The Business Manager visa is for people starting a company in Japan or joining an existing one as a director or senior manager. Unlike the other work visa categories, there's no third-party employer sponsoring you — you (or your company) are effectively your own sponsor, which means the application has to demonstrate the business itself is viable.
Two requirements catch most first-time applicants off guard:
- A physical office in Japan. A registered address alone, or a shared virtual office with no dedicated space, usually isn't sufficient — Immigration wants to see an actual operating location, which typically has to be secured before you apply.
- Capital or scale. The business generally needs either capitalization of at least ¥5 million or at least two full-time employees, to show it's a substantive operation rather than a shell.
A solid business plan showing realistic revenue projections, a market rationale, and how the business supports your own salary is central to the application — this is the one work visa category where the application is really a business viability review as much as an immigration one. Renewal reviews continue to check that the business remains active and reasonably profitable, not just that it existed on day one.
See Financial & Income Requirements for how the capital test is evidenced. Back to Work Visas.