They made zero changes to the proposal, so it’s 30mil capital for corporations/30mil in costs for sole traders, combined with the mandatory full time staff member.
They’ve also clarified that all existing BMV holders are expected to meet the new requirements within 3 years. So that’s going to mean a whole lot of people planning their exit unfortunately as they’ll be unable to grow their business that much and hire staff before that time is up.
This ain’t great, but the pessimists amongst us were expecting this to be the case.
by Version-6
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3 Years seems… ok. Not horribly short.
I suppose if you can’t go from 5M to 30M (even through borrowing) in 3 more years, then I guess Japan wants you out :/
Well, this was definitely much better than the worst case I had imagined. As long as I get my current application to switch from J-Find to BM approved, I should be fine.
So the rich Chinese will still be able to use this Visa and method to purchase properties, land and bring their families over, while foreigner business owners with less capital but actual business Ideas won’t be able to move/start.
Japan’s plan to attract international talents is shaping up well!
I think the people who made these rules underestimate how difficult it is for foreigners to get business loans in Japan. Like your company could be turning over 100M JPY with 15M in profit and you’d still have trouble borrowing say 25M to increase the capital requirements.
The obvious workaround is to have a parent company in another country (Estonia springs to mind) and then making a Japanese subsidiary that employs you. Even if the foreign company is not profitable the subsidiary could keep a positive balance sheet and sponsor the visa.
3 year transition period seems completely fine, i don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that.
New people applying for BM or current people on Startup visa / J-find are out of luck though.
I feel like they could’ve done something less drastic to curb the issue of Chinese nationals buying up property. Annual review of the business (make sure they’re paying taxes, health insurance etc), preventing people from buying property unless they lived here for X amount of time, or not allow people with this visa to buy property all together.
But if applying for business bank account taught me anything is that the bureaucracy here is stuck in the past. At least there’s some room to maneuver with the 3 year grace period.
It’s inevitable that things turn out this way because there are people who exploit Japan’s system, which has been based on the assumption of human goodness.
**Breakdown for current BMW holders:**
– The baseline expectation is that you will meet the full requirement (1 employee who is a citizen/PR/long-term visa holder) by Oct 2028. At present, renewals will take into the *potential* that you can meet the new requirements, and your current company finances.
– After Oct 2028, you are required to meet the requirements, *however* immigration has the discretion to grant grace to businesses that are currently in the black, fulfilling all tax obligations, and is likely to meet the requirements at the next renewal.
So as per the norm they’re leaving themselves some wiggle room in the execution, even though the legislation is undoubtedly braindead.
In my case it’s not quite worse-case scenario because my renewal is up in ’27 and I’m moving forward with naturalization.
Obviously this will tank tax revenue and whatever little economic growth they currently have and a big fat*ざまぁ* to them when they find out that entrepreneurs and other high-income individuals are not coming to Japan anymore.
So you have the option until end of 2028 to make your decision,to increase your investment in your company,if I read it correctly?
What is the source for this? 3 years grace period would be huge
Incredibly frustrating as someone who runs a profitable, tax paying business that also happens to be seasonal (winter ski tourism), that I need to hire and pay a full time Japanese national that I have zero need or work for 8 months of the year. I’m going to have to spin up some 1-man-worth of work idea for the offseason just to give this person something to do and breakeven on their salary. At least I appreciate the 3 year buffer for existing companies.
Three years to find a wife i guess.
Forgive my ignorance, but wouldn’t another route that would work for most people be to incorporate a kaisha as normal and grant yourself a Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visa? (技術・人文知識・国際業務). A foreign corporation that you own can be the majority owner of the kaisha.
A lot of this seems specific to BMV which is not the only route for foreigners, unless I’m mistaken.
Not written there, but current holders of J-Find (and startup visa holders I think) do get grandfathered in
Honestly if your business struggles to hit 30M after 3 years (or fundraise)… chances are it was never going to make it. The idea is to allow folks to set up their businesses here and in return they got a pretty good deal in terms of a way in.
All things considered its really not a lot of revenue to bring in, and considering costs etc. you’re not bringing in any valuable tax revenue. So I see no issue with this.
This will upset some folks but Japan owes you nothing. You want to come here and live here, you gotta bring something to the table lol.
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All they’ve done is pour agent orange on top of a future crop of startups in order to kill a few weeds.
No one would start a business in Japan had they known the conditions would change so drastically. Three years is at best “better than nothing – at least I can plan my exit” – but it is a far cry from reasonable.
Was the ostensible reason for these changes to prevent the Chinese middle class from parking their capital in Japanese real estate? If so, then why not handle it at the level of immigration on a case-by-case basis out of public view?… Was it all performative politics by the LDP in a race to the bottom to skim off populist votes from the rising opposition?
I think it’s important to distinguish who’s an existing BMV holder and who is on a Startup visa. They are not the same and any grace may not be afforded to us on the Startup visa.
in other news【在留外国人395万人 過去最多更新】Takaichi san is going to be quite disappointed…
So im now just paying pension and NHI to get kicked out anyway
So basically, they are giving business manager visa holders a grace period of 3 years to leave
Mind blowing overcorrection, so depressing. I understand why they’ve made these changes, but in a country that needs economic growth, they’ve made a huge sweeping change and have just kneecapped an incredible amount of opportunity taking root in Japan.
They could have easily targeted who they needed to target.
I am about to apply for the Start up visa in Tokyo. 2 years visa. Does it say anything about the requirements? Will I need to have 30mil yen after these 2 years? Because it doesn’t seem quite realistic to give foreigners a chance to make a “start up” and then expect them to have 30mil yen in the bank after just 2 years. They should adjust the requirements for the start up visa then as well, make it more realistic.
This whole thing is so stupid. It’s not going to stop one single one of the people from a certain neighborhood country who are abusing the current system now. They’ll continue to make their shell companies, and it’ll be dodgy business as usual. It’s going to absolutely decimate small but legitimate businesses. I feel genuinely bad for all the good people who are going to be impacted by this situation just because of a bunch of dodgy actors, who won’t be affected at all. Myopic af.
From what I understood, previously there was a carve out for the 3 year exp and masters education…before, if it was a newly created business for a sole owner then it was exempt. Sadly, from what I’m finding so far that no longer seems to be the case, it seems they took out that too…unless I’m mistaken.
Here we go again: Japan living out it’s dream of being the IRL version of the “guy puts a stick in front wheel of his bike” meme.
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