Author Archives: 司法書士大石人士司法書士大石人士

To permanent status holders

Please don’t forget to take re-entry permit procedure if you stay outside Japan over one year.

Today, I got a call from a woman who used to have a permanent status.

She lost the status, because she didn’t know there is a necessity to take re-entry permit.

She lived in Japan for almost over 30 years, but she lost her precious status!

What a waste!

Once you lose it, it is difficult to get it again.

They gave her the visa that allows her to stay here for 30 days to prepare to leave, but she wants to live in Japan as usual as she has lived here.

So, now, she is trying to get a working visa to work as an English teacher. She has a long experience in teaching.

However, it takes time, effort, and cost. And mentally, it is a burden.

If you have a plan to leave Japan for a while, please be careful about the loss of your status.

Thank you.

Solicitor Hitoshi Oishi （司法書士・行政書士　大石人士）

Deciding your business form

When starting up a business, we tend to mainly consider the side of advantages or disadvantages about forms of organization and tax matters.

For example:

Which form do you choose to start up your business?

Sole proprietorship or establishing a company?

What shareholder composition do you take?

Who will be on the list of directors of your company?  and so on.

However, in terms of starting up a business in Japan, whether you can get the status of residence or not is the most important point.

If you can’t get it, you will be forced to leave Japan, even if you are ready to start up your business.

So, from here, I will explain to you how to make incorporated company, or kabushiki-gaisha(株式会社）as we call it, that is most commonly used in Japan, with keeping the Immigration Bureau’s investigation on the status of residence-Investor/Business Manager in mind.

Incorporation of the Company

Company is formed by registering of establishment at the location of the head office.

Corporation Law

Article 49;

A Stock Company shall be formed by the registration of the incorporation at the location of its head office.

Article 579;

A Membership Company shall be incorporated by the registration of the incorporation at the location of its head office.

In other words, your company can get juridical personality by registration.

In its present state, you are not required to get your company registered if you want to get the status of residence-Investor/Business Manager.

So, seemingly, it can be said that you don’t need to give your company juridical personality.

However, Stock Corporation or Limited Liability Company is commonly used because of the following reasons.

1.It would help you to prove how much money you have invested into your business, because your company’s capital amount will be posted publicly on the register book.

2.The immigration bureau would be able to judge easily from attachment documents (ex. stockholders’ list) whether the investment was done by foreigners or not.

Types of Company

In Japan’s corporate law, you are allowed to establish four types of company.

That is to say, “Company” means any Stock Company, General Partnership Company, Limited Partnership Company or Limited Liability Company.

General Partnership Company, or gou-mei-kaisha（合名会社） as we call it, is a company that consists of members with unlimited liability.

Limited Partnership Company, or gou-shi-kaisha（合資会社） as we call it, is a company that consists of members with both unlimited liability and limited liability.

These two types are less used in comparison with Stock Company because they are based on a personal relationship of trust and there is no concept of capital stock in them.

In 2006, Japan’s corporate law created a new style of company.

The company is called Limited Liability Company, or gou-dou-kaisha（合同会社） in Japanese.

Main features of Limited Liability Company

– Securing investor’s limited liability

– Application of partnership rules

Limited Liability Company has the same characteristics as General Partnership Company and Limited Partnership Company in that it is a membership company.

Limited Liability Company has the same characteristics as Stock Company in that it consists of only limited partners.

Thank you.

Solicitor Hitoshi Oishi (司法書士・行政書士 大石人士）

The status of residence for a parent who wants to live with their child or children so that they can get support from them is not stipulated in Immigration Control Law.

This means that, in principle, they don’t allow your parent to stay with you in Japan.

However, if there are “special circumstances” in which your parent really needs to live with you in Japan, Immigration Office might give you a “green light”. So, please ask to Regional Immigration Bureaus or immigration lawyers near your place.

What is “special circumstances”?

Although they don’t unveil screening criteria, the following conditions are considered to be needed.

1.Parent is old age. Roughly, they must be over 70.

However, it does not necessarily mean that you cannot apply for it when they are not over 70 years old. If you carefully explain the situation about their disease or disorder, there is likely to be approved, even if they are less than 70 years old.

2.There aren’t any relatives or siblings who can take care of them in your home country.

3.You have to be the adequate person who can surely take care of them in Japan.

4.You have to be able to bear the cost of living of your parent in Japan.

Thank you.

Solicitor Hitoshi Oishi (司法書士・行政書士 大石人士）

I got a question from one of my readers.
Today, I reconstructed our dialogue, and will share it with you.

(Questioner)

I’m a permanent resident.

Is there any way to invite my aged mother to Japan?

(Hitoshi)

If he/she does not have any relatives who can take care of him/her in his/her home country or other country, there might be a chance.

If so, by considering special circumstances, immigration might give him/her the status of Designated Activities.

Are you the only one who can take care of her?

Do you have any siblings in your country?

(Questioner)

No. In my country, I have a brother.

(Hitoshi)

In the present Japanese immigration system, there isn’t defined status that allows you to invite your parents in your home country to Japan.

So, there isn’t a definite way to invite them.

In addition to that, it is not easy for us to understand screening criteria, and therefore, getting permission is very difficult.

In your case, since you have a brother, I guess it is difficult to invite her.

