Japan's so-called Startup Visa is a Designated Activities status used for foreign nationals preparing to start a business in Japan under the foreign entrepreneurship promotion framework. The scheme still exists, and since January 2025 the framework has been consolidated, allowing a startup preparation period of up to two years.
At first glance, that sounds more user-friendly. In practice, however, a different problem has become much more serious: what status will the entrepreneur move to after those two years?
Under the Business Manager criteria that became substantially stricter from October 2025, the traditional Startup Visa route has lost much of its former exit path. The scheme itself remains alive, but the exit has become dramatically heavier. In practical terms, it can feel close to a “death sentence” for the old model.
What is the Startup Visa?
The Startup Visa allows a foreign entrepreneur to stay in Japan while preparing to establish and operate a business. Under the ordinary Business Manager route, the applicant generally needs to have already built a certain level of business infrastructure at the application stage.
For someone still overseas, however, arranging an office in Japan, incorporating a company, opening a bank account, hiring employees and obtaining licences can be difficult. The Startup Visa exists to provide a period in Japan during which those preparations can be made.
You cannot simply apply directly to Immigration
The Startup Visa is not a scheme where you write a business plan and file a Designated Activities application directly with Immigration.
First, the entrepreneur submits a startup preparation activity plan to an approved local government or certain approved private support organizations. After the plan is reviewed, the implementing body issues a certificate confirming the startup preparation plan. That certificate is then submitted with the Designated Activities application to the regional immigration bureau.
In simplified terms: prior review by an approved implementing body, followed by immigration review. It is sometimes described loosely as “local-government recommendation,” but the more accurate description is confirmation of the startup preparation plan and issuance of the confirmation certificate by an approved implementing body.
The old Startup Visa had a clear exit
The traditional design was easy to understand.
STEP 1 Enter Japan under the Startup Visa
↓
STEP 2 Prepare the business in Japan
↓
STEP 3 Incorporate the company
↓
STEP 4 Secure an office
↓
STEP 5 Build a sufficient business base
↓
STEP 6 Change to Business Manager
In other words, the Startup Visa functioned as a runway leading to Business Manager.
But the Business Manager exit changed
This is the key issue. From October 2025, the Business Manager criteria became much more demanding. The traditional model—incorporating with relatively modest capital and beginning the business mainly through the representative's own efforts—no longer reaches the exit as easily.
The entrance remained, but the Business Manager exit suddenly became much heavier.
Two years of preparation mean little if you cannot change status at the end
The great advantage of the Startup Visa is that it allows business preparation inside Japan. But preparation is not the ultimate goal. The entrepreneur normally wants to continue operating the business in Japan, and that generally requires a change to Business Manager.
If the exit criteria become too strict, an entrepreneur may spend two years incorporating, renting an office, developing customers and generating sales, only to be told at the end that the Business Manager requirements are still not met.
The central contradiction: must a startup already look like a finished company?
A startup normally begins small, tests the market, builds revenue, raises investment, hires people and grows.
But if the Business Manager exit demands substantial capital, full-time employment, an independent office and a stable business foundation from a very early stage, the foreign entrepreneur may effectively be asked to look like a mature company before the startup has had time to mature.
That creates the contradiction of asking a startup to be “finished” from the beginning.
Does approval by the local government make the later Business Manager application safe?
No. This is another common misunderstanding. Under the Startup Visa framework, the implementing body reviews the business plan, but that does not guarantee the later Business Manager application.
The implementing body decides whether the startup preparation plan qualifies for confirmation and support. The authority that decides the Business Manager status is the Immigration Services Agency through the regional immigration bureau. The decision-makers and legal tests are different.
It is therefore entirely possible, in institutional terms, to obtain the Startup Visa, spend two years preparing the business with support, and still fail to obtain Business Manager at the end.
Could “local-government recommendation” become even more important?
The following is a practical prediction, not a statement of current law. The Startup Visa already relies on prior confirmation by an approved third party such as a local government or other approved body.
It is conceivable that Business Manager policy may also move further away from a model in which anyone simply incorporates and files directly, toward a model where a third-party body or local government first reviews the business plan before Immigration conducts the final residence-status examination.
If that happened, the Startup Visa might not disappear at all. It could instead become a model for the future entrance route to Business Manager.
So the “death sentence” is not final
There is no current fact that the Startup Visa itself has been abolished. The scheme was in fact consolidated and extended in 2025.
It would therefore be inaccurate to say, as a matter of law, that the scheme has been “sentenced to death.” The practical point is narrower: the Business Manager exit has become so demanding that the value of the traditional Startup Visa model has fallen substantially.
The key question is no longer “Can I get the Startup Visa?” but “What happens two years later?”
For future applicants, the most important advice is not simply, “You can obtain a Startup Visa.” The plan should be tested before filing against the question: will this business be capable of qualifying for Business Manager two years later?
The business plan therefore needs to be designed backwards from the exit examination, not only around the entrance examination.
What should be checked at the start?
- Can the final required level of capital be prepared?
- Can the required full-time employment structure be achieved?
- Can sufficient revenue be built within two years?
- Can an independent business premises be maintained?
- Is the proposed field covered by the relevant implementing body?
- Is the business plan realistic?
- Will the funding last until the Business Manager change of status?
Our practical view
The old Startup Visa was easy to understand as a preparation period for obtaining Business Manager. Under the new criteria, however, it is dangerous to think that “two years of preparation means I will be fine.”
It is increasingly becoming a scheme best suited to people who can actually clear the heavier Business Manager criteria two years later. The entrance remains, but the exit has narrowed. That is the most important practical point.
Conclusion
The Startup Visa still exists. In principle, the startup preparation activity plan must first be confirmed by an approved local government or approved private operator under the METI framework.
So if the question is “Do I need a local-government recommendation?”, the rough answer is yes in the traditional sense, but today that wording is incomplete. Local governments are not the only possible implementing bodies. More precisely, the applicant must obtain a confirmation certificate from an approved implementing body.
The real problem comes afterwards: even if the Startup Visa is granted, can the entrepreneur change to Business Manager two years later?
The scheme itself is not dead. But the old way of using it has become much more difficult.
This article reflects the framework and our practical observations as of October 2026. Eligible business fields, review procedures and support conditions vary by implementing body. Sections discussing possible future institutional design are practical speculation, not statements of current law.