Legal agents, consulting resources, business-plan formats, and visa/registration paperwork

Among agents that help with registration and visas, a 行政書士 (gyōsei shoshi) is an administrative agent handling bureaucracy at government offices, including visa and registration matters, while a 司法書士 (shihō shoshi) handles registering companies/real estate in the official registries, a narrower legal specialization; a given 行政書士 may have a regional focus (e.g., a Kansai-based agent working only with Kyoto/Osaka, not Tokyo). Contacts mentioned in the chat include: 行政書士 藤原事務所 in Kawaguchi, Saitama prefecture (Japanese-speaking only, site gyousei-fuji.com); Acroseed, a consulting agency that helps with company registration and BM-visa applications (not an accelerator); a visa lawyer with positive reviews, thorough and English-speaking, working through a Tokyo office regardless of the region of application; and TOSBEC (Tokyo), which runs regular (every 1-2 months) seminars on preparing business plans for the BM/Startup visa, with template handouts, plus free consultations on BM declarations and hiring a first employee. Useful online resources for consultations: a free online consultation from Tokyo Metropolitan startup support (looks good, though not personally confirmed in the chat); a page describing Osaka's unified business-visa process on city.osaka.lg.jp; the Tokyo Metropolitan Government International Residents Support Center (in Yotsuya) is advertised as a resource for new and existing foreign entrepreneurs with families, but one participant reported "there's no real help there" (unconfirmed opinion, possibly just formalism). Bookkeeping and immigration forms need to be prepared in professional-level Japanese — machine translation (ChatGPT, Gemini) produces noticeably awkward legal/business Japanese, which draws complaints from lawyers and program staff; professional translation is recommended. There's a counter-example too: a real case where a company-registration document package prepared with ChatGPT's help needed "surprisingly few" corrections when filed at the Homukyoku. For the startup visa there are two main business-plan formats: 創業活動確認計画書/創業活動計画書 (more detailed, "what gets approved for startup visas") and the simpler 事業計画書 (plus a separate 月別収支計画書 monthly income/expense plan). Real business-plan lengths among successful applicants range from 15-20 pages (the InvestTokyo template) to 100+ pages (one successful InvestTokyo submission, noted as excessive). For the BM visa, the business plan must be 100% in Japanese (not English), ideally in the Japanese format — some startup programs used to allow an English plan, but participants report such plans sometimes had to be fully redone in Japanese format for a BM application. A CPA/zeirishi can verify a business plan for a BM-visa renewal application — check current requirements with TOSBEC or a lawyer. One participant's list of documents requested by immigration for a BM-visa renewal included financial statements and similar materials. The document format required for some programs (e.g., Investtokyo/Shibuya) is strictly .docx (not PDF), with an overall upload size cap (e.g., 10 MB for the entire package, including a doubled package for multiple applicants). .docx formatting done via LibreOffice/Linux often breaks when opened in MS Word on Windows (shifted tables, images, fonts) — Google Docs is recommended as more compatible, or MS Office on Windows. Noto Sans CJK JP (a free font) renders Japanese text reliably in PDF — compatibility in .docx isn't guaranteed. When submitting documents via the e-gov site (public comment), it may be necessary to download every PDF and click links with the left mouse button (not the middle button or open-in-new-tab) — otherwise the comment form may not activate (a known site bug). Filing the 開業届 (sole-proprietor opening notice) can be done online, but if there's a technical failure (e.g., an error reading the My Number card), it can be resolved with an in-person visit to the tax office (one example: the Nihonbashi tax office fixed the error on the spot in 40 minutes). A common pitfall in confirming capital: the bank/tax office may not accept a simple account balance (残高) as proof of capital — they may instead require a single transaction (通帳 entry) for the full amount or more, rejecting it if it looks like accumulated salary rather than a one-off capital contribution. For paying in registered capital at incorporation, it's convenient to make a single transaction (depositing the whole amount at once into the founder's personal account) — easy to prove with a bank statement when filing at the Homukyoku; this can be done by withdrawing and redepositing the same amount at a branch. However, the requirement to transfer capital in a single transaction is not a strict legal requirement (despite being a common recommendation) — chat participants confirmed, after checking with the Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局), that multiple transactions are also accepted by the registration authorities. What matters for registering capital is that the transactions (including cash ones) are traceable — you must be able to show the source of funds (statements, a transfer history via Wise/Yucho, etc.), especially if the money was routed through intermediaries or other accounts rather than transferred directly. For a company with 5 million yen in capital, the funds must be in the founder's personal account at the moment the documents are shown at the Homukyoku (法務局); the statement's validity window mentioned was about 3 months for filing with the Ministry of Justice. Changing or increasing company capital is handled through the Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局). Incorporating with the statutory minimum capital of 1 yen is possible for holders of a permanent visa not tied to a specific employer (e.g., permanent residency), or for Japanese citizens/spouses of Japanese citizens — the 30-million-yen capital requirement applies only to those who specifically need the Business Manager visa category to reside in Japan. Accepting tourist/local cash payments calls for awareness of cash-gift etiquette: money given as a gift or thank-you goes in an envelope, using new, uncreased banknotes (新札); for condolence money, the opposite applies — new banknotes are inappropriate; notes are folded the same way, with no writing or dirt on them; banks will exchange notes for new ones on request (新札両替), though some only for existing customers, some only via ATM, sometimes for a fee. A general portal for government subsidies is smart-hojokin.jp. City-level business subsidies/support in Tokyo differ by ward — it's worth checking with each ward office about local programs (ask: "what business support programs do you have?"). Example: in Shibuya, businesses under a year old get a preferential 7-year loan at 0.1% annual interest, but both the corporate account and the loan itself must be with specific partner banks. Information was gathered ward-by-ward for Adachi, Kita, Shinjuku (business support at the BIZ building), and Toshima (no such service). A subsidy for building a small-business website was mentioned at the ward level (example: Adachi). Source: https://www.gyousei-fuji.com — Website of an administrative agent (行政書士) in Kawaguchi, Saitama prefecture. Source: https://www.startup-support.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/onestop/en/ — Free online consultation from Tokyo Metropolitan startup support. Source: https://www.city.osaka.lg.jp/keizaisenryaku/page/0000623602.html — Description of Osaka's unified business-visa process. Source: https://www.smart-hojokin.jp/ — General portal for Japanese government subsidies and grants.