This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
—
**Opening an office in Japan?**
I run a small startup in the US. I want to move to Japan, but I don’t want to leave my startup.
Can I open an office in Japan? We need to hire a couple more engineers anyways and wondering if it’s a long & lengthy process if I go this route.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/movingtojapan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>wondering if it’s a long & lengthy process if I go this route.
Fairly, yes. It’s not as simple as “open office, sponsor visa”.
What you’re looking for is the Business Manager visa. It requires, among other things, a ***minimum*** of 5 million yen (~$50k USD) to invest and a business plan. That business plan needs to cover all the usual business plan things *and* needs to explain why your business needs to exist in Japan. “I want to move there” is not going to cut it.
There is also the option of opening a “Representative Office”, but the catch there is that you can’t open one and then turn around and sponsor your own visa. You would need to open the office and then wait a few years until the office has accrued a few years worth of tax documents.
We just did something along those lines, and the folks at JETRO were an amazing support. Japan External Trade Organization. Couldn’t have done it without their facilitating. It took about a year from deciding for sure to do it, through establishing everything and physically moving.
3 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
—
**Opening an office in Japan?**
I run a small startup in the US. I want to move to Japan, but I don’t want to leave my startup.
Can I open an office in Japan? We need to hire a couple more engineers anyways and wondering if it’s a long & lengthy process if I go this route.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/movingtojapan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>wondering if it’s a long & lengthy process if I go this route.
Fairly, yes. It’s not as simple as “open office, sponsor visa”.
What you’re looking for is the Business Manager visa. It requires, among other things, a ***minimum*** of 5 million yen (~$50k USD) to invest and a business plan. That business plan needs to cover all the usual business plan things *and* needs to explain why your business needs to exist in Japan. “I want to move there” is not going to cut it.
There is also the option of opening a “Representative Office”, but the catch there is that you can’t open one and then turn around and sponsor your own visa. You would need to open the office and then wait a few years until the office has accrued a few years worth of tax documents.
We just did something along those lines, and the folks at JETRO were an amazing support. Japan External Trade Organization. Couldn’t have done it without their facilitating. It took about a year from deciding for sure to do it, through establishing everything and physically moving.
https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/