Business Licenses in Japan: Which One Do You Need?

Last reviewed: 26 October 2026. Based on official guidance from MHLW, the National Tax Agency, MLIT, the Japan Tourism Agency, Tokyo Metropolitan Police and Tokyo Fire Department.

To identify the right business license in Japan, start with what you do, where you do it and how you sell or deliver the service. Identify the permit, registration or notification for each activity before committing to premises or an opening date.

Use our Japan Business License Finder for a first view of the requirements. The guide below explains the distinctions that affect your choice, points you to the responsible authorities and links to our sector guides for the detailed setup process.

Key Takeaways

• List every activity you plan to offer, including secondary sales or services. One approval does not cover every activity.
• Company registration, business licensing and your permission to work in Japan are separate checks.
• Confirm premises, qualified-person and financial requirements before spending on a lease, renovations or recruitment.
• Plan for preparation, review and any inspection. Fees, processing periods and renewals differ by permission.

Start with the Japan Business License Finder

The Finder covers accommodation, alcohol, real estate, recruitment and job platforms, restaurant and food service, travel services, and used goods. Select all the activities you plan to conduct, including secondary services.

For example, a café serving drinks and selling wine bottles for customers to take home needs to check both food service and alcohol sales. A business describing itself as a recruitment platform needs to establish whether it only publishes information or also arranges employment.

1. Write down what you will sell, who pays you and what you do for that payment.
2. Select the relevant activities in the Finder and work through the questions using your proposed operating model.
3. Compare the initial guidance with the official sources and the sector guide that fits your activity. Check any location-specific conditions before applying.

The Finder is a starting point for the activities it covers. It does not establish that an unlisted activity is unregulated or grant permission to operate. If your business falls outside its categories, start with the relevant sector regulator and local government business desk. Some activities need no sector license, but tax, labour and other general obligations still apply. Some official guidance is published only in Japanese, so plan for translation or professional help.

Find the licences your Japan business may need

Find required licences

Which license applies to your business activity?

Authorities use different procedures: permission or a license (許可 / 免許), registration (登録), or notification (届出). The table includes examples of each. Registration for a regulated activity is separate from registering the company itself.

Use this table to identify the first route to investigate. The authority links explain the legal categories; the SmartStart guides cover the wider business setup.

Your planned activity	Permission or distinction to check	Responsible authority and next guide
Preparing or serving food, including cafés, takeaway and delivery kitchens	Restaurant Business Permit (飲食店営業許可) or another food-business permission or notification, depending on what and how you prepare	Local public health centre. Use MHLW’s food-business rules to identify the category, then ask the health centre for the checklist for your menu and premises.
Selling alcohol for consumption away from your premises, including takeaway or online sales	A general liquor retail license (一般酒類小売業免許) for shop and takeaway sales, or a mail-order liquor retail license (通信販売酒類小売業免許) for online or catalogue sales to customers in two or more prefectures. Serving alcohol solely for consumption on your premises does not require a liquor sales license. Food-service and any police requirements are separate	The tax office responsible for the sales premises. NTA explains the distinction. If you also serve drinks on-site, see our bar setup guide.
Running a bar with late-night alcohol service or customer entertainment	Serving alcohol between midnight and 6 a.m. at a bar or similar premises needs a police notification. Businesses that ordinarily serve staple meals fall outside that category. Customer entertainment (接待) needs separate police permission. Food-service requirements also apply	Local police, under the prefectural public safety commission’s rules. Check the police business categories and our bar guide.
Providing paid accommodation	Hotel Business Act permission. For qualifying housing, a Private Lodging Business Act (minpaku) notification instead, limited to 180 operating days a year and subject to local restrictions. Special-zone minpaku certification is another route where the local area offers it	Local accommodation/public health authority. Compare the official hotel-law route and minpaku route.
Buying, selling or exchanging property as a business, or brokering sales, exchanges or leases	Real estate transaction business license (宅地建物取引業). Letting property you own yourself falls outside this license	The prefectural governor licenses transaction-business offices within one prefecture; the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism licenses offices across two or more. Start with MLIT’s definition and licensing authority.
Managing rental housing for owners	Rental housing management business registration (賃貸住宅管理業). Registration is mandatory at 200 or more managed units, excluding self-owned properties	MLIT, through its regional bureaus. Use MLIT’s rental housing management registration guidance.
Introducing candidates to employers or operating a job platform	Employment placement permission if you take job offers and applications and arrange employment between the parties. Information provision alone is a different category, but a provider that collects job-seeker information for it must notify MHLW in advance	Prefectural Labour Bureau for classification, including automated matching. Start with MHLW’s service distinctions and information-provider notification guidance.
Employing staff who work under a client’s direction	Worker dispatch permission (労働者派遣事業), separate from employment placement	Permission from the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare, through the relevant Labour Bureau. Start with the Labour Bureau’s dispatch explanation.
Selling or arranging travel services for payment	Travel business registration versus travel service arrangement business registration for services provided to travel businesses	Japan Tourism Agency for Class 1 travel business. Prefectural authorities handle Class 2, Class 3 and regional-limited travel business, travel agent business and travel service arrangement business. See the official registration overview and our travel business guide.
Buying used goods in Japan for resale, including used vehicles	Secondhand dealer permission (古物商許可). Establish the sourcing and transaction model	Prefectural public safety commission, with applications through the police station responsible for the main business office. See the police application guidance. For cross-border trading, continue to our import-export guide.

