EOR and Branch Office Paths: Licensing, Pricing, and Risk Details

A legal EOR provider in Japan must be licensed as 労働者派遣 (haken, worker dispatch): this requires a special license, staff training and examinations, a workforce, a minimum of 20 million yen on account, office requirements, and ongoing staff training programs. EOR companies work only with corporate clients, not directly with freelancers or individuals. Pricing (data from around May 2025, which has since fluctuated): Deel charged $9,000-12,000 upfront plus $600-900/month (older figures: $5,500 upfront, +$2,000 for a spouse, plus $600/month, +$300 for extras; prices later rose 1.5-2x, with figures of $10,000 upfront + $900/month also cited); Remote charged $5,000 upfront plus €550/month (or a $5,000 deposit), with other figures of $2,200 upfront (+$850) plus $600/month, later $500/month; RemoFirst charged $3,000 upfront plus $800/month. Seeking out a small local Japanese EOR company was recommended as a cheaper alternative; full turnkey visa processing via a local lawyer under an HSP-linked EOR arrangement can start from around 100,000 yen. No confirmed successful cases of someone "hiring themselves" through their own overseas company via an EOR arrangement came up in discussion — this raises suspicion with immigration, and the attempt is associated with Controlled Foreign Company (CFC) risk. A related route — being placed with a trusted "host company" through a partnership/hire-on-trust arrangement — reportedly costs around 40% of the employee's gross salary (figures cited: a turnkey work visa around $5,000 per person plus a $500-700/month subscription, and around $10,000 for HSP); this is an unverified estimate from discussion. An "umbrella company" scheme for hiring freelancers purely to obtain visas was discussed and judged risky and legally questionable — hiring "purely for visa purposes" raises worker-protection issues and the risk that a hidden indefinite employment relationship would be recognized. A related scheme combining a sole proprietorship with Deel EOR — hiring oneself in Japan through Deel while drawing a minimal salary — was discussed as an alternative path to status and, eventually, citizenship. On the branch-office side, a branch director can be a non-resident, but under the law a KK-type branch cannot exist without a resident director on record (per a notary's comment in discussion) — a 役員 (yakuin, corporate officer) is required. Known cases from 2017-2018 involved employees of foreign companies moving from a student visa to an ordinary work visa via a branch office without the capital/office requirements that apply to BM visas — though it is unconfirmed whether this still applies under current rules. A real case from discussion: the owner of a Hong Kong (foreign) company opened a branch in Japan and hired himself as an engineer — the scheme worked, yielding first an engineer visa, then PR (the branch's director was formally someone else, since an engineer-visa holder cannot also be the owner-director; that requires an investor/BM visa). Difficulties included opening a bank account for the branch, Japanese clients' reluctance to work with branch entities, double-taxation risk absent an offshore structure, and the need to amend incorporation documents — sometimes requiring a trip to the parent company's home jurisdiction — whenever the address changes. After the BM reform, opening a foreign-company branch and hiring oneself on a work visa became one of the main legalization paths for founders unwilling to raise 30 million yen, alongside the BM visa itself, the host-company partnership/hire route, and marriage to a Japanese national. To minimize the risk of a branch/subsidiary being reclassified as requiring a BM visa, a physical office, genuine business activity, a dedicated HR staffer (an accountant cannot legally double as HR), attention to entity type (branch vs. subsidiary), and gradually increasing paid-in capital are all recommended. Opening a branch "for just yourself" (a nominal director with no real employees) is seen as a red flag for immigration — the risk of refusal or delay on a work-visa application through such a branch is reportedly higher than for a genuinely operating branch with several employees; this is an unverified view from discussion. See: Alternative Paths to a Work Visa: Employer of Record (EOR) and Foreign Branch Offices; Directorship Risk on a Work Visa: Overview.