Setting Up a Business in Japan

An in-depth guide for foreign entrepreneurs and companies looking to enter the Japanese market — the world’s third-largest economy, where genuine cultural and procedural formality shapes company formation as much as the legal requirements themselves, without being a genuine deterrent in itself.
This guide covers legal structures (KK, the default for banks and government tenders, versus GK, tax-identical but less familiar to traditional counterparties), business taxation, company formation, the cost of labor amid a genuine, currently measurable talent shortage, and immigration routes for executives, investors, and entrepreneurs — including the substantially reworked Business Manager visa (October 2025), with minimum capital raised to roughly ¥30 million and a mandatory full-time hire. Includes a dedicated chapter distinguishing what is genuinely difficult about doing business in Japan from what is genuinely risky, an operational checklist, and useful contacts.
Available in English.