Sending Staff to Japan: The Business Manager Visa and Intra-Company Transfer

Putting people on the ground in Japan runs through the residence-status system, and the right status depends on the person’s role: whoever runs the entity, the staff you move across, and the professionals you hire each need a different one. Getting this wrong is not a paperwork error; it can leave a country manager unable to legally direct the company, or a key hire unable to start.

Japan’s immigration framework, under the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (出入国管理及び難民認定法), administered by the Immigration Services Agency, sorts foreign nationals into residence statuses by activity. For a company entering Japan, three of them do most of the work: Business Manager (経営・管理) for the person running the business, Intra-Company Transfer (企業内転勤) for moving existing staff, and Engineer / Specialist in Humanities / International Services (技術・人文知識・国際業務) for professional hires. The whole process turns on a pre-approval document, the Certificate of Eligibility.

What follows maps which status fits whom and how the process works. It is an orientation, not immigration advice for a specific case, which is exactly the work to get right.

Business Manager: the person who runs the entity

The Business Manager status (経営・管理) is for a foreign national who will manage or operate a business in Japan, the founder, the investor-operator, or the country manager setting up and running the Japanese entity. It is not an employment status; it is for the person directing the company.

Its long-standing requirements centred on substance: a genuine, secured physical office in Japan (not a home address or a virtual office), and a business of real scale, shown either by capital investment of at least five million yen or by employing at least two full-time staff resident in Japan, all backed by a credible business plan.

Two cautions matter here. First, there is a chicken-and-egg quality: the status is for running a business that, in a fresh entry, does not yet exist, so the practical sequence is usually to incorporate the entity first, secure the office, and then apply. Second, and importantly, these requirements have been tightened. Japan has moved to raise the capital threshold substantially above the historic five-million-yen figure and to add employment, management-experience, and Japanese-language requirements. Anyone planning this route should treat the old five-million-yen rule as a floor that has been raised and confirm the current thresholds before relying on them.

Intra-Company Transfer: moving your existing people

To move an existing employee from the overseas group into the Japanese entity, the natural status is Intra-Company Transfer (企業内転勤). It applies to a transfer from an overseas parent, subsidiary, or branch to the related Japanese company, and it generally requires that the employee has worked at the sending office for at least one year immediately before, and will be paid at least what a Japanese national would earn for the same work.

Its advantage is that it does not require the Business Manager thresholds: it rides on the existing corporate relationship rather than on capital or local hiring. For a company standing up a new Japanese operation, it is the clean way to place trusted, experienced staff on the ground quickly, without each of them having to independently satisfy a business-scale test.

Engineer / Specialist: the professional hires

Most professional employees, whether transferred, hired locally, or recruited from abroad, hold the Engineer / Specialist in Humanities / International Services status (技術・人文知識・国際業務). It covers engineering and IT, and the humanities-and-international side covers marketing, finance, planning, translation, and international-business roles. It generally requires a relevant degree or equivalent experience matching the work, and the role must be genuinely professional rather than manual or routine.

This is the status that carries the bulk of a foreign company’s Japanese workforce, and the fit between the person’s qualifications and the specific role is what the immigration authorities scrutinize.

For senior or exceptionally qualified people, it is worth checking eligibility for Highly Skilled Professional (高度専門職), a points-based status offering longer stays, broader activities, and a faster route to permanent residence. For the right individuals it is materially better than the standard categories.

How the process works: the Certificate of Eligibility

Across these statuses, the mechanism is the same and it centres on the Certificate of Eligibility (在留資格認定証明書, COE):

• The Japanese entity applies for the COE on the person’s behalf, to the Immigration Services Agency, demonstrating that the person and the role satisfy the chosen status.
• Once the COE is granted, the person takes it to a Japanese embassy or consulate abroad, where the actual visa is issued, comparatively routinely.
• The person then enters Japan and receives a residence card (在留カード).

The COE is the substantive step, the point at which the case is actually assessed, and it is one of the highest-volume procedures Japanese immigration handles. The visa stamp that follows is the easy part. So the effort, and the timeline, sit with the COE application and the evidence behind it, not with the consulate.

Where this becomes a public affairs question

Immigration filings themselves are administrative and legal work: immigration lawyers and administrative scriveners (行政書士) handle the COE applications and the status logic. That is not where Gemini Group’s work lies, and for a straightforward transfer it is largely a solved process.

The connection to public affairs is different and it is about timing and terrain. Bringing people to Japan is one of the concrete steps that marks a company moving from studying the market to operating in it, and it is precisely at that point that the regulatory environment stops being background and becomes the thing that determines success. A company that has just placed a country manager and a team on the ground is a company that now has to engage its sector’s ministries, licensing, and policy questions in earnest. The visa is the signal that the real work, understanding and engaging the regulatory landscape, is about to begin.

If you are putting a team into Japan and want the regulatory terrain they will be operating in mapped, get in touch.

How to plan it

• Match the status to the role. Business Manager for whoever runs the entity; Intra-Company Transfer to move existing staff; Engineer / Specialist for professional hires. They are not interchangeable.
• Confirm the current Business Manager thresholds. The requirements have been raised above the old five-million-yen rule; treat older summaries as out of date and check.
• Sequence the entity before the manager. The Business Manager status needs a business to run, so incorporate and secure the office first.
• Put the effort into the Certificate of Eligibility. It is where the case is decided; the visa issuance afterwards is routine.
• Check Highly Skilled Professional for key people. The points-based status can be materially better for senior transferees and hires.

Why this matters for public affairs in Japan

Getting people into Japan can feel like the final logistical box to tick before operating, a matter of forms and consulates. It is that, and specialists handle it well. But it is also the moment a company’s relationship with Japan changes character. Studying a market asks nothing of its regulators; operating in it asks a great deal. The team you place on the ground has to work inside a specific regulatory environment, engage the ministries that govern your activity, and navigate rules that shift with the policy cycle. The visa process is downstream of the decision to commit, and the decision to commit is upstream of the regulatory engagement that actually determines the outcome. Treating immigration as the end of market entry, rather than the beginning of operating, is to mistake arrival for having arrived.

Gemini Group helps companies establishing a presence in Japan understand and engage the regulatory and policy environment their new operation sits in. Contact us to map the terrain your Japan team will be working in.

Further reading: our guide to setting up a company in Japan covers the entity that will sponsor your team, and the market-entry regulatory checklist maps which rules apply to your sector.