Pre-Reform Capital, Office, Duration, PR, and Experience Rules in Detail

Before 16 October 2025, the capital requirement read as 5,000,000 yen OR 2 full-time staff members (an "or" condition, unlike the "and" condition after the reform). Older versions of the rule sometimes mentioned "3 or more people," and interpretations of this in chat varied. An office was mandatory for the BM visa even before the reform; a virtual office specifically did not qualify for the visa (though it was fine for simple company registration without a visa). A shared office with a separate booth sometimes worked. Before the reform, the first BM visa was usually issued for 1 year; a 3-year renewal was possible (not guaranteed) if the company employed at least one Japanese national or PR holder — this was informally stated by immigration staff. A 5-year visa also existed, rarely granted, at the inspecting officer's discretion. The so-called "BM visa trap" predates the 2025 reform: holding a visa requiring annual renewal made it impossible to apply for PR, and — per a later clarification — for citizenship either, from a one-year BM visa. Many lawyers considered the requirement to hire 2 staff members outdated even before the official 2025 reform (some sources say it was formally dropped earlier), but they continued to recommend hiring at least one person (not necessarily Japanese — a spouse would do) "as a safety margin." An approximate safe budget for starting a business under the old BM rules, including associated costs, was about 6 million yen (5 million capital + roughly 300,000 yen for a lawyer + roughly 200,000 yen for rent/setup + roughly 150,000 yen of rent during the 4+ month visa wait + living expenses). The required 5 million yen was interpreted as "money invested into Japan's economy" rather than necessarily a static account balance that had to remain untouched — it could be spent on the business's associated costs. For a "BM + engineer (employee)" combination, lawyers recommended capital of at least 7.5 million yen as a "safe zone"; a rule of thumb was that capital should exceed the employee's annual salary. For 2+ BM co-owners in the same company, roughly 10 million yen was informally required (5 million per person) — with no direct statutory confirmation; a "BM+BM" application without staff was rarely approved (high refusal risk), making a BM+Engineer structure the safer route. 2022 statistics (House of Representatives Japan/Immigration Bureau) recorded 3,354 BM visa applications in total, of which 2,214 (about 70%) came from mainland Chinese nationals. The old "3 years of entrepreneurial experience" requirement mainly applied to the scenario of a BM acting as a salaried manager at someone else's company; for one's own company it was not a mandatory condition — what mattered there was meeting the capital and staffing requirements. Sources: https://www.globevisa.com/examining-japan-business-manager-visa-tightening-requirements-in-a-changing-landscape/ — article with statistical analysis of BM visa applications based on House of Representatives Japan data.