Japan Investor Visa

No threshold has been set, and the decision documents themselves say they are still at the stage of naming criteria.

The Regulatory Reform Implementation Plan, adopted by the Cabinet on 21 June 2024, item No. 8 on creating a residence status for foreign investors who invest in startups, sets three qualitative conditions.

They are investing a certain amount in domestic startups; carrying out activities that contribute to the formation and development of the startup ecosystem within a national strategic special zone; and confining the route to that special-zone framework rather than applying it nationwide.

The revised 2023 Grand Design and Action Plan for New Capitalism, adopted by the Cabinet on 16 June 2023, adds that eligibility would be judged on asset value and track record of investment in startups, with reference to the experience of the United Kingdom and other countries. None of the three documents names a figure

There is no outcome to describe, because the route does not yet exist — but two of the decision documents indicate which class it would fall into, and they use two different words.

The Action Plan of 26 April 2023 speaks of a "status of residence" for angel investors, that is a zairyu shikaku under the Immigration Control Act.

The two later documents — the revised Grand Design of 16 June 2023 and the Regulatory Reform Implementation Plan of 21 June 2024 — speak instead of a "visa" for investors.

In the Japanese system these are two different things: a visa is issued by a mission abroad in order to enter, while the status of residence is granted by the Immigration Services Agency and is what actually determines what may be done and for how long.

The Regulatory Reform Implementation Plan titles its item "creation of a status of residence for foreign investors who invest in startups", so the class being aimed at is a status of residence.

The nearest route that does exist for a foreign national putting up capital is the Business Manager status, but that requires the person to operate or manage the business, and is not available to someone who merely supplies capital

Three government decisions in fourteen months, one deadline already passed, and two years later the route is still not in the catalogue.

First date: on 26 April 2023 the Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan adopted the Action Plan for Attracting Human Resources and Capital from Abroad.

Its item 2 instructed the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to "facilitate the grant of residence status to overseas angel investors".

Second date: on 16 June 2023 the Cabinet adopted the revised Grand Design and Action Plan, turning that into "consider creating a visa for investors, including angel investors".

Third date: on 21 June 2024 the Regulatory Reform Implementation Plan fixed a deadline of "taking the necessary measures by around the end of FY2024".

As at 17 September 2026, the startup-policy page of the Immigration Services Agency lists four routes: the foreign entrepreneur promotion scheme at up to two years, the J-Find future creation talent scheme at up to two years, the post-graduation entrepreneurship route, and the Business Manager status.

None of them is an angel-investor route, and that page does not mention angel investors at all.

The residence condition for this route does not yet exist, because the route itself does not — and the Cabinet Secretariat's paper shows it will be limited by geography rather than open nationwide.

The Regulatory Reform Implementation Plan, decided by Cabinet on 21 June 2024, item No. 8, states that a visa for investors including angel investors will be created within the national strategic special zones, in order to attract overseas investment into start-ups.

The conditions include investing a certain amount in start-ups in Japan and carrying out activities contributing to the formation and development of the start-up ecosystem within that zone.

A holder would therefore be tied to a specific geographic area, unlike investment routes open across the whole territory. Pending that, the residence framework actually operating for foreign founders in Japan is the business manager status, and the two conditions of the Landing Permission Criteria Ordinance are what really bind.

Condition one is on business scale: two or more full-time employees, or capital of five million yen or more. Condition two is on securing business premises, with an exclusion many applicants trip over — co-working spaces do not count.

The existing programmes do not waive those two conditions but merely defer them:

The special-zone route and the METI route allow six months, Designated Activities No. 44 allows up to one year, and the route for those starting a business after graduating from a Japanese university allows up to two years — and where someone has already used an earlier programme, the deferrals together still cap at two years.

One date to watch: the 2024 plan itself set the deadline for taking the necessary measures during fiscal year 2024, and as at the verification date no instrument creating the route has appeared.

Dependants travel on a distinct status of residence called Dependent, and its definition is contained in one sentence of Appended Table 1, item 4.

That sentence reads: daily activities as the spouse or child receiving support from a person residing under a status listed in the upper column of table one, table two or table three, or from a person residing under the Student status.

