Japanese Corporate Bank Accounts for Foreign Directors

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The gap between being registered and being banked is where foreign founders in Japan lose the most time, and almost none of it is spent on anything a website prepared them for. The registration side has been quietly liberalised over the past decade. The banking side has not changed in the same direction, because it answers to a different statute, a different regulator and a different set of incentives. Nothing in that second body of rules mentions your nationality. Plenty of it turns on where you live, how long your residence card has left to run, and which pieces of paper you can put on a desk.

What follows rests on the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds and its Enforcement Order and Enforcement Regulation as published on e-Gov, on the Financial Services Agency, the National Police Agency's Japan Financial Intelligence Center, the Japanese Bankers Association, and on the published pages of the banks themselves. Where those sources do not settle a question, it says so rather than filling the space. Written on 31 August 2026. Era years are given with the western year throughout.

Registered, and still without an account

The company exists from the moment the registration of incorporation completes. Article 49 of the Companies Act says so directly: a stock company comes into existence by the registration of incorporation at the location of its head office. Every bank whose published conditions we could read requires registration in Japan before a corporate account can be opened, which is the same point approached from the other side. So the account follows the register, never the other way round. Mitsubishi UFJ operates a dedicated application page described as being for account opening before incorporation, but the explanatory text on it could not be retrieved, and nothing more than "an application route exists" should be read into that.

What matters here is what the register no longer requires. As set out in the article on setting up a company in Japan, Minshō No. 29 of 16 March 2015 (Heisei 27) changed the treatment established in 1984 and 1985, so that an application for registration of incorporation is accepted even where no representative director has an address in Japan. That is a real change and it is widely under-reported. It is also the source of the single most expensive misunderstanding in this subject, which runs roughly: since directors may live abroad, a company can be run from abroad, and the account will follow.

It does not follow, and one provider says so in plain terms. Raksul Bank's published questions and answers state that where the representative resides overseas, an account cannot be opened, for the stated reason that identity confirmation cannot be completed. Rakuten Bank's list of applicants it does not accept includes overseas corporations that have no registration in Japan, alongside organisations with no registration at all, voluntary associations, limited liability partnerships, and any applicant whose business substance cannot be confirmed. Neither of those is a rule about foreigners. Both are rules about where a human being can be identified and where a business can be shown to be operating.

Hold the two facts together, because they are the shape of the problem. The Legal Affairs Bureau will register your company with a board that lives entirely outside Japan. The banking system is built on confirming a natural person, and it does that best when the person is here, holds a residence card, and has enough time left on it to be worth the institution's while. If your plan involves nobody moving to Japan, the register is not the obstacle. The account is.

There is no rule that says a foreign national cannot open one

It is worth being precise about this, because vagueness in both directions does damage. There is no provision in the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds, in its Enforcement Order, or in its Enforcement Regulation that permits or requires refusal on grounds of nationality or status of residence. What the Act imposes is a duty to confirm. A duty to confirm is not a duty to refuse, and the distinction is the whole of the argument.

For a corporate customer, Article 4, paragraph 1 lists four confirmation items: the identifying matters of the customer, meaning its name and the location of its head office; the purpose of the transaction; the content of the business; and the identifying matters of the beneficial owner. Paragraph 4 adds the identifying matters of the natural person actually conducting the transaction, which is the person who walks into the branch or completes the online form. Where a transaction is classed as high risk and involves a transfer of property exceeding two million yen, the status of assets and income comes in on top. That is the complete list applied to your company. Nationality is not on it. It is collected, when it is collected, as an attribute of the individual being identified, not as a criterion for the decision.

The Financial Services Agency has gone further than merely leaving the space empty. Its points to note on dealing with foreign customers, published in July 2026 (Reiwa 8), asks financial institutions whether they are "refusing to open or maintain accounts without reasonable grounds, despite having received the necessary information from the foreign customer." The same document asks whether institutions explain the purpose and necessity of confirming a period of stay carefully when they do so, and whether they are progressing work such as producing customer explanation materials in multiple languages and rolling out translation devices. Read that as what it is: refusal without reasonable grounds is a thing the supervisor is looking for. The Japanese Bankers Association supplies member banks with leaflets and communication boards in fourteen languages, which is not the behaviour of an industry trying to keep foreign customers out.

Two specific misreadings are worth killing individually, because both are repeated confidently in English-language material.

