Doing Business in Japan
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Knowledge base on doing business in Japan. Topics: visas and immigration (including the Business Manager visa 経営・管理 and the October 2025 reform), company registration (株式会社/合同会社/個人事業主), taxes, legal issues and cases, documents and procedures (banking, offices, accounting, hiring), useful links and contacts, and other business-relevant topics (culture and mentality, networking, marketing, real estate, lending, insurance).
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Directorship Risk on a Work Visa: Overview
Being a shareholder and employee on a work visa is legal if you genuinely act as an employee, not a director — otherwise there is a risk of BM reclassification.
It is possible to be a shareholder — even holding more than 50% — of a company while working there under an ordinary work visa without being its director, and this is legal as long as the person actually performs the functions of an employee, not a director. The risk arises if the person is in fact managing the company while formally on a work visa — this can be treated as circumventing the Business Manager (BM) visa requirements. See: Signs of BM Reclassification, Risk-Mitigation Practices, and Contract Requirements.