not yet met.
Work backwards from the renewal that lands after October 2028, not from the deadline itself. That is the application that will be judged on the new standards, and everything — the capital increase, the hire, the lease, the verified plan — has to be in place and evidenced before it is filed.
If your period of stay is one year, that is roughly two renewals away. If it is three or five years, your next renewal may already be the one that matters.
If the new standard is out of reach
This is worth confronting early rather than at the filing. A business that cannot support JPY 30 million in capital and a salaried employee by 2028 is a business that will not renew on this status, and the alternatives — a different status, a restructure, an exit — all take longer to arrange than a renewal does.
There is no version of this where waiting improves the options. The founders who will have the least difficult 2028 are the ones treating it as a 2026 problem.
One more date belongs on the same plan. If permanent residence is the eventual goal, the transitional measure that lets a three-year period of stay qualify expires on 31 March 2027 — earlier than your 2028 deadline, and decided at the same renewals. See permanent residence: the ten-year rule and the March 2027 change.
What to ask, and who to ask
Ask your current adviser three questions: which renewal of mine is the first one judged on the new standards, can you verify my business plan yourself, and what is the schedule for the capital increase. The first tells you your real deadline. The second tells you whether you need a second firm. The third is the long pole.
Our directory records what each firm covers, which of them publish their fees, and when each listing was last checked against the firm’s own site. The full set of requirements is in what the October 2025 rules actually require, and the order the pieces have to happen in is in how long does it take.
This guide is a summary of a published transitional measure, not advice on your own renewal. For that you need a licensed professional who can see your filings.