Startup Visa to Business Manager Visa Complete Proces » Japan Data » Ōmishima, Imabari, Ehime, Japan
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- Let’s take a detailed look back at our complete experience with the Japanese Startup visa process, all the way through to receiving the Business Manager visa! I know many of you have been waiting for this for quite some time, so to start, I’d like to to thank you for being patient with me. I really wanted to outline all of the steps, and be as articulate as possible, so this could be considered a valuable resource for others.
It’s important to note that this is ** our experience **
We are not experts on this subject by any means, as we only have our limited experience to share. We completed this process, received a 6-month Startup visa, incorporated our business into a ‘kabushiki gaisha’, purchased two ‘akiya’ abandoned houses, renovated one house into Benton Guesthouse, received our ‘minpaku’ rental license, met the Startup visa requirements within the timeframe, and successfully received our extension for Business Manager visa.
When we started this journey, I quickly discovered there are limited resources for English-speakers. I was encouraged when connecting with other foreigners living in Japan, who were willing to answer my questions and provide suggestions. However, everybody I spoke with had received their Japanese residency from a different route, so while they didn’t have Startup visa experience, they were happy to point me in the right direction for more information. This is my way of paying forward all the generosity of those friendly strangers, some of whom have since become friends.
I genuinely hope that sharing our experience might help you, and others, to navigate this process also! Honestly, we wouldn’t be writing these blogs or making TH-cam videos, if we didn’t think it could help someone else do the same. I’m continually encouraged by all the people who reach out to us, who have questions, and who hope to follow this path, or a similar path, to residency and life in Japan.
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Japan has an estimated 10-12 million akiya (abandoned homes), and we've purchased * two * of them! The akiya we've just finished renovating into Benton Guesthouse was purchased for ¥1 Million ($7500 USD) and abandoned for 10 years. We also have a second nearby akiya, a former 'ryokan' inn abandoned for an estimated 40 years. This house came with two pieces of nearby farm and forest land, sitting unused longer than anyone can remember. I’m documenting everything. If you’re curious to see life behind-the-scenes, I’m sharing daily updates on our Benton Homestead social media “stories”.
How do we live in Japan as two foreigners? We received a 6-month Startup Business Visa in cooperation with Imabari city, which then earned us a 1-year Business Manager Visa, to essentially sponsor our own residency in Japan.
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This is GREAT information! My Wife and I are making a 3-4 year plan to try and move/live in Japan and a Business/start-up Visa is one of the Options we are looking at. We are also looking at the possibility of A Student Visa, and signing up for Japanese Language School first, so we can become more fluent in Japanese. Our first Step on this goal will be visiting japan for all of October this Year and Visiting different Parts of the country.
Thanks so much! Thanks for watching and commenting. Wishing you the best of luck with your own journey as well! Please feel free to keep in touch, and let me know how the process goes. Always good to network and help each other. If you find yourselves in the Shimanami Kaido area during your trip, you're more than welcome at our guesthouse :)
Always so professional in your presentation of valuable information. ❤
Thanks for watching! It's not always easy, but I'm trying to do a little better each time.
What a fantastic video Dani! You guys will be the inspiration for so many!
Thanks so much! Better late than never. Now that I'm getting into the swing of these techy process videos, I hope to start getting them out fairly regularly.
That is amazing to hear that everyone wanted you to succeed.
Thank you! I suppose it's their job to help foreigners succeed, but it doesn't take away from the fact it felt really good to have their support and encouragement.
That was an amazing video (and blog which I re-read after watching this) - your detailed explanation of this process end-to-end is incredibly useful and has helped a lot especially the tips in getting the professionals involved early. Thanks so much for your time and efforts in producing this and your other previous progress update videos. Your journey has been really inspiring as I think I have commented on before and we believe you and Evan will no doubt, be successful and we look forward to your upcoming content and progress.
A few questions - hope you don’t mind :
1. The initial online video call with Imabari officials you did back in late 2022 - was that conducted entirely in Japanese?
2. Where is your separate office - I had thought you could have a dedicated home office but seems that isn’t the case?
3. The seeds you imported - for sure that would be interesting to cover as one of our plans is to grow lavender (for bees plus possibly distilling the plants for essential oil).