The first is the claim that a foreign-national representative counts as a foreign politically exposed person and is therefore subjected to enhanced scrutiny. Article 12, paragraph 3 of the Enforcement Order defines the category as persons holding important positions in a foreign head of state, foreign government, central bank or comparable institution, including those who formerly held such positions, together with their family members, and legal persons whose beneficial owner is such an individual. Being foreign is not the qualifying feature. Holding, or having held, high public office abroad is. A restaurant owner from Hanoi and a design studio founder from Taipei are not foreign PEPs, and any adviser telling you otherwise has misread a definition.

The second is the beneficial owner threshold, which is repeated almost everywhere as a quarter and upwards, and is not that. Under Article 11 of the Enforcement Regulation, for a company where decisions are made by majority of capital, the beneficial owner is a natural person who directly or indirectly holds more than one quarter of the voting rights. Exactly 25 per cent is outside the definition. Where no such person exists, it is a natural person with controlling influence over the business activity, and failing that, the natural person who represents and executes the business of the company, which in a small firm is the representative director. For a gōdō kaisha and other companies not governed by majority of capital, the test is a right to more than a quarter of profit distributions or property distributions, or controlling influence. Indirect holdings are aggregated through what the Regulation calls a controlled company, meaning one in which the natural person holds more than half the voting rights — more than half, not a quarter. And the confirmation method prescribed is to receive a declaration from the representative. You are being asked to state it, not to litigate it at the counter, which is why getting the threshold right before you fill in the form saves an exchange of letters later.

One change is on the horizon and deserves a flag rather than a paragraph. Act No. 34 of 2026 (Reiwa 8) raises the penalties for improper transfer of accounts to imprisonment of up to three years or a fine of up to five million yen, and up to five years or ten million yen where done as a business, adds a new offence aimed at so-called remittance side jobs, and introduces a scheme concerning fictitious-name accounts. The date on which it comes into force could not be confirmed from the outline material available, and no change to the content of corporate confirmation appears in that outline. Treat it as a reason to keep your account in your own company's use and nobody else's, which was already the position.

What each bank actually publishes

Below is what the banks themselves state, and nothing else. "Not stated" means exactly that: the institution does not publish the item, or we could not retrieve a published statement of it. It does not mean the item is unrestricted, and it does not mean the answer is bad news. Sumitomo Mitsui's corporate account document list could not be retrieved at all, so its row is empty of anything we would be willing to assert.

Two additional dates sit outside the table because they attach to a different document. Mitsubishi UFJ asks for a seal registration certificate issued within six months. Rakuten Bank asks for one issued within three. Certificates are cheap and quick to obtain and impossible to backdate, so gather them at the point you are ready to apply rather than at the point you started thinking about it.

Notice what the residence card column is doing. Mitsubishi UFJ and Japan Post Bank name the residence card in their own published document lists for foreign-national representatives. That is the opposite of exclusion; it is an institution telling you in advance which document satisfies the requirement. The honest reading of this table is not that some banks welcome foreign directors and others do not. It is that some banks publish their requirements in detail and others publish very little, and that the ones publishing in detail are easier to prepare for.

The individual points that will cost you a week

The bank you were told to use has a different name now

SBI Sumishin Net Bank changed its trade name to Docomo SMTB Net Bank on 3 August 2026, announced on 19 December 2025, and its own site now carries the new name with the former one in parentheses. A new brand, described as Docomo's bank, was announced on 9 July 2026. Practically every English guide to corporate banking in Japan still names the old entity. If you are working from a checklist written before this summer, the bank on it and the bank you will be applying to are the same institution under two names.

The part that matters more than the name is the four conditions attached to its online account opening route: the representative holds a valid driving licence; no notification of a person in charge is required; there are five or fewer beneficial owners; and the beneficial owners' country of residence is Japan only. Read the first and fourth together and the effect on a foreign founder is obvious. A representative without a Japanese driving licence is directed to the postal route, which the bank itself puts at two to three weeks rather than the next day. That is not a refusal and it should not be described as one. It is a published procedural condition that happens to correlate strongly with how long someone has lived here.

Rakuten Bank counts months on your residence card

Rakuten Bank accepts foreign-national representatives resident in Japan, and requires at least three months of remaining validity on the residence card. It also wants the seal registration certificate within three months and the certificate of registered matters within six. Its screening period is not disclosed. If your card is inside its final three months, the sequence is renewal first, application second — and if you hold the business manager status, the renewal itself now runs against criteria that changed substantially in October 2025, which the article on the business manager status and the 2028 transitional measure covers in full.