Business-model changes that affect licensing

The National Tax Agency distinguishes alcohol consumed at your restaurant from alcohol sold for consumption elsewhere. Adding bottle sales to a bar therefore needs a separate licensing check. A restaurant permit should not be treated as permission for every food manufacturing or sales activity either.

A job platform that adds candidate selection or employment-arrangement functions needs a fresh classification check. Describe what the platform does, including automated functions, when consulting the Labour Bureau.

For accommodation, a minpaku notification under the Private Lodging Business Act covers qualifying housing and is subject to the statutory 180-day annual limit, with local restrictions also relevant. It should not be used as a substitute name for a hotel operating throughout the year.

What to check before signing a lease or hiring staff

Before committing to premises or fit-out work, show the relevant authority your planned activities and floor plan.

Area	What to check before committing money
Applicant and operator	Whether you will apply as an individual or company, and which entity will operate the business. For a company application, identify the company records and registered business purposes the authority requires.
Premises	Permitted building use, layout, equipment, lease terms and any inspection requirements. Check the proposed address and floor plan against the actual license category.
Qualified people	Whether the business needs a designated manager or qualified specialist, the accepted qualification or training, and whether that person must work at a particular office or facility.
Financial requirements	Any required net assets, cash, security deposit or guarantee arrangement. Establish how each amount is measured and evidenced; do not substitute a visa capital figure for a sector requirement.
Other approvals	Building and fire requirements, plus additional activities such as alcohol retail or late-night service. Keep the responsible authority and procedure for each item on your opening schedule.

Ask for the current application checklist and clarify three practical points: what must exist before submission, what is inspected before opening, and what changes would require a fresh application. Record the answer, office name and consultation date for use when preparing the file.

Fire requirements are a separate check. For example, Tokyo Fire Department guidance uses the building’s use and calculated occupant capacity when determining fire-manager obligations. For buildings containing restaurants, shops and other specified public uses, a fire manager is required when the whole building holds 30 or more calculated occupants. The count covers the whole building, not restaurant seats alone, so ask the local fire station to assess your building and tenancy.

For office selection, see our guide to renting an office in Japan. For company formation, use our incorporation service. These steps need to fit the licensing plan for the business you will operate.

How to plan the application and opening date

Start with the authority’s current process for your permission. A published processing period does not cover all the work needed to make the business ready to apply.

Build your schedule around:

• Completing the business classification and premises consultation.
• Securing the applicant’s records, qualified personnel and required financial evidence.
• Finishing any layout or equipment work needed for inspection.
• Submitting a complete application and allowing for corrections, inspection appointments and any required opening notice.

Obtain any required permission or registration, and file any advance notification, before starting the relevant activity. If more than one permission applies, give each its own deadline and identify which depends on another step. A café’s kitchen inspection and its liquor retail application are separate tasks. Approval of one does not complete the other.

Restaurant example: discuss your menu and floor plan with the health centre, appoint a Food Hygiene Supervisor (食品衛生責任者), prepare the local application documents and obtain the required permission before opening. Tokyo’s application checklist illustrates the documents involved; use your own health centre’s requirements. For lease, concept and wider launch planning, see our restaurant setup guide.

What should you budget for?

Separate government application charges from certificates, translations, training, professional support, premises work and any financial guarantee. A required deposit or net-asset level is different from a non-refundable application fee.

Government charges differ by procedure. Tokyo police currently list a ¥19,000 secondhand-dealer application fee. The NTA states that a liquor sales application has no application fee, but registration tax is charged when the license is issued. A general liquor retail license carries ¥30,000 in registration and license tax; wholesale licenses carry a higher amount. None of these examples is the total cost of launching that business.

Company registration and a visa do not replace a business license

Registering a KK or GK establishes the company. It does not establish that your planned regulated activity has received its required permission. The company name, operator, premises and business activity in the licensing file need to match the proposed setup.

Likewise, a business license does not settle your residence or work permissions. If you plan to live in Japan and manage the business, address the immigration route alongside the sector application. Use our Business Manager Visa application guide for that process instead of treating an industry license as a visa qualification.

Renewals, transfers and changes after approval

Keep a record for each permission: operator, premises, permitted activity, expiry date, renewal window, responsible manager and required reporting. Add a review when the business plans to move, change its services or transfer operations.

There is no single renewal period for every business license. For example, MLIT states that real estate brokerage licenses last five years, with renewal applications due between 90 and 30 days before expiry. Check the rule for each permission you hold rather than applying one timetable to the company.

Buying a business or changing from a sole proprietor to a company

Identify what is changing: shares in the same company, the business operator, premises, business activities or the whole business itself. Those are different transactions and should not be treated as one automatic license-transfer procedure.

Food businesses provide a useful example. Tokyo's guidance on the Food Sanitation Act explains that qualifying transfers of the whole permitted or notified business on or after 13 December 2023 are handled through a succession notification instead of a new application. The seller consults the health centre beforehand, and the buyer files the succession notification without delay, with evidence of the transfer. A partial transfer is excluded from that succession provision.

This means a new application is not the only possible route whenever the operator changes. Establish whether the transaction qualifies for succession, needs a change notification or requires a new application. Do that before agreeing a handover date that assumes uninterrupted trading.

Get help identifying your next step

Start with the Japan Business License Finder, then use the relevant sector guide and official authority’s checklist to prepare your application plan.

If you need support with the business setup and licensing sequence, contact SmartStart Japan. Send a short description of your activities, proposed location, operator and target opening date. We will then discuss the support your case needs and any professional involvement it requires.