Consumption Tax, Domains, Document Retention, and Address Changes — Overview

Several scattered but important administrative topics for running a business: the threshold for owing consumption tax and the related invoice system, the rules for registering a .co.jp domain, how long accounting records must be kept, and the procedure for changing a registered address or relocating a company between cities. Consumption tax (Japan's VAT equivalent) becomes payable once annual turnover exceeds 10 million yen, but with a roughly two-year delay after the year the threshold was crossed. Artificially suppressing turnover (for example, shifting it into "R&D") to avoid the tax can be treated by the tax authority as evasion (chat opinion). Registering as a 適格請求書発行事業者 (qualified invoice issuer, under the インボイス制度 invoice system) is needed if counterparties want to claim a consumption-tax deduction; the mandatory registration/payment threshold is often cited as the same 10 million yen line, above which the "consumption-tax free ride" ends. .co.jp domains are available ONLY to a company already registered in Japan, one .co.jp domain per company; a .co.jp is considered to boost client trust compared to a plain .jp. A .co.jp domain can be pre-registered up to 6 months before the company is founded, through onamae.com; proof of company registration then has to be submitted within 6 months. Registrars mentioned in the chat: onamae.com (.co.jp for 2,465 yen), netowl.jp (a cheap option), jp-domains.com (pricier but with English-language support), and netim.com (expensive, €82 for .co.jp). It is important to check the renewal price, not just the initial registration fee; transferring a domain to another registrar is usually free. Registering a Japanese entity speeds up App Store/Google Play review — typically about a day, versus 3–4 days for a company registered in Cyprus. A DUNS number, an international company identifier, is relatively easy to obtain and is needed, for example, to publish on the App Store. Accounting records (blue-form or white-form for a sole proprietorship) must be kept for 7 years; the chat consensus is 7 years from the year the record relates to, not from the date the business started — meaning that after a business closes, records older than 7 years from their own year no longer need to be kept. One participant recommends keeping records for another 7 years "just in case" after closing. Relocating a company between cities/prefectures is a complex, slow process ("a huge pain"), especially with employees on staff; the registration fee for a relocation is 30,000 yen ("3 man," not 10,000 yen as sometimes mistakenly quoted). For a KK, relocating or changing the director's address requires a separate Ministry of Justice registration, adding roughly 10,000 yen. Company taxes are tied to the physical registered address. The prefecture name can be omitted from the registered address if the city is a 政令都市 (a designated city) or shares its name with the prefecture (for example, Kyoto satisfies both conditions). The Legal Affairs Bureau clerk can sometimes correct small inaccuracies in a registration application on the spot. Source: https://www.nta.go.jp/taxes/shiraberu/taxanswer/shohi/6901.htm — Official NTA explanation of consumption tax (消費税). Source: https://www.onamae.com/ — Domain registrar onamae.com, offering .co.jp registration for 2,465 yen. Source: https://www.jp-domains.com/info/cojp_domains.php — Domain registrar for .co.jp with English-language support. Source: https://tsunagu-sihosyoshi.com/cases-in-which-the-prefecture-name-can-be-omitted/#index_id6 — Law-firm article on cases where the prefecture name can be omitted from an address.