Japan's Business Manager Visa just got 6× harder: what the October 2025 reform actually changed

If you’re a foreign entrepreneur thinking about starting a business in Japan—or already running one on a Business Manager Visa (経営・管理)—the rules underneath you have shifted significantly. The reform that took effect on October 16, 2025 raised the capital requirement from ¥5 million to ¥30 million and added five other new conditions on top. This is not a minor adjustment; it’s the biggest tightening of this visa category in over a decade.

Here’s what actually changed, who it affects, what the three-year transitional period really means, and what your options are if the new bar feels out of reach.

The headline change: capital requirement is now 6× higher

The most reported change is the capital threshold:

	Before Oct 16, 2025	After Oct 16, 2025
Capital requirement	¥5,000,000 minimum	¥30,000,000 minimum
Employee requirement	OR 2+ full-time staff	AND 1+ full-time staff

That little word in the middle—OR became AND—is what changes everything. Before, you could clear the visa with either ¥5 million in capital or two employees. Now, you need ¥30 million plus at least one qualifying employee. Both. There’s no choosing.

And “qualifying employee” is narrower than it sounds. It must be a Japanese national, a permanent resident, a spouse of a Japanese national or permanent resident, or a long-term resident (定住者). Engineers and specialists on a 技術・人文知識・国際業務 visa, or workers on 特定技能, do not count. Part-timers don’t count either. It has to be a full-time employee with the right immigration status.

The other five changes nobody is talking about

The capital figure dominated the headlines, but the reform package contains five additional new requirements that, depending on your situation, may be even harder to clear:

1. Japanese language requirement (new)

Either the applicant or the qualifying full-time employee must demonstrate Japanese ability roughly equivalent to JLPT N2 / CEFR B2. Until now, you could run a registered company in Japan on this visa without speaking a word of the language. That door is closed.

2. Background or education requirement (new)

The applicant must hold either:

• A bachelor’s degree or higher (the field doesn’t have to be business-related), or
• At least 3 years of practical management experience

This is meant to filter out applicants who set up a paper company purely as a residence pathway. Foreign degrees are accepted.

3. Business plan must be vetted by a certified professional (new)

The submitted business plan now requires confirmation by a licensed professional: a Certified Public Accountant (公認会計士), Tax Accountant (税理士), or Small and Medium Enterprise Management Consultant (中小企業診断士). Self-prepared plans without this verification are no longer accepted at the application stage.

4. Independent physical office is mandatory (tightened)

The bar for “office” has been raised. Virtual offices, co-working memberships without a dedicated, leasable space, and home offices in residential apartments are now generally not acceptable. The expectation is an independent, lockable, named commercial space.

5. Stricter scrutiny of business viability at every renewal

Even with the transitional measures (more on those below), Immigration is now expected to evaluate not just whether your business exists, but whether it has a credible plan to reach the new standards. “Filing tax returns and not being in the red” is no longer enough by itself.

What if you already hold the visa? The transitional period explained

The Immigration Services Agency (出入国在留管理庁) included a three-year transitional period for existing holders. The key dates:

• October 16, 2025 — new rules take effect for new applications
• October 16, 2028 — transitional period ends; renewals must meet new standards

What this does not mean: that your renewal during the transition is automatic. The official wording is that during this window, Immigration will evaluate renewals “based on business conditions and the prospect of meeting the new standards.” In practice, applicants are now expected to submit a credible plan to reach ¥30M capital and the new employment standard within the period—a capital increase schedule, retained earnings projections, and a hiring plan.

If you can’t show a realistic path, the renewal can be denied even before October 2028.

Why is Japan doing this?

Three reasons appear consistently in the official commentary and Diet discussions:

1. Paper-company abuse. The Business Manager Visa was being used as a relatively cheap residence pathway. Some applicants set up shell companies with the minimum ¥5M capital and no real operations.
2. Out of step with peers. Korea requires roughly ¥32M-equivalent for the comparable visa; the US E-2 typically expects $100,000–$200,000 in invested capital. Japan’s ¥5M threshold was the lowest among major destinations.
3. Public-service costs. Children of visa holders attend Japanese public schools, which carry language-support costs—an indirect concern that has been raised in policy discussion.

The intent is to keep the visa available for substantial entrepreneurs while closing off its use as a low-friction immigration channel.

What this means in practice for foreign entrepreneurs

For someone planning a small import-export business, a single restaurant, a translation service, or a one-person consultancy, the new bar is simply out of reach. ¥30 million in capital, plus the salary cost of a qualifying full-time employee (¥4 million+/year all-in is a reasonable floor), means the realistic minimum to operate is closer to ¥35–40 million in committed funds.

For larger businesses—genuine companies with multiple staff, real revenue, and Japanese-speaking management—the change is more procedural than blocking. The new requirements describe a typical mid-sized company in Japan.

The reform effectively splits the previous applicant pool into two: serious entrepreneurs who can clear the bar, and a much larger group who can’t. For the second group, the question becomes: what now?

