Japan Start-up Visa

The revised permission criteria, in force from 16 October 2025, require capital or its equivalent of 30 million yen or more. The definition differs by the form of the business entity.

Where the entity is a legal person, the figure is the paid-in capital of a joint-stock company, or the total contributions of a general partnership, limited partnership or limited liability company.

Where the entity is an individual, it is the total amount invested in what is necessary to run the business, comprising securing business premises, one year of salaries for the employees engaged, and the cost of equipment investment

The new criteria add two conditions about people alongside the capital condition.

First, the company the applicant runs must employ at least one full-time employee.

For this condition a full-time employee counts only if they are Japanese, a special permanent resident, or a foreign national holding a status of residence under Appendix ii of the Act.

Those Appendix ii statuses are permanent resident, spouse or child of a Japanese national, spouse or child of a permanent resident, or long-term resident. Foreign nationals on Appendix I statuses do not count.

Second, the applicant or a full-time employee must have substantial Japanese language ability, defined as B2 or above on the Framework of Reference for Japanese Language Education, and proven in one of five ways.

The five ways are JLPT certification at N2 or above, a score of 400 or more on the BJT Business Japanese Proficiency Test, twenty years or more of residence in Japan as a mid- to long-term resident, graduation from a Japanese higher education institution, or completion of Japanese compulsory education plus graduation from high school.

For this language condition a full-time employee does include foreign nationals on Appendix I statuses

The revised criteria take effect on 16 October 2025. Applications received before that date and still under examination continue to be judged on the old criteria.

Those already residing on Business Manager status get a transitional window.

Where an application to extend the period of stay is made within three years of the effective date, that is by 16 October 2028, the decision is made on the basis of business conditions and the prospect of meeting the new criteria, even where those criteria are not yet met.

The authority may require a document assessing the business by a management expert.

After that three-year mark an extension application must meet the new criteria; the sole exception is where business conditions are sound, corporate tax obligations have been properly discharged, and there is a prospect of meeting the new criteria by the next renewal.

For a person on Designated Activities No. 44 for foreign entrepreneurs, the start-up visa, the dividing line is the date the confirmation certificate was issued: issued before the effective date of the amending notice, the old criteria apply; issued on or after it, the new criteria apply

The new criteria close three routes. First, where the applicant outsources the work to such an extent that no real activity as a manager can be recognised, they are treated as not carrying out activities falling under the Business Manager status.

Second, because premises appropriate to the scale set by the revised criteria must be secured, using one own home as the office is in principle not accepted.

Third, where the holder spends long periods outside Japan during the period of stay without justifiable reason, they are treated as having no real activity in Japan and an application to extend the period of stay will not be approved.

One consequence reaches further forward. From the effective date, a person who does not meet the revised criteria will not be granted permanent residence from Business Manager status, nor from Highly Skilled Professional (i)(c) or (ii) where those rest on Business Manager activity.

Nor will a change from Highly Skilled Professional (i)(c) to (ii) be permitted.

The Designated Activities notice table of the issuing agency records items 44 and 45 as the foreign startup entrepreneur and that person spouse or child, and no more. The same table uses exactly the same pattern for two neighbouring categories, Future Creation Individual at items 51 and 52 and digital nomad at items 53 and 54.

A reverse comparison shows the boundary plainly: item 34 of that same table is the parent of a foreign national under the Highly Skilled Professional route or of that person spouse.

So only the Highly Skilled route can bring parents and the startup route cannot; and no item anywhere in the table covers grandparents or siblings for any route.

The foreign startup entrepreneur page carries a distinct document heading named family of the foreign startup entrepreneur. It requires documents evidencing the family relationship between the applicant and the supporter, namely a marriage certificate or a birth certificate.

It also requires a copy of the supporter residence card or passport, and material clarifying the cost of the stay; that heading states no figure at all.

One structural point is decisive and must be kept: the Dependent status is defined for a person residing under a status in table one, table two or table three, while Designated Activities sits in table five, so a startup visa holder cannot use Dependent status.

Relatives must travel on notice item 45 itself, which is likewise Designated Activities.

Only on moving to Business Manager status in table two does the Dependent route open. The age limit for children and the definition of support sit in a Ministry of Justice notice whose full text has not been checked at source, so this is a matter not yet verified rather than a silence.

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.

Under the new criteria, discharge of public dues is checked at renewal of the period of stay, across three groups.

The first is labour insurance: completion of the procedures for employees to acquire insured status under employment insurance, payment of employment insurance premiums, and the state of the procedures applying workers accident compensation insurance.

The second is social insurance: completion of the procedures for insured status under health insurance and employees pension insurance, and payment of those social insurance premiums.

The third is the taxes payable by the business establishment.

For a legal person, the national taxes are withholding income tax and special income tax for reconstruction, corporation tax, and consumption tax and local consumption tax; the local taxes are corporate inhabitant tax at prefectural and municipal level, and corporate enterprise tax.

For a sole proprietor, the national taxes are withholding income tax and special income tax for reconstruction, self-assessed income tax and special income tax for reconstruction, consumption tax and local consumption tax, inheritance tax and gift tax.

The local taxes are individual inhabitant tax at prefectural and municipal level, and individual enterprise tax

The business plan filed when the status of residence is decided must now be verified by a person with specialist knowledge of management, so as to assess whether the plan is concrete, reasonable and feasible.

As at the effective date, three categories of person qualify as such an expert: a Certified Small and Medium Enterprise Management Consultant, a Certified Public Accountant, and a Certified Tax Accountant.

The guidance adds a legal warning worth noting for anyone buying help: a person who is not a lawyer or an administrative scrivener, and who prepares documents for submission to public offices for reward as a business, risks breaching the Administrative Scriveners Act.

The file must also include material evidencing the state of acquisition of the permits and approvals needed for the business concerned; where there is a justifiable reason, such as the permit being obtainable only after the status of residence is granted, that material may be filed at the next renewal instead