Japan Post Bank, and a rule about personal accounts

Japan Post Bank requires a copy of the residence card where the representative is a foreign national, and a certificate of registered matters issued within six months. Its published three-month rule — that an account is not available where the period of stay expires within three months — applies to personal accounts. Its corporate fee schedule could not be obtained. Its official app is offered in Japanese, English, Simplified Chinese and Vietnamese, which is a fact about the app and about nothing else.

Raksul Bank, and why it is in this article at all

Start with the correction, because the marketing everywhere gets it wrong. Raksul Bank is not a bank. It is a bank agent, holding Kanto Local Finance Bureau bank agency licence No. 520, granted on 29 October 2025, and its principal bank is GMO Aozora Net Bank. What you open is an account at the Raksul Bank Branch of GMO Aozora Net Bank. The operating company, Raksul Bank Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Raksul Inc., established on 1 November 2024, and the service started on 27 November 2025. Deposits are covered by deposit insurance, but the protected institution is GMO Aozora Net Bank, and your balance is aggregated with any other deposits you hold at that bank up to a principal of ten million yen. An earlier announcement, from September 2024, about beginning discussions with SBI Sumishin has not materialised; anything describing a partnership with that bank is wrong.

The reason it earns a section here is narrower and more useful than any of that. Its published questions and answers contain a standalone item on foreign-national representatives, setting out conditions under which an application is accepted. Almost no financial institution in Japan publishes that. It means a foreign founder can check eligibility before spending three weeks assembling documents, which is worth more than a fee difference.

All four conditions must hold together. The representative can submit a residence card or a special permanent resident certificate. At least six months remain until the expiry of the period of stay. The status of residence is anything other than student. And the name as registered in the commercial register appears on the residence card. On top of those, the FAQ states that a representative residing overseas cannot open an account, because identity confirmation cannot be completed, and that a short-stay visa does not work because no residence card is issued for it. Where the country of residence includes somewhere outside Japan, or where the applicant is a US taxpayer, separate declaration documents are required.

Two further limits decide whether you can even start. It is corporate only — individuals and sole proprietors are explicitly excluded — and a Raksul account registration is a prerequisite. On timing, the FAQ says same day at the earliest to about one week. Promotional material says as early as the day of application, with a footnote that separately specified conditions set by GMO Aozora apply; the content of those conditions is not disclosed. Plan around the FAQ's range, not the footnote.

The documents are a certificate of registered matters, an identity document for the representative — the accepted list includes a driving licence, a driving history certificate, the My Number Card, a residence card and a special permanent resident certificate — and between one and ten documents evidencing the content of the business. What those business documents are beyond a count is not published.

Now the fees, including the part that does not flatter it. Opening and maintenance are free. Transfers to GMO Aozora accounts cost nothing. Transfers to other banks are a flat 119 yen including tax, regardless of amount, with no free allowance stated anywhere. The debit card has no issuance fee and no annual fee, though reissue is chargeable. Points accrue at a standard 2.0 per cent and one point is worth one yen.

That table is the fact most reviews of this product omit. The cheaper route to the same bank is the bank's own ordinary corporate account. Promotional language describes the fee as being in the lowest class in the industry, on the company's own survey and with conditions attached; the number to compare is 119 against 100. Several other services are unavailable at the Raksul Bank Branch, and GMO Aozora publishes the list: the Tokutoku transfer fee membership, Business ID management, settlement deposits, multiple additional accounts, and others the bank may notify. Comprehensive bulk transfer is not supported, although bulk transfers of up to 99 items in the Japanese Bankers Association format are possible, and there are no yen time deposits.

The points need reading closely as well, because two per cent sounds like cash and is not. Points can be used only when placing an order on Raksul, by entering a point quantity on the payment screen. Taxes, utility charges, purchases of a million yen or more such as vehicles or housing, spending within Raksul itself, and anything before initial setup is completed are all outside the award, and there is no retroactive award for that last category. The cap on the award and the expiry of points could not be confirmed. Accounting software connections cover freee, Money Forward and Yayoi, but in each case you select GMO Aozora Net Bank as the financial institution inside that software. The API is GMO Aozora's; no proprietary Raksul Bank API could be confirmed, and transfers made through the API do not appear on the Raksul Bank transaction screen. Lending, overdraft facilities, foreign currency handling and overseas remittance appear only as statements of future intent, with no primary source showing them available now.

