Founders planning a move to Japan usually settle the visa, the capital and the office before anyone asks the question that decides whether the move actually happens: what about the family?
The Business Manager Visa does allow dependants. It allows fewer of them, and permits them less, than most people assume — and the two constraints that matter most are rarely mentioned until someone is already committed.
Who can come: spouse and children only
The Dependent status (家族滞在) is defined in the statute as covering a spouse or child of a foreign national holding one of the listed statuses. Business Manager is on that list, so your spouse and your children are eligible.
Parents are not. There is no parent category in the Dependent status, and this is the point that stops people. Founders from countries where bringing an elderly parent along is the normal arrangement frequently assume Japan works the same way. It does not, and discovering it after the company is registered is a bad time to find out.
There are narrow routes involving Designated Activities for parents of certain Highly Skilled Professional holders, under conditions. Those are exceptions with their own criteria, not the general position, and if that is your situation it is a question for a licensed professional rather than a guide.
What your spouse may not do: work full-time
A Dependent status permits daily life in Japan. It does not permit work.
To work at all, a dependant needs permission to engage in an activity outside their status (資格外活動許可). The general permission granted under it is capped at 28 hours per week.
Sit with what that means for a household. A spouse who had a career before the move cannot resume it on this status. They can work part-time, up to 28 hours, with permission — not a full-time role, not a salaried professional position. For a couple who assumed two incomes would support the move, the arithmetic changes before they arrive.
The alternative is for the spouse to hold a status in their own right, which means qualifying for one — a work visa in their own field, for example. That is a separate application with its own criteria, and it is worth investigating in parallel rather than after the 28-hour cap has become a surprise.
There is no published income threshold
English-language sources sometimes quote a figure your business must earn before dependants are approved. The Immigration Services Agency does not publish one. The criterion is framed as engaging in daily activities as a dependant receiving support — an assessment of whether you can actually support them, not a number to clear.
That cuts both ways, and it is worth being honest about which way. An unpublished standard cannot be gamed, and it also cannot be relied on. You cannot point at a figure and say you have met it. What you can do is make the support obvious: the company’s finances, your own remuneration, and the household’s circumstances have to add up to a family that will not struggle.
This is where the 2025 reform touches the family question indirectly. A business built to the new scale — JPY 30 million in capital, an employee on payroll, real premises — is a more legible thing to support a family from than the JPY 5 million company the old rules allowed. The requirements were not written with dependants in mind, but they produce a stronger picture.
Period of stay follows yours, roughly
The period granted to a dependant is designated individually, up to a maximum of five years. In practice it tracks the principal’s status, because the dependant’s right to be here derives from yours.
That dependency is the part to plan around. If your own renewal fails, the family’s status does not survive independently. For an existing holder working toward the October 2028 deadline, the renewal is not only about the company — it is the whole household’s permission to stay.
Children, and the thing worth knowing early
Children come as dependants and can attend school. Japanese public schooling is available, and the practical questions — Japanese-language support, the difference between local schools and international ones, the cost of the latter — sit outside immigration entirely but usually outrank it in the family conversation.
One point deserves flagging because it arrives years later and surprises people: a child who grows up here on a Dependent status and finishes Japanese high school does not automatically gain the right to work full-time as an adult. There is a route the Agency publishes for exactly that situation, but it is a route, with conditions — not an automatic transition.
What to ask, and when
Ask before you commit to the structure, not after the company exists. Three questions:
- Will you file the dependants’ applications together with mine, or after my status is granted?
- Given my planned remuneration, is the support picture strong enough, and what would strengthen it?
- Is a status in my spouse’s own right realistic given their qualifications — and should we try for it in parallel?
The third question is the one that changes lives and is asked least. A spouse who qualifies independently is not capped at 28 hours and does not lose their status if your renewal goes wrong.
Our directory lists the firms that handle immigration work for foreign founders, with which of them publish their fees. Dependants are usually priced per person on top of the principal application, which is a line worth confirming in writing before you engage anyone.
This summarises published rules. Whether your own family’s applications will succeed depends on facts a guide cannot see, and needs a licensed professional.