4. How essential is it to show income during the startup phase?
5. Do you have an actual farming license or is it that you just lease some farmland where you don’t need one? Steve (from Nagano who you know) has started doing a very informative set of videos to get a farming license …
6. What degree of “success” do you need to achieve bearing in mind that you are a startup? Is it just a small profit or is it more important to evidence your alignment to your business plan goals (ie Income stream and not necessarily a profit)?
Cheers, Darren
Thank you! What a thoughtful and encouraging comment. This is exactly why I've taken the time to make this, and plan to carve out time for future videos along these lines. Really good questions! Happy to answer as best as I can.
1. I forgot to mention that Imabari city also provided an interpreter for the video call; they were one of the 13 attendants. Even with my husband's Japanese level, it's always helpful to have an interpreter. We're fortunate that our business consultant is happy to translate for us, when needed.
2. We bought two akiya houses, two minutes away from each other. It's my understanding that the business office cannot be at the same address registered as your home address. I suspect most people rent a small office space. Our business has to have a contract and "pay rent" for the office space to ourselves!
3. We brought numerous hot peppers, avocado seeds from our favorite variety (name unknown), tomatillos, tomatoes, chepiche, and wildflowers. Basically lots of ingredients we knew we'd miss from Mexico, and planning for future hot sauce / salsa macha production ;)
4. I was very worried about this too. It's my understanding that it's technically not required to show any income during the 6-month Startup period. However, when you apply for the extension to Business Manager, you're essentially convincing an immigration employee that you will be successful here, and not a drain on their society. So our immigration lawyer cautioned us that we should, at the very least, have guesthouse income during the 6 months. This relates to question 6.
5. We are working towards our farming license, but do not have it yet. It's not required for honey or apparently the farmer's market. It is required to purchase farmland, which we hope to do eventually, and I'm pretty sure it's required to be involved with JA. Our land purchases happened to be forestland and residential, and as you pointed out, we are leasing farmland (for ¥0 + the cost of having a contract drafted).
6. You may find there are many details that technically don't have a set criteria, but, there are strong recommendations for a certain ballpark. One of those things is Evan's salary, as our recommendation was to set his salary is higher than we would like each month. Our business needs to earn enough to cover salary + office rent + taxes + professional assistance (accountant and business consultant) and try to be "in the black" by the time we submit our next extension in less than a year. It's a grey area and I'm sorry I don't have a solid answer for you, but we are still in the middle of figuring that out!
Thanks so much for your detailed replies Dani - super helpful 😊 Point 6 - agree that there doesn’t seem to be set criteria and this was a concern I had as well because I had read differing advice (some advise a small deficit in Year 1 and make it up Year 2, others advised a small profit etc etc). I think now, as long as the business plan isn’t too overly optimistic then the numbers will come and feel it “should” be Ok.
Haha - you seem to have brought a small piece of Mexico with you with your peppers and chepiche (a lovely flavouring). Looking forward to seeing the first jars of “Benton Salsa” sauce 😁
Again, thanks so much for sharing … cheers, Darren
The Best video on this topic !❤
Thanks so much for watching! I plan to do more of these kinds of step-by-step videos in the near future.
This is great information and very clear. Thank you so much!
Thanks for watching! I have a lot more content in blog/detail format like this planned for the future. Let me know if there are any specific topics you're looking for.
I'm so happy for you guys and I know you're going to make it work long term 😊
Thanks so much! Now it's just a matter of getting those income streams jump-started :)
@@bentonhomestead you guys are making huge strides towards that for sure!
I laughed so hard at the end with the cat 😂
Great stuff. I’m following along with the blog while simultaneously listening to your video. Thanks for sharing everything
Thanks for watching! Nice to meet you, and hope you stick around :)
Thank you for taking the time to share these very important information!
Thanks for watching! I hope you to be it helpful; I look forward to making more videos like this.
Great video Dani! Thank you. Very excited to hear about the possible changes coming up to the startup/entrepreneur visa. Haha, Ponkan is so cute!