The support must not come from a person holding Diplomat, Official, Specified Skilled Worker number one, Technical Intern Training or Temporary Visitor status, which are excluded.

The Business Manager status, which is this record category, sits in table one item 2 and is not among the exclusions, so dependants of this route qualify.

The Immigration Services Agency page confirms the classification by naming Business Manager expressly among the statuses whose spouse and children may follow. The typical example it gives is the spouse and children supported by a resident foreign national.

The period of stay for Dependent status is designated by the Minister of Justice case by case within a range not exceeding five years.

Only spouse and children qualify: there are no parents, no grandparents and no siblings. The statute states no age limit for children and no financial threshold per dependant; the only condition in the statute is that the person is supported by the principal.

One thing must not be joined across: the Highly Skilled Professional route has its own mechanism for accompanying parents, but that is a different status and does not apply to Business Manager.

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Japan passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Japan passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Japan passport reaches 204 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

Appended Table 1 of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act is a closed list of statuses of residence, and none of them is for an angel investor.

The twenty-five statuses are diplomat, official, professor, artist, religious activities, journalist, highly skilled professional, business manager, legal and accounting services, medical services, researcher, instructor, engineer and specialist in humanities and international services.

The list continues with intra-company transferee, nursing care, entertainer, skilled labour, specified skilled worker, technical intern training, cultural activities, temporary visitor, student, trainee, dependant and designated activities.

Appended Table 2 adds four status-based categories, namely permanent resident, spouse or child of a Japanese national, spouse or child of a permanent resident, and long-term resident.

The closest thing to investment is the business manager status, which is for a person who operates a business rather than one who supplies capital passively.

The statute nowhere mentions investors or angels, and Appended Table 1 does not mention investment either; the Immigration Services Agency page on start-up related measures lists four existing measures and likewise says nothing about an angel investor visa.

The second tier is a join made here, taken from the Income Tax Act. Article 2(1)(iii) defines a resident by a domicile in the country or a continuous place of abode for one year or more.

Item (iv) defines a non-permanent resident as a resident without Japanese nationality whose aggregate period of residence in the past ten years is five years or less.

And article 7 sets three tiers: an ordinary resident is taxed on all income, a non-permanent resident on income other than foreign-source income plus the portion of foreign-source income paid in Japan or remitted to Japan, and a non-resident only on domestic-source income.

This route has no fee because it has no status of residence to charge one on, and that is read from the text rather than inferred. The Cabinet decision of 21 June 2024 that establishes the policy does not mention a fee.

The only sum it names is the five-million-yen capital figure of the existing Business Manager status.

What belongs in this cell is the framework any new status would fall into, and that framework is about to change sharply.

Article 67 of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act charges a fee at four moments, at an amount fixed by Cabinet Order within a ceiling of ten thousand yen.

The four are permission to change the status of residence, permission to extend the period of stay, permission for permanent residence, and re-entry permission including the extension of its validity.

That is the wording the e-Gov legal database still served on 21 September 2026, and the ceiling is about to be superseded.

From 1 October 2026, under the amending Cabinet Order announced by the Immigration Services Agency, the fee for a change of status and for an extension is no longer a single figure but is banded by the length of the period of stay granted, in yen, at the counter and online: three months or less, 10,000 and 10,000.

Over three months up to six months, 18,000 and 15,000; over six months but under a year, 25,000 and 21,000. Exactly one year, 33,000 and 27,000; over one year but under three, 48,000 and 42,000.

Three years but under five, 64,000 and 56,000; five years or more, 75,000 and 65,000.

The figures before that date were only 6,000 at the counter and 5,500 online for either permission. Permanent residence is where the change bites hardest: from 10,000 yen to two hundred thousand yen, a twentyfold rise.

Three operational points come with it. First, an application received by 30 September 2026 still pays the old fee, even where the permission is granted after 1 October.

Second, for online applications the fee may be paid only by convenience store or bank payment, revenue stamps are not accepted, and a separate transaction fee applies on top of the figures above.

Third, Article 67(3) as amended allows the fee to be reduced or waived for those in economic difficulty or with other special reasons, as listed in the amending Order.