When people ask me how I ended up running a hospitality company in Tokyo as a foreigner, the honest answer is: paperwork, then more paperwork, then a visa. Specifically, the Business Manager Visa — the residence status that lets a non-Japanese national actually live in Japan while managing a company here, including a short-term rental business.

TL;DR

  • The Business Manager Visa (経営・管理ビザ) lets foreign nationals legally operate a company in Japan, including a short-term rental business — but since an October 16, 2025 rule change it requires an office in Japan, at least one qualifying full-time employee other than the manager, ¥30 million or more in business assets/capital, JLPT N2/CEFR B2-level Japanese (held by the applicant or that employee), and either a relevant graduate/professional degree or three-plus years of management/business experience.
  • A physical, dedicated office is generally required; a residential apartment or a virtual-office-only address typically won’t satisfy immigration reviewers.
  • The visa is tied to ongoing business substance — renewal reviews check for real revenue and operations, plus tax, labor-law, and insurance compliance, not just the initial paperwork.
  • Minpaku licensing (via notification, special-zone authorization, or Inns and Hotels Act permission, depending on the model) and the Business Manager Visa are two separate approval processes; clearing one does not clear the other.
  • Many small operators consider a 合同会社 (GK/LLC) because its registration-license tax floor is lower than a KK’s (¥60,000 vs. ¥150,000), though entity choice should be confirmed with a professional; that decision and the visa application often happen around the same time.

What Is the Business Manager Visa?

The Business Manager Visa is the residence status for a foreign national who will reside in Japan and substantially manage or administer a business here. It isn’t what lets you own or found a Japanese company in the first place — foreign nationals can establish or hold shares in a Japanese company under separate company-registration rules regardless of their residence status. What the visa authorizes is being physically present in Japan and actually running that business day to day. For short-term rental operators, it’s the status that turns “I want to run guesthouses in Japan” from a hobby-with-a-tourist-visa into something you can legally operate in person. It’s distinct from a work visa tied to an employer, and distinct from the Digital Nomad visa, which is designed for remote workers earning income from outside Japan and doesn’t authorize you to run a Japan-registered company generating local revenue.

How Much Capital Do You Actually Need?

The old shorthand — ¥5 million in capital or two full-time employees, one or the other — no longer applies. Under the rules in effect since the October 16, 2025 amendment, a company applying for the Business Manager Visa needs: an office in Japan; at least one qualifying full-time employee other than the manager; and ¥30 million or more in business assets or capital. In addition, either the applicant or a qualifying full-time employee needs Japanese ability at roughly the JLPT N2 / CEFR B2 level, and the applicant needs a relevant graduate or professional degree, or at least three years of management or business experience.

For a company, immigration checks whether paid-in capital or total contributions are at least ¥30 million. Operating expenses such as office rent or employee pay cannot be added on top to make a company meet that ¥30 million threshold, although the company can of course use its capital for business operations after formation. Model gross-vs-net yield conservatively — including OTA commissions, cleaning, utilities, taxes, insurance, and licensing/compliance costs — before assuming a given property or portfolio clears this bar.

Do You Need a Physical Office?

Yes — a dedicated business address is a core requirement, and a residential apartment or shared virtual-office mailbox usually isn’t enough on its own. Immigration reviewers look for a space that’s clearly set up for business use: a sign, a lease in the company’s name, a desk and equipment, not just a mailbox rented for a monthly fee. This trips up a lot of first-time applicants who assume their apartment or an initial short-term rental property itself can double as the registered office. It generally can’t — you’ll need a separate business address even if your actual operations revolve around managing rental units elsewhere.

How Does This Interact With Minpaku Licensing?

The Business Manager Visa and the licensing needed to actually operate short-term lodging are entirely separate approvals, run by different authorities, and neither substitutes for the other. The visa is an immigration status tied to your company’s legitimacy as a business. Depending on your operating model, the property itself may instead need a Private Lodging Business Act notification (住宅宿泊事業法の届出, generally capped at 180 days of operation per year), National Strategic Special Zone minpaku authorization (国家戦略特区法上の認定), or Inns and Hotels Act permission such as simple lodging (旅館業法上の許可／簡易宿所営業) — a separate local-government or prefectural process tied to the specific property. You’ll typically need the company entity in place before you can apply for either the property license or the visa in earnest, since both applications ask for company registration documents. Practically, that means sequencing matters: incorporate first, then run the property licensing and visa applications in parallel where you can, since both take real weeks-to-months and neither is optional.

What Happens at Renewal?

The period of stay granted is one of several official lengths — 5 years, 3 years, 1 year, 6 months, 4 months, or 3 months — and renewal is where immigration checks whether the business is actually operating, not just registered. Reviewers look at whether the company has real revenue, is filing taxes, and is doing what its business plan said it would do; renewal reviews also weigh tax payment history, labor-law compliance, social and labor insurance enrollment, and whether the business holds the permits it needs to operate. A dormant company, or one running at a sustained loss with no credible path to viability, is a renewal risk.

If you were already resident under the Business Manager status before the October 16, 2025 amendment, there’s a transition allowance: until October 16, 2028, failing to meet the new ¥30 million/employee/language/experience standards alone will not automatically cause your renewal to be refused. That grace period doesn’t relax the compliance checks above, though — tax, labor, and insurance issues still count against you regardless of when you were first approved.

This is one more reason the “operating cost gap” that hits so many short-term rental investors — the difference between headline gross yield and what’s actually left after OTA commissions, cleaning, utilities, and compliance costs — matters beyond just your own P&L. If your business isn’t showing believable numbers, it isn’t just a return problem, it’s a status-renewal problem.

This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or immigration advice. Visa requirements and thresholds can change, and individual circumstances vary — please consult a qualified immigration lawyer or administrative scrivener (行政書士) for your specific situation.

FAQ

Q: Can I get a Business Manager Visa just to run one Airbnb listing?

In principle you can apply with a single property, but reviewers will scrutinize whether that one listing’s projected revenue plausibly supports a viable company that also meets the office, employee, and capital-or-assets requirements above. A stronger application will usually need a credible business plan and growth rationale — showing a path to multiple units or a wider service — rather than a single listing treated as a side project.

Q: Is the Digital Nomad visa a substitute for this?

No — Japan’s Digital Nomad visa is built for remote workers earning income from overseas clients or employers and explicitly doesn’t authorize operating a Japan-registered, locally-revenue-generating business. If you want to run short-term rentals as a Japan company, the Business Manager Visa (or another status that permits business ownership) is the relevant path, not the nomad visa.

Q: Does BenStay handle visa applications for other operators?

We don’t offer visa or immigration services — we run our own guesthouse operations and build software (pricing automation, contractor quote comparison, tax tools) for other operators. For the visa and company-formation side, we’d point you to a licensed 行政書士 or immigration lawyer, the same way we used one ourselves when setting up BenStay LLC.