Japan Representative Office

Representative offices are an extension of the parent company and are established as locations in Japan for carrying out preparatory activities for the purpose of enabling foreign companies to engage in full-scale business operations in Japan. Selling in Japan through represenative offices is not allowed, however, these offices can do almost all other activities a normal corporation can do such as conduct market surveys, collect information, purchase goods and implement publicity/advertising efforts. No shareholding requirements or restrictions exist for the representative office.   In addition, the representative office is fully controlled by the parent company and there are no local management requirements under domestic law. Nor is there a requirement to retain books and records in Japan. And since there are no sales activities, representative offices are not subject to taxation in Japan.

 

Under Japanese law, the representative office can:

• Purchase assets
• Store assets
• Supply information to distributors, communicate prices and terms of sale and identify sales opportunities.
• There is no legal restriction on the number of employees a representative office can have.

Regarding employees: when there are employees receiving remuneration paid into a Japanese bank account, there are payroll and social insurance registration requirements. However, since we can act as a representative employee of your Japan representative office, remuneration can take place in our American bank exclusively and such requirements can be avoided.

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