Thank you so much! Yes, the possible changes to the startup/entrepreneur visa could really, really make things a lot easier. Not only as far as the time constraints, but also the cost of hiring someone for the extension/renewal process... Having two years could make a big difference.
Thank you for this video! Your detailed share is much appreciated. And omedeto on getting set up so well. I look forward to more videos on your new journey.
Thank you for watching! I hope it helps, and I'll continue to share more process videos like this in the near future :)
This is amazing, and very very detailed! Thank you very much!
I also love your blog website - thank you for the information! Subscribed!
@lestergoh6214 Thank you so much! I hope to share more step-by-step content like this in the future, so feel free to let me know if you have any specific questions. Thanks for subscribing, and watching!
You guys doing exactly what ive got planned i really appreciate your help. Thank you.
Thanks so much, and best of luck with your own adventure! Please consider subscribing, because we have more visa / business manager content in the future. And we're always happy to chat or help if we can :)
Already have and will be corresponding in the future.
I'm guessing they didn't see your neck tattoo. That aside, this video is helpful and very well done. I'm happy for you that you were able to find professionals to take over so that the appropriate professional etiquette (taught in Japanese high schools and universities) could be employed. That was salient to not offending anyone in their government.
Hope things are going well with your guest house! Subscribed.
Hello, and thanks for subscribing! Nice to meet you :) Yes, we're happy to work with our local business consultant, who answers our questions about the differences in business culture. But for the most part, it's a matter of being punctual and polite.
Regarding tattoos, it's impossible to hide my neck and full arm tattoos, so I've never bothered to try. They're always visible during business meetings (city government, immigration, chamber of commerce, real estate) and they're visible on my residency card and Japanese drivers license photo. I'm also allowed at both of our local onsen, which are tattoo-friendly :)
Wow extremely informative and useful! We wish you the best and hope to visit you soon.
Thank you! That means a lot coming from you. I really hope sharing this info can help others.
Great Job! So happy for you! Cant wait untill you get One thousand subscribers~
Thank you for your encouragement! And thanks for watching :)
This was such an extensive look into your journey I really appreciate it. I have been looking for ways in which I can make the akiya renovation dream possible inside Japan and feeling like a lot of roads didn’t fit our current situation. Also hearing of the possible change to the startup visa is encouraging. ❤ I would love to make all of this a possibility into the future. I have much love and appreciation to bring for the Japanese culture~
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and hope it helps you on your own journey. There seems to be all these subtle little signs that Japan is on the verge of opening up a little; new visas, new job opportunities, naming it easier for foreigners to start businesses. As they say, "bochi bochi". Wishing you the best!
Amazing information. Thanks for sharing all this. I'm currently working on a business idea for japan. I learned a lot with your video.
Great! Thanks for watching. I'll have more videos covering our continued process and progress. Wishing you the best as well!
Congratulations! Thank you for sharing info!
Thanks for watching! More details about the whole process, and updates on our own business and visas, in the near future.
great channel. tidy, not too much rambling
Thank you! I appreciate that. Sometimes I get pretty rambly if I talk about complicated things without a script, so writing the blog first helps to stay on topic :)
Thank you so much for sharing! I would not have expected so many extra expenses to hire professionals for the burocratie... Well it can't be helped I guess
Thanks for watching, and commenting! Yes, it's a big expense to hire professionals. But we figure it would cost a lot more to try to do things ourselves, and get rejected, or have to re-apply numerous times to fix mistakes, not to mention the time they save us. It's really a worthwhile expense :)
@@bentonhomestead thank you so much for your reply and explanation. I will keep that in mind, will try and book at yours next time I cycle in Oomishima! Hope you are doing well! And will have a successful season with tourism and honey making. 🙏
Thank you
You're welcome! I hope you found it helpful.
Hey dani. Thanks for sharing your detailed breakdown of the process to obtain your 1 year business manager visa. A lot of people will find the information very helpful. If only I should have chanced upon your video earlier, i might chose the same path as what you did. I have submitted my business manager visa remotely via my immigration lawyer in osaka in end march and it has been 4 months but i have not heard any news and the only information i received from my lawyer was to wait patiently as the queue is long. Based on your experiences, what is the normal turn around time for an approval from the immigration office? Yours seem very short in 1 month. Thanks
Thank you for watching, and wishing you the best with your visa process! I'm sorry that I don't have any other visa experience to compare the waiting times, so I can't really speculate what is a "normal" turnaround time. But I can say that both of our visa applications so far (first, the startup business visa, then, the business manager visa extension) were both under one month. I hope you have an answer soon! If you don't mind me asking, what is the business you plan to start in Japan?
Wow you guys ! Well done, what an adventure that you can be so proud of! There are so many loopholes to get through when it come to Japan's immigration administration but it sure works well :) And thank you for taking the time to explain this whole process so clearly and of course, all the best for your business ! I do have a question if you don't mind, you said that you have the possibility to have a part-time job with your spouse visa, would you be able to work for your own company ?
@VickieC. Thank you very much! We both appreciate your thoughtful and encouraging comment :) To answer your question, yes, Benton Homestead could hire me (Dani) as an employee or contractor. Although for our purposes, we feel that would only complicate the situation. Since Evan has the Business Manager visa, the business Articles of Incorporation list him as President or Director (I can't remember the exact wording at the moment). So, on paper, I'm not technically involved in the business, beyond being 50% owner of our properties.
I should clarify that, if the business we're to hire me, I would not count as 1 of the 2 required employees to meet Startup visa requirements.
Awesome information! I am looking into starting a farm in Japan as well and can use any and all information there is so I can be prepared as possible! Thanks!
Thank you, and best of luck with your farm! Feel free to keep in touch during the process, I'm happy to help if I can. What area will you be in?
@bentonhomestead I am aiming for Gifu Prefecture. If everything works out I would like to travel the area for my birthday trip this year to see if it will be a good fit.
@@patrishaharrigan4466 Wonderful! I hope you have a great trip. We are quite a distance from Gifu prefecture, but if you end up exploring our area, we'd be happy to meet or host you at our guesthouse :)
Hey there, regarding the startup visa article on your website... during the process, you mentioned a lawyer helping with the Certificate of Eligibility. Since you were employing yourselves, how does that work?
@@jryanp That's a great question! I checked my official email from Japan Immigration so I could answer as accurately as possible. Our COE approval email lists name, gender, nationality, date of birth, and this is the part you're asking about: "Status of Residence: Business Manager (6 months)". Since I (Dani) am here as a spouse, mine says "Status of Residence: Dependent (6 months). We received the 2 COEs on June 13, when we were still on tourist status, then received the Startup visa (6 month Business Manager visa) on June 19. Does that answer your question?
If I'm not mistaken, there is a 4-month business manager visa which allows you to come to Japan and begin the process of opening a business and receiving a 1-year business manager visa. Was there a reason why you didn't use the 4-month business manager visa from the beginning and instead begin with a startup visa?
That's a great question, thanks for asking! There are many reasons we chose the 6-month Startup visa instead of going for the 4-month Business Manager visa.
1) It was super helpful having the local city government support, as they not only connected us with our business consultant, but they made other community connections for us, over the course of the 6 months. Even now, we have those relationships built with the city, so we could easily approach them for guidance or collaboration in the future. It was great for networking and also helped to give us credibility with other local business people, from the very beginning.
2) By applying for Imabari city's Startup visa program first, we essentially had the benefit of our immigration lawyer and our business consultant, but also a team of city officials and their business consultant (at no extra charge), all helping to take our original business plan and make it even better. I think this gave us a much more solid foundation for when we submitted our Business Manager visa extension application, which of course includes our business plan.
3) Because the Startup visa is currently only offered only in select "special economic zone" locations, it seemed probable that immigration officials might be more likely to green light a Business Manager visa application, if we had gone through the extra steps to gain the city's approval and support. It's important to note that the Startup visa is likely to become nationwide at some point soon, according to the Japanese government, although that's not been officially announced yet.
