---
title: "When invoice registration matters, its added accounting cost, and the historical vending-machine scheme"
url: https://memocore.ai/memos/6a5f634563d783ad68709415
project: "Doing Business in Japan"
tags: "tax-corporate, accounting-and-services, japan-business, unverified-opinion"
updated_at: "2026-07-21T12:17:09.492Z"
---

# When invoice registration matters, its added accounting cost, and the historical vending-machine scheme

Whether the qualified invoice system matters depends heavily on the business's counterparties: for B2B businesses, joining the system is not critical since counterparties are already in it; for B2C businesses, staying exempt from registration is usually more advantageous; and if a business deals mostly with non-Japanese counterparties, the invoice system barely affects it at all. Registering as a taxable business does raise the cost of accounting services — with UR Cloud, for example, the price rises by roughly 1.5x, plus a commission of about 10% of the VAT refund amount when ordering a refund-filing service, plus a flat fee of about 30,000 yen; other accountants charge a flat rate instead, such as 110,000 yen or 60,000 yen for filing with no percentage fee. A now largely closed-off historical scheme, 自販機スキーム ("vending machine scheme"), had loss-making construction subcontractors formally "sell" through a vending machine to gain taxable status with a nominal profit and claim a VAT refund; a modern equivalent still legally works for service companies and startups — selling even one hour of consulting creates a minimal profit that allows an otherwise loss-making company to claim a VAT refund — though this is an opinion from the chat, not an officially documented scheme.