Alternatives if the new requirements are out of reach

A few realistic alternative paths, depending on your background:

• 技術・人文知識・国際業務 (Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services): If your skills can be employed by a Japanese company, this is the most common alternative. You become an employee instead of a manager.
• 特定技能 (Specified Skilled Worker): For specific industries (food service, construction, agriculture, care, etc.). Has language testing requirements.
• Spouse visa (日本人の配偶者等 or 永住者の配偶者等): If applicable to your family situation.
• Highly Skilled Professional (高度専門職): A points-based visa for highly qualified professionals. High bar but offers significant benefits including faster permanent residency.
• Startup Visa (4 months): A preparation pathway, but the eventual conversion to Business Manager still requires meeting the new standards. Useful only as runway, not a workaround.

For each of these, the suitability depends heavily on your background, business field, and personal circumstances. Generic advice doesn’t help here—a consultation with a licensed immigration specialist (行政書士, Gyoseishoshi) is the only safe path.

Practical steps if you currently hold the visa

If you’re on the Business Manager Visa today and your renewal is before October 2028, here’s a sensible action sequence:

1. Audit your current position now. Capital, full-time staff (qualified type), language ability, business plan, office. Where are the gaps?
2. Build a written transition plan. Capital increase schedule from retained earnings, hiring timeline, language training if needed. This document is what Immigration will ask for at the next renewal.
3. Consult a 行政書士 (immigration specialist) at least 6 months before your renewal date. They can review your gap analysis and advise whether the path is realistic—or whether a visa change is the better strategy.
4. Don’t delay action assuming the transitional period protects you. Operations that drift through the three years without visible progress toward the new standards are exactly the cases most likely to face renewal denial.

Why we wrote this article

A note from the author. I’m based in Kanagawa on a spouse visa, so this reform doesn’t directly affect my own immigration status, and I want to be upfront about that. I’m writing from the position of an observer in the foreign community here, not a Business Manager visa holder.

What pushed me to write this piece is the kind of business this change is going to hit hardest, and that almost no one is talking about. When the headlines say “¥30 million capital requirement,” it’s easy to picture a flashy startup founder who can shrug it off. The reality on the ground is different. Walk through almost any neighborhood in Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka—or any mid-sized Japanese city—and a meaningful share of the small independent restaurants, ethnic groceries, and family-run import shops are run by foreign entrepreneurs from Nepal, India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, the Philippines and elsewhere in South and Southeast Asia. Many built their entire life around a single small business that cleared the old ¥5M bar.

Those are the people most exposed by this reform. Not because they’re cutting corners, but because a single Indian restaurant or a small Nepalese curry shop genuinely cannot justify ¥30 million in paid-in capital plus a Japanese-national or permanent-resident full-time hire on top of the family already running the place. The math doesn’t work for the size of the operation, regardless of how legitimate or hardworking the business is.

I don’t personally know anyone affected so far—my own circle here doesn’t intersect with this visa category much. But the demographic pattern is visible to anyone living in Japan, and the three-year transitional window means we won’t really see the consequences until renewals start coming up under the new standard. Some of those businesses will adapt. Many won’t, and the people behind them will have to either change visa category, find an employer to sponsor a different visa, or in the worst cases leave a country they’ve often lived in for years.

That’s the part of this story that doesn’t make it into most of the legal-procedure articles, and it felt worth writing down. If you’re in this situation yourself, please don’t take this article as advice—talk to a 行政書士. If you’re not, but you have favorite local spots run by foreign owners, this might be a good year to be a regular customer.

Frequently asked questions

Was my application processed under the old rules if I applied before October 16, 2025? Yes. Applications received by Immigration on or before October 15, 2025, are reviewed under the old standards. The cutoff is the receipt date, not the decision date.

Does the ¥30M capital requirement apply to sole proprietors (個人事業主)? Yes. The standard applies to the funds invested in the business, regardless of legal structure.

Can I count borrowed money toward the ¥30M? The standard refers to paid-in capital (払込済資本金) for corporations or invested funds for sole proprietors. Pure debt doesn’t count, but capital raised through new share issuance or capital injection from the entrepreneur (including from outside Japan) does.

Is the qualifying employee requirement waived if I myself speak Japanese at N2 level? No. Language ability and the employee requirement are separate. The language standard requires either the applicant or the qualifying employee to clear N2; the employee requirement requires a qualifying full-time employee in any case.

Will the 3-year transitional period be extended? There’s no indication of that as of the date of this article. Plan as if October 16, 2028, is firm.

A note on this article

This piece is based on the Ministry of Justice’s published rules and explanatory materials, including the official notice from the Immigration Services Agency (出入国在留管理庁) on the amendment. It’s intended as practical context, not legal advice. Every case has details that can change the outcome—if you’re affected by these rules, consult a licensed immigration specialist (行政書士) before making decisions.