Hand-curated structure profiles of 9 companies registered in Japan, the entity type, the registration jurisdiction, ownership and the people on the filings. From Alphabet and Meta to Stripe, OpenAI and Anthropic.
Japan's primary corporate forms are the Kabushiki Kaisha (KK), the traditional joint-stock company used by virtually all listed and large private companies, and the Godo Kaisha (GK), an LLC-style structure introduced in 2006 for smaller and foreign-owned operations. Incorporation is handled at the Legal Affairs Bureau (Houmukyoku) and typically takes 2-4 weeks; minimum capital is 1 yen for both forms.
JPX Prime (large caps) and JPX Standard (mid caps) replaced the older Mothers/JASDAQ tiers in 2022, and listing requires Japanese-speaking auditors and a corporate auditor or audit committee. Foreign founders most often pick a GK for simpler operations or a KK if they plan to raise institutional capital, list, or sell to a Japanese acquirer.
The formation guide walks through LLC versus C-Corp, the EIN application, registered agents, franchise tax and BOI reporting.
Read the formation guide