4) Having the extra 2 months was absolutely crucial for our business development, and the success of our Business Manager visa extension application. 6 months might sound like a lot of time, but we actually cut some things fairly close to the deadline, despite working all day every day. Remember that visa extension applications can be submitted as early as 90 days before the expiration of your current visa, so we applied for the business Manager visa around the 5 month mark. We had a lot of steps to complete (personal and business bank account, funding process, personal and business inkan registration, writing 'articles of incorporation' and registering our corporation, setting up salary [which includes enrolling in the pension system and health care, on both the business and personal side of things], not to mention remodeling an abandoned house, obtaining the rental license [which took 3 months], and hosting our first AirBnB guests), all before the deadline. We personally couldn't have done it in any less time.
Thanks for your great question! I love that this video is still getting questions. Always happy to help :)
@@bentonhomestead Thank you very much for such a detailed answer! I really appreciate it!
@@YurijVolkov No problem! I've been working on some notes for my follow-up videos, so it's something I've been thinking about lately. Thanks again for the good question :)
Thank you for this awesome information. For the spouse visa status, do you need to be married? Is it possible to have the Business visa for 2 persons is we are not married? TIA
@wanderercat6538 Thanks for watching! We had the same question, because it's so different from the US (where we were both sole proprietors). It was explained to us: for us both to have the Startup visa, it would be double the investment requirement. It's my understanding that only a spouse or child can be considered a dependent for visa purposes. But I *highly recommend* speaking with an immigration lawyer about your situation, because they may have better suggestions!
@@bentonhomestead thank you, we'll look into it
Do you have the flexibility to earn income from other streams than your business plan listed? For example, if you took up a hobby making something and selling through your roadside stand, and TH-cam income.
@CB-sx8xh Yes! We set up our Articles of Incorporation with a wide net of potential expansion. We outlined the main income sources: the guesthouse, farming, and photography. But we also included TH-cam, workshops, and agritourism, along with other areas we may branch into, such as food preparation or food cart/pop-ups. Lastly, we also used general blanket terms terms like "consulting", and "other sources related to these activities". So it should cover just about anything we might expand into in the future! Which is good, because changing the Articles of Incorporation is pretty expensive.
Another question, does all income need to be from self employment? For example if in the middle of winter the guesthouse and farming gets a little quiet is it allowed to do some work for hourly pay?
That's a great question. We're still sort of figuring out the answer to this, but our understanding so far is: we can earn income from an outside source (hourly pay, gig jobs) but it would count as personal income, and therefore require a personal Japanese tax return in addition to a business tax return each year. So while outside income can help pay for our living expenses, it doesn't necessarily help meet our business goals. We're currently looking at income from outside sources that could be considered "consulting" and fall under the business income, such as subcontracting for the local realtor to assist his foreign english-speaking buyers!
As a note, this is also why it was important that my (Dani's) dependent spouse visa has the extra stamp on the back, which allows me to earn part-time income. This gives me the ability to work for a Japanese business, if that opportunity arises.
@@bentonhomestead as you are so good at thoughtfully sorting through the contents of houses, perhaps another potential source of income could be to help (for a consulting fee) to empty out local akiya to make them more appealing for potential purchasers
@@CB-sx8xh That's a really interesting idea! It can be an incredible amount of work, but could definitely be something people are interested in, plus potentially source more good items to save. Thanks for the idea!
Is there much work to upgrade from the minpaku licence to a hotel licence?
We're actually going through that process already... In the middle of it. Decided to be proactive. So far, my takeaway is that we should've just gone straight for the hotel license in the first place! But I'll update when we've gone through completely.
Dear Sir/Madam,
My Name is Ankur Gupta And i am from India and i am right know in Osaka.
I want To invest the money in Osaka or anywhere nearby Osaka and gain the Business Manager visa Or Buy Buying the property And gaining the business investment visa, in this regard i want to meet You as i am in Osaka right now so how earliest can you give us the time to meet please let me know.
Hello! We responded via email, and wish you the best! Thanks for watching, and hope that sharing our experience can help your process.
Haha love the cat! It’s the Gigi dance from @realruraljapan
Haha I had to leave in the cat chaos! He was telling me it was time to quit.
Looks like you hit your 1k mark. I lived in Japan for 10 years. I am researching how to come back and get into the Akiya space. I will keep watching.
Thank you so much! That's wonderful, and we wish you the best. Once we got the "watch hours" needed, we'll do some sort of fun live video to answer questions.