Thank you.
Solicitor Hitoshi Oishi(司法書士・行政書士 大石人士）

In this case, is he eligible to apply for permanent status?

He has been staying continuously in Japan for more than 10 years.

3 years have passed since he changed his status from “student” to “specialist in humanities/international services”.

It seems that he can fulfill one of the requirements for getting permanent status which requires that you stay in Japan for more than 10 years consecutively, but in this case, he can’t clear.

As I explained on yesterday’s article（To get permanent resident), during this 10 years, it is also required that he has to have stayed for more than 5 years after changing to working visa or the status of residence.

Thank you.

Solicitor Hitoshi Oishi (司法書士・行政書士 大石人士）

Immigration Bureau of Japan shows us “Guidelines for Permission for Permanent Residence” so that we can understand the requirement of getting it.

If you want to get the status of Permanent Resident, you have to check whether you can clear 3 points as follows.

1.Requirement of residence in Japan

2.Requirement of good conduct and self-supporting subsistence

3.Requirement of national interest

In general, you must clear these points.

As to No.1, you have stayed in Japan for more than 10 years consecutively.

During this 10 years, if you came to Japan as a student and finished your study, and then have been working here, it is also required that you have to have stayed for more than 5 years after changing your status to working visa or the status of residence.

As to No.2, you are of good conduct. That is to say, you observe Japanese laws and your daily living as a resident does not invite any social criticism. In addition to this, you have sufficient assets or ability to make an independent living. That is to say, you do not financially depend on someone in the society, and your assets or ability, etc. are assumed to continue to provide you with a stable base of livelihood into the future.

As to No.3, your permanent residence is regarded to be in accord with the interests of Japan. “Guidelines for Permission for Permanent Residence” explains this concretely.

a) The person has been never sentenced to a fine or imprisonment. The person fulfills public duties such as tax payment.

b) The maximum period of stay allowed for the person with his/her current status of residence under Annexed Table 2 of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act is to be fully utilized.

c) There is no possibility that the person could do harm from the viewpoint of protection of public health.

Thank you.

Solicitor Hitoshi Oishi (司法書士・行政書士 大石人士）

To start your business in Japan, you have to change your status into “Business Manager” if you are already have another status here.

To get this, you have to do this procedure.

1)

・Fund raising

・Preparing your office space, etc.

→In this stage, you have to face with some contract such as renting office space, refurbishment of your shop or store, buying office equipment, etc.

You have to be careful of contracting, otherwise you might get involved in losing a lot of your precious money.

As a solicitor, I can check if your contract is valid or not.

・Registration of your company

→In general, to get“Business Manager”, it is better to take Kabushiki-gaisha form.

・Getting approval of prefectural government about handling used car

2) After preparing above things, you have to apply for getting new status.

3) Start your business.

I’m a solicitor.

Now, in my qualification, I can only handle No.1 procedure.

For now, I can’t handle No.2 procedure, because I’m not an immigration lawyer.

Actually, I’m studying to get qualification of immigration lawyer, and will take the exam that will be held at the end of this month.

If I pass, I would be able to handle visa procedure on behalf of you from around the beginning of September.

I don’t want you to lose your precious time.

If you are in a hurry, I suggest you ask to other immigration lawyer who can also handle No.1 procedure.

They can support setting up your business totally.

I will let you know when I pass the exam for immigration lawyer.

Thank you.

Solicitor Hitoshi Oishi （司法書士・行政書士　大石人士）

If you want to do a business like restaurant that requires a certain amount of money　(from several million yen to several thousand yen) to get your business started, you have to do things below under the uncertain conditions.

・renting a store building

・have interior finish work

・employing chefs etc.

Generally, you make an application to the Immigration Bureau for the status of residence after being ready to open your business. This means that you would take a big risk, if you fail to get the status of residence.

Even if you get the status of residence successfully in your initial attempt, it does not mean that everything goes well.

In many cases, you have to renew your status of residence every 1 to 3 years.

Of course, there are certain criteria on renewal of the residence status, and if you don’t meet these requirements, you will be forced to leave Japan.

Thus, the status of residence is indispensable to foreigners who want to start up a business in Japan.

As I explained up to here, I hope that you already have understood that you should be careful about the residence status.

The difficulty of understanding the residence status stems from the point where all foreigners aren’t under the same situations and conditions.

What I mean is:

If a person A wants to start a business in Japan, A has to get the status of residence called “Investor/Business Manager” but if a person B wants to do the same thing, B can start a business without any application to the Immigration Bureau like Japanese people.

If there is a person who has to change the status of residence wants to start a business, it doesn’t always mean that he or she has to get “Investor/Business Manager” status.

In some cases, you can get your business started easier and quicker by changing your status of residence into another one than getting “Investor/Business Manager” status.

In general, we have a tendency to think that starting up a business in Japan equals to getting “Investor/Business Manager” status.

But, before taking the action, you have to understand your situations totally and clearly, and you also have to know whether you are really required to get “Investor/Business Manager” status.

Therefore, you have to understand the outline for Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, and also it is essential to understand status of residence system of Japan.

So, if you need some help to understand these things, I suggest you go to the Immigration Bureau or specialists like immigration lawyer(行政書士, Gyosei-shoshi）for some advice.

If you contact me about this issue, of course, I will help you as much as I can.

Thank you.

Solicitor Hitoshi Oishi (司法書士・行政書士　大石人士）