How to choose, stated honestly

The split is not close, and it is not about which product is better. It is about what your company spends money on.

If you use Raksul for printing, direct mail or advertising already, or you will, the 2.0 per cent point award has a genuine destination, because points are spent on Raksul orders. Against that, transfers cost 19 yen more per payment than the same bank's ordinary account, and the Tokutoku membership that would narrow the gap is unavailable. A company running fifty outbound payments a month and a real print budget can come out ahead. The published eligibility rules for foreign-national representatives are a second, separate reason to look at it: knowing in advance is worth something.

If you do not use Raksul, the ordinary GMO Aozora Net Bank corporate account is the cheaper form of the identical underlying institution — 100 yen per outbound transfer, 99 with the Tokutoku membership, free maintenance, same-day opening at the earliest with electronic identity confirmation, and the residence card named in its published document list. Choosing it over the branch product costs you nothing except a point scheme you would never spend.

If you need comprehensive bulk transfer, yen time deposits, settlement deposits or multiple accounts, the branch product is ruled out on function before price enters the conversation. And if you are a sole proprietor rather than a company, it is ruled out entirely; the trade-name accounts that suit sole proprietors were confirmed as officially offered by GMO Aozora Net Bank, PayPay Bank and Rakuten Bank, and a comprehensive list of banks offering them could not be assembled.

What to have ready before you apply

The list below is assembled from what the banks publish, in the order the delays usually happen. Nothing here is a substitute for the specific list of the bank you choose.

What only a Japanese corporate account can do

The reason to fight through the above is that a multi-currency provider does not replace it, and the reason is not preference. Wise is not a bank; its own terms state that a Wise account is not a bank account and that funds held there are not guaranteed by any deposit protection scheme. A Wise corporate account can only be opened by a company registered in Japan, so it sits after incorporation, not instead of it. Its JPY account details exist for topping up your own account from an account in your own name; payments from a third party's name are refused and refunded within two business days, and salary is among the refused categories. The holding limit is one million yen in principle across all currencies converted to yen, for corporate accounts as well as personal.

The first row is the one that ends the argument. Your domestic customers pay in their own company's name, and a payment in another name into Wise JPY details is refused. There is no configuration in which a Japanese corporate account is optional for a business selling to Japanese buyers. The correct arrangement is both, used for different things, which is the subject of the article on Wise Business in Japan.

One line in that table needs protecting from a rumour. The Japanese Bankers Association announced on 26 March 2025 that exchange of promissory notes and cheques at the Electronic Clearing House will end from the start of fiscal 2027. The same announcement states expressly that this does not mean promissory notes and cheques become unusable from the start of fiscal 2027. What ends is clearing through the Electronic Clearing House; settlement afterwards is bilateral, such as by individual collection, and handling may change at each institution's discretion. If a supplier still pays you by note, ask your bank rather than a headline.

Where the published material runs out

Several things readers ask about could not be answered from primary sources, and inventing answers to them would be worse than leaving them open.

Whether any of this can be done in English is the first, and it is genuinely unresolved. Mitsubishi UFJ's web corporate account opening system has an English interface, and whether the entire process can be completed in English is not published. Sumitomo Mitsui publishes English pages and a departmental telephone number staffed on weekdays from 9:00 to 17:00 Japan time. For the four online banks, and for Raksul Bank's application, screening, app and support, no primary source on language availability could be found at all. Nothing in this article should be read as a statement that any institution named here provides service in English.

Also unresolved: Sumitomo Mitsui's corporate document list, which could not be retrieved; Mizuho's treatment of the residence card and its screening period; PayPay Bank's certificate validity window, residence card position and maintenance fee; the certificate validity window at GMO Aozora and Docomo SMTB; Japan Post Bank's corporate fee schedule; megabank corporate transfer fees, which vary by contract type; whether Mitsubishi UFJ's pre-incorporation route opens an account before registration completes or merely accepts an application; the cap and expiry on Raksul Bank's points; whether any free transfer allowance exists alongside the flat 119 yen; the availability today of lending, overdraft, foreign currency and overseas remittance there; the existence of a proprietary Raksul Bank API; the detailed requirements for unregistