Friday, February 27, 2015

Corporate seals in Japan

In Japan, a seal (stamp) is commonly used on a document to show that it is understood and made in an authentic way. As for the corporate seal, we usually make three types of seals such as:

- Representative seal
- Bank seal
- Kaku-in (square seal)

A representative seal is registered at the Legal Affairs Bureau (Houmu Kyoku) and therefore, you can obtain the certificate of seal impression which is used at important transactions (opening a bank account, executing a contract of a big deal, company/property registration, etc.). Each representative can register his/her representative seal at the Legal Affairs Bureau.

A bank seal is registered at banks and is used for bank transactions.

A Kaku-in is a square seal used rather informally than the other two. It is placed on invoices, or decoratively placed together with the representative seal on contracts.

You can use one seal for all three purposes to save cost.

Keep your seals in a secure place. A person who has the seal (and some other information) can withdraw your fund from your bank account, and change the registration of your company before you know it.

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