Tokyo's Special Zone for Asian Headquarters

Starting from April 1, 2013, Tokyo began to assist foreign companies to establish their headquarters in Tokyo. Foreign companies which registered their headquarters in this special area can enjoy the following benefits:

- Effective corporate tax rate shall be cut down to 28.9%, compared with the normal rate of 38%.
- Local government subsidizes half of company establishment cost such as fees related to obtaining "status of residence", fees for registering the establishment of the headquarters/R&D center and other relevant filing procedures and recruitment costs.

There are some conditions to apply for these subsidies.  Please contact us for details.

Update your company registration of officers

Don't forget to update your company register of officers of your company regularly.

A KK (Kabushiki Kaisha) is the most popular form of corporation in Japan, and it should stipulate the term of office of directors (and auditors, if any) in the Articles of Incorporation. You can decide the term of directors from one year up to ten years, and once stipulated, you are requested to follow the rule.

Suppose you stipulate the directors' term of office as two years, the Articles of Incorporation usually have the following phrase:

Article XX The term of office of directors shall expire at the close of the ordinary general meeting of shareholders for the last business year that will end within two years after their election.

To conform with this article, you are requested to biyearly elect directors at the ordinary general meeting of shareholders, and register it.

If you don't do this or filing is delayed, the representative of the company shall be punished by a non-penal fine.  The amount of fine is usually around JPY100,000.