My current visa status is a 3-year renewable working visa with the catchy title
of 'Specialist in Humanities and International Services' (or 人文知識・国際業務 in
Japanese). This is the kind of visa applicable for a wide variety of
professional reasons for being in Japan, from teaching English as a foreign
language, to working in marketing.
To run a business in Japan you will
generally need a 'Investor/Business Manager' visa (投資・経営 visa category in
Japanese), although if you have a spouse visa or permanent residency those would
do just as well.
Though I have heard of people being awarded investor
visa status without meeting all of the requirements set forth by the Immigration
Bureau of Japan, I'm operating on the assumption that the requirements do need
to be met, including:
- Employing two or more full time Japanese citizens or
permanent residents of Japan, or
- Annual investment in the company of at
least 5 million yen. (About 39,000 GBP, or 64,000 USD).
The problem with
planning to open a little shop is that neither of the above conditions are
likely to be met given the small scale of the enterprise, particularly at the
startup stage. Feeling that the requirements were a little forbidding, I had a
look around to see how Japan compares to other countries in this respect. The UK
is alleged to compare favourably with the US and other countries, but despite
recent lowering of initial hurdles to non-UK resident entrepreneurs through a
creation of a Prospective Entrepreneurs visa category, the requirements that
need to be met are still higher than those of the Japanese Investor/Business
Manager.
Not discouraged, and also not particularly interested in
exploring the complexities and legal issues of the marriage of convenience
route, I'm looking into the remaining option - becoming a permanent resident of
Japan.
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