Japan sets its foreign-founder capital bar above 99% of its own new companies

Thirty million yen counts as equity that sits on the balance sheet ^[4], and an operator who has it can in principle spend it on the business, so the part that bites is the gap between that number and what the business actually needs, which for a restaurant or a two-person software shop is most of it. Harder still are the requirements that depend on the founder rather than the balance sheet: three years of management experience or a master's degree, one full-time employee, Japanese at JLPT N2, a business plan verified by a certified small-business consultant, tax accountant or accountant, and an office that is not the applicant's home ^[5].

Set against that, the agency's concession looks generous on paper. Existing holders can renew through Oct. 16, 2028 even if they fall short, with further permission possible where there is a prospect of compliance ^[16], which is three full years from the ordinance revision ^[10]. The half-year exodus still equals 2.0 percent of the 46,781 holders on the books at the end of 2025 ^[15][3], and that pace implies a prior-year comparison base of about 244 people ^[2]. Founders with three years of runway do not wind down in month eight unless they have priced the runway as shorter than it looks, and the Nikkei account notes that scrutiny of actual business operations has tightened regardless of the renewal window ^[17].

The number that makes this structural rather than a tidy-up is on the domestic side: of the 143,367 companies incorporated in Japan in 2024, excluding sole proprietorships and similar entities, 1,491 carried capital of 30 million yen or more ^[13], which is 1.04 percent ^[4]. Foreigners must now enter at a scale that 99 of every 100 Japanese founders never reach.

The counter-thesis carries real weight. The Immigration Services Agency argues the old bar was low by international comparison, citing Korea's 300 million won and an American range of $100,000 to $200,000 ^[8]; 30 million yen is put at about 257.61 million won ^[9], or 85.9 percent of the Korean requirement ^[5] and 6.4 percent below the top of the US range ^[6]. On level, Japan has moved to roughly where its comparators already sat, and Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi's statement that screening found cases with no actual business substance ^[14] is what applications running at 4 percent of their prior rate ^[9] would look like if most of those applications were options on residency rather than plans to trade.

Where the two readings part company is the operators already inside, and the allocation they are now funding: money into paid-in capital instead of headcount, or, in the 19 cases that would hand management to a Japanese national or permanent resident, control paid over as the price of staying ^[11].

This is probably wrong, but the durable cost here is the discretionary substance test layered on top of the number, because discretion is the one input a founder cannot underwrite. What would refute it: monthly departures falling back to the few dozen that prevailed before October 2025 ^[6] while applications recover, which would mean the rule cleared out shells and left the operators alone.