Buying an Existing Company (Shelf Company) — Overview

Buying an already existing company, including one with a bank account, is a common practice, but chat participants disagree on how worthwhile it is. Legal transfer procedures include 株式譲渡, 吸収合併, and 株式交換. If the purchased company's line of business changes, banks may close even its existing accounts. There is no centralized public registry of companies' financial information in Japan. Buying an already existing company, including one with a bank account, is a common practice — listings appear, for example, in Facebook groups for Russian speakers in Japan. It is advisable to involve a notary to check the target company for debts or legal problems before buying ("vetting the firm"). Legal transfer procedures are: 株式譲渡 (transfer of equity, for a KK), 吸収合併 (absorption merger), and 株式交換 (share exchange). When a company is bought with a change of director, the bank accounts can generally be inherited — formal notice to the bank is not always required, just appointing a new representative (会社代表者) — but the bank may run its own KYC/AML check and in theory refuse service if it suspects the deal is not legitimate. Advantages of buying an existing company include credibility (contracts, bank accounts, reputation), though the articles of incorporation (teikan) will still need reworking if the line of business changes (rework cost around 10,000 yen); obtaining a BM visa remains a separate, complex step regardless. Buying an existing business is often cheaper and simpler than starting from scratch, particularly in the context of banking or medical licenses (chat opinion, confirmed by several participants' practice). Opinions diverge: on one hand, "shelf corporations" are a normal global practice found in Japan too. On the other, according to other chat participants, the market for buying and selling existing companies in Japan is underdeveloped and "murky": there is a risk of hidden debts, and rewriting the articles can be expensive — it is often cheaper to create a new company than buy an existing one, unlike in Europe where buying is more common than creating. It is not recommended to buy an existing entity with an open bank account intending to change its line of business — banks may close even existing accounts when a registered company's business type changes. There is no single centralized public registry of financial information about companies in Japan (unlike company registries in Russia/Kazakhstan) — only basic information (address, name) is available through official requests at houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp, not financial data. Checking a company's registration history and name changes is also available there. Until December 2024, a company director's address was public information, obtainable through a government request. Access to that information is reportedly simpler now (apparently online, in a single request), though the exact mechanism was not clarified in the chat. Source: https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/ — Official National Tax Agency registry of basic company information (name, address, change history).