After the wave of immigrants in May and June, dozens of friends landed in Japan. During the previous negotiation process, almost all my friends would ask a question, that is: after the Japanese manager management visa is issued, how much does it cost to renew it every year.
This is essentially a non-standard question. Some say 100,000, some say 1 million, and some say 5 million.
That’s it, you can’t directly say that someone is wrong, after all, everyone’s situation is different.
In addition, information about Japanese immigrants has been flying all over the Internet in recent years, and some of it is even from more than ten years ago. Let’s just come to an end and see how I can peel it apart, crush it, and explain it step by step. In 2022, How much does it cost to renew a Japanese business management visa every year.
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First of all, let’s make it clear. Since it is a business management visa, it means starting a business. The cost is naturally proportional to the size of the company . Therefore, all the examples below will be discussed based on the model where a company has no employees and one person is both the president and a member. Otherwise it will be unclear.
1, office expenses
First of all, the first step in applying for a business visa is to establish a company. To establish a company, you must have an office. This may seem like nonsense, but it is actually very important.
Because it takes time to establish a company, usually 1-2 months. Then there is visa approval. Before the epidemic, the approval speed usually took 6-8 months. But during the current epidemic, I don’t know whether it is because the number of submissions is too small, or whether the Japanese government wants to recruit talents. The current approval speed is astonishingly fast, usually 1-3 months for . The fastest customer actually only needs 21 days.
So, from the moment you decide to apply for a visa, you have to rent an office, and there will be a window period of at least 3 months between the time you rent the office and the time you actually land in Japan.
At this time, some intermediaries will let you rent a large and expensive office. The saying is that if the office is large, the signing rate will increase. Is there anything wrong with this?
There is nothing wrong with it. Indeed, the larger the company, the higher the signing rate, so a friend rents an office with a monthly rent of 200,000 to 300,000 yen or even more. However, renting a house in Japan is not just about paying the rent, Down payment, gift money, deposit. Usually if you want to settle in an office, the down payment is 3-6 times the rent, which is normal.
So before I came to Japan, the 1 million or so yen was spent on the office, and the office expenses will be several million yen higher in the following year. And all of this actually makes sense.
There are two tricks here:
. A larger office will indeed increase the visa success rate, but what the unscrupulous intermediary did not say is how much. At present, as long as there are no criminal record or other bad status, professionals submit visas based on formal information, and the visa approval rate is 99%. How much help does this big office provide? It may increase by 0.5% to 99.5%. Are you willing to spend 1 million to 100,000 yen for this weight?
. There is nothing wrong with asking for 3-6 times the down payment to settle in an office, but whether it is 3 times or 6 times depends on the location, the room, and the landlord. There are many variables. In the absence of you, the unscrupulous intermediary will tell you that it is 6 times. Once you ask a Japanese friend and find out that there is nothing wrong, you will believe it. But in fact, only the intermediary himself knows how many times it is.
After this round, without any problems, the intermediary pocketed hundreds of thousands of yen.
So how big an office should you rent? Taking the one-person trading company we started with as an example, would normally rent about 10 square meters and become . In Tokyo, the normal price should be 5-10, plus gift money, deposit, cleaning The key fee is a mess. The annual cost of should be between 800,000 and 1 million.
But here are two points to note:
. Your office area must conform to the business model registered by your company. You said that if you want to register a consulting or upstream and downstream trading company, you can rent a 10㎡ space. After all, this thing is essentially a talent service and does not have high requirements on the venue. But you have to say that the registered company is agricultural and sells large instruments. I work in warehousing and logistics. I can tell with my own feet that if you store more than 10 square meters of goods and forcefully rent an office of 10 square meters, don't you think that the Immigration Bureau is a fool? This kind of thing is prone to problems, and it is easy to sign. If it doesn't go well, even after landing, if you are randomly checked, you may be deported.
. Some friends are very smart and thought, since I have to rent a house and an office when I come to Japan, why not combine the two in one? This will save you a few months of money. You are not Qin Shihuang Look in the mirror - a win-win situation.
This is not wrong, it is indeed feasible in theory. But in fact, the Japanese government’s definition of an office is: it must have at least an independent door to be considered an office. And based on this requirement, one-family buildings or apartments in Tokyo are basically not acceptable. Usually only specialized "office-cum-office residences" can meet the conditions, but these are generally more expensive, even more expensive than renting an office + housing. So, when society generally does not adopt a certain approach, there is a high probability that there will be disadvantages that you can't think of. When you first arrive in Japan, you don't have to think that you are smart. Your predecessors are all fools...
2, Welfare pension
Office fees and welfare Annuities are the two biggest expenses for starting a company in Japan. Let’s talk about these two first, and then talk about others.
Japanese annuity is equivalent to domestic social security + medical insurance + pension. There are usually two types, one is the national pension and the other is the employee pension. There are a lot of things involved in . I hope you have considerable professional knowledge and we will discuss it later. Let’s talk briefly today.
The National Pension is equivalent to low-level security, usually for low-income people and part-time workers without a fixed job. Pay in full by yourself.
The welfare pension is equivalent to a high-level security, usually for full-time members with formal jobs, half of which is borne by the company and the individual.
There are quite a few things to note here. If you don’t understand, it is recommended to watch them again and let’s talk about them one by one.
. Annuity payment in Japan is based on the family unit. If one spouse holds a business management visa and the other is unemployed and holds a family visa (similar to a spouse visa), then only one annuity needs to be paid, and the whole family can enjoy it. Including children under 20 years old. But if the other party also chooses to work, then he or she will need to switch from a family visa to a work visa. Then you also need to pay annuity. This is why housewives are generally regarded as a profession in Japan, because they can help their husbands save annuities, save taxes, and make money after having children. If one person pays, the whole family’s medical insurance and pensions are covered.
. Can I pay a lower-level national pension? The answer is no. Because you have a business management visa. Even if you don’t hire any regular employees, you should at least be considered an employee.
Japanese law clearly stipulates that Co., Ltd. must pay the welfare pension to each regular employee. This is why more and more contract workers are hired and the number of regular employees is reduced. I really can’t afford it.And since there is only one person in the company, you are both the boss and an employee, so there is no such thing as half-payment. It is equivalent to paying the full amount of the employee pension yourself.
. How much do you pay? Since the company is yours alone, it all depends on how much salary you give yourself. The higher the salary, the higher the payment. The benefits of high contributions are obvious, and subsequent pensions are guaranteed. And when you get naturalization or permanent residence, Japan provides ultra-low-interest loans for your first home. The interest rate is 0.5%, which is equivalent to free money. It is considered a welfare provided by the government. The loan amount is ten times your annual salary. For example, if your annual salary is 10 million yen, the almost interest-free loan you can get is 100 million yen. It's really heartwarming. So how much you pay depends entirely on whether you care about long-term gains or short-term gains.
There is no standard answer here. If I must give a numerical value, then I can only give a lower limit. is the minimum salary you should give yourself. My suggestion is an annual salary of 3 million yen, 250,000 yen/month
Why is this number? I will expand on the employee salary below. So how much employee pension should be paid according to this salary level?The answer is about 75,000 per month , which is 900,000 yen a year . This fee will be deducted directly from the legal person's account every month. Just remember to put enough money in the account.
3, employee salary
Many friends have already opened companies in China before applying for a business management visa, but here is an explanation for friends who have no company management experience.
Since there is only one person in our company, who is both an employee and the boss, the essence of paying yourself a salary is to collect the company's profits and take the money from the public account to your own private account in a legal and legal manner.
For example, your company made a profit of 20 million yen this year, which is about 1 million yuan, but this money belongs to the company, not you personally. Even if you are a 100% sole proprietor, you must have legal and reasonable reasons before you can come up with it. Paying a salary is one of the means, and you can even buy a car. Certain daily shopping expenses can be said to be necessary for the company's operations. There are many ways involved, which I won't go into. But what you need to know is that opening a company in Japan is one of the best ways for ordinary people to avoid taxes legally and reasonably.
As for why it is said above that it is recommended that the lower limit of salary for yourself is 3 million annual salary and 250,000 monthly salary. Because Japan’s current minimum hourly wage has been updated to 1,000 yen/hour. Calculated based on working 8 hours a day and 25 days a month, Japan’s minimum salary is 200,000. You can’t offer a salary lower than the minimum wage.
So it is slightly higher than the minimum wage by 20%-30%. First, it means that your company is still alive and can afford to pay wages. Secondly, it means that although your company is still alive, it is just making do, so you can reasonably pay less tax. This is also the experience accumulated after helping dozens of friends apply for visas. This amount is close to the lower limit that the Immigration Bureau considers you to be a reliable company. Any lower will easily affect your visa.
Of course, as mentioned above, if you need more welfare pensions, better pensions in the future, and more low-interest loans, you can give yourself a high salary and pay high taxes. Personal choice, no right or wrong.
Since there are wages, there are naturally taxes. Franklin said: The only things in the world are taxes and death that are inevitable. If you have an annual salary of 3 million, you will pay a source tax, which is similar to the domestic personal income tax . The source tax is paid every six months. Based on an annual salary of 3 million, you will pay about 35,000 at a time. Brand new is around 70,000. This 70,000 is the cost of taking 3 million from the public account to the private account. This fee is normally low in developed countries and is not expensive.But as you pay yourself a higher salary, the tax will explode in a step-by-step manner. If the annual salary exceeds more than 10 million yen, the tax can reach 50%. This is also a common problem in all developed countries. High benefits come from high taxes.
4, taxes and fees
When it comes to taxation, the tax law of any country is an extremely complex and professional industry. Over the years, I have come into contact with more than a dozen firms, large and small, and dozens of tax directors dare not fully understand it by themselves. Doorway, Therefore, it is strongly recommended that you find a dedicated tax director to do the accounting instead of DIY yourself. Unless you are extremely proficient in Japanese and have a professional background in international tax law.
The work of the tax director includes but is not limited to final accounts, sorting out invoices, auditing financial statements, year-end adjustment plans, financial materials for renewals, and applying for company subsidies. For example, during the epidemic, a company can receive a minimum subsidy of about 2 million yen.
The tax director’s fees are calculated based on the annual final accounting period, which is calculated based on the time when your company was established. For example, if your company was established in September, your final accounting period is from September 1st of each year to August 30th of the following year. Usually, the above series of operations need to be completed within 2 months during the final accounting period.
The cost of asking the tax director to complete the annual final accounts. Taking Tokyo as an example, it is usually between 300,000 yen and 500,000 yen. If someone's quotation exceeds this range by too much, whether it is too low or too high, you should be wary. If it is too low, it may mean that you don’t know what to do and you may make false accounts. Too high may be bullying the new boss who doesn't know what to do.
As for the taxes that companies have to pay, there are more than 20 subjects, which once again illustrates the complexity of tax laws. But for a small company run by one person, basically only needs to worry about two things: corporate tax and corporate consumption tax. The specific calculation companies are too complicated, so I won’t list them one by one. If you are interested, you can go to the official tax website to check. Let’s talk directly about the conclusion here.
If the annual turnover of a one-person company is about 10 million yen, the corporate tax will be about 100,000, and the consumption corporate tax will be about 500,000. The tax director fee is calculated as 400,000 by taking the middle value. The total is about 1 million.
It can be seen that the bulk of the tax is on the consumer corporate tax, but if your company's annual turnover is less than 10 million yen, you do not need to pay this part of the fee. So someone came up with the idea that the company's turnover for several consecutive years was only a few million to avoid taxes.
But this kind of tolerance has a limit. If the annual turnover is less than 10 million yen for two or more consecutive years, then the Immigration Bureau will have sufficient reasons to doubt whether your company can operate effectively and whether it is a real business. After all, in a country where the minimum annual salary is 2.4 million yen, you can start a company and your annual turnover is less than 10 million yen. This doesn’t make sense no matter how you look at it. Once you are targeted by the Immigration Bureau, it is very likely that your visa will not be renewed in the future.
So here is a piece of advice to friends who have obtained business management visas: Before naturalization or permanent residence, try not to do anything that makes the Immigration Bureau suspicious.
An additional point here is that tax refunds are available in certain industries, such as the foreign trade industry . Many Sino-Japanese trading companies make very thin profits, some even only 3-5 points, and the bulk of the profits come from tax rebates. But you are taking money from the tax bureau, which is essentially a gluttonous grab for food. The tax bureau will 80% check you, so make sure your accounts are clear and your taxes are reasonable.
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Summary
Finally, if we add up all the costs mentioned above, we can get a one-person company in Tokyo, rent an ordinary office of 10 square meters, and give yourself an annual salary of 3 million. A management sign user needs almost the minimum. costs borne. In other situations, it may be higher than this depending on the person, but it is difficult to be lower than this, or no matter how low it is, it can't be much lower.If the following costs are in a range, the middle value will be taken.
Office 900,000 yen
Welfare pension 900,000 yen
Industrial and resource spring tax 70,000
Corporate tax 100,000
Consumption corporate tax 500,000
Tax director 400,000
The total is 2.87 million yen. According to the current exchange rate, it is about 143,000 yen.
This is the minimum cost to have a manager's visa in Japan. Coupled with personal daily consumption, it forms the annual consumption bill of entrepreneurial life in Japan. In Japan, it takes five years to obtain a passport and ten years to obtain permanent residence. Taking a passport as an example, the company's operating expenses for five years after coming to Japan are 700,000, plus the hundreds of thousands for the company's start-up. This is close to 1 million yuan.
Many friends often tell me that I cannot bring my family with me on a work visa. If I have passed my senior year of study abroad, I want to apply for a Japanese business management visa and bring my family to live in Japan. How much money do I need to prepare at least.
Here is my personal standard advice. recommends that you consider it if you have more than 3 million working capital and more than 10 million fixed assets. is not to discourage some friends, but this is the actual situation.
If there are not enough funds, it will easily lead to a dilemma and be afraid of what to do. If the development is not good in Japan, you will face huge sunk costs when you return home. Regret at this time is even more detrimental than gain.
Finally, I still have the same blessing. China has rapid domestic development, and Japan has Japan's peaceful years. There is no superiority or inferiority, just choice.
