Student Visa Work Permits and Business Restrictions: Blanket vs Individual Permits, Hiring, and Company Registration

The standard part-time work permission for students (資格外活動許可, blanket/comprehensive permit, ① 包括許可) caps activity at 28 hours per week (more during school vacations) and is often stamped automatically at the airport on arrival. Compliance is not always strictly monitored in practice, but exceeding the limit can, by law, cause problems when renewing the visa. A student visa holder may run a sole proprietorship in parallel within this 28-hour cap. For activities where hours are hard to verify objectively — running one's own online shop, or a sole proprietorship with many functions — a different, individual permit (② 個別許可) is required instead; it is harder to obtain and not guaranteed, but not prohibited. The blanket permit (包括) does not cover this kind of activity. Students cannot officially hire employees while on a student visa, and, based on community experience, renting an office and opening a corporate bank account are both difficult — counterparties are often reluctant to work with people holding student status (banks typically require about six months of residency, though this reflects bank-specific internal policy rather than a legal requirement). A student cannot officially serve as a company director while drawing a salary — doing so would violate their status. However, a "gray" scenario is sometimes used: becoming a director immediately before filing for a Business Manager (BM) visa, and during that interim period signing only the minimum necessary documents (office lease, paperwork for future employees' work visas) without receiving any money into the company account until the BM visa is approved. One lawyer reportedly holds the (unconfirmed and contested) opinion that setting up an office and contracts while still on a student visa is legal and even mandatory for a BM application — but this conflicts with other community members' experience. A student can register a company and simultaneously file for a change of status; working before the status change is approved is not allowed, but seeking clients is permitted. Transitioning directly from a student visa to a BM visa is possible and has been done in practice, with several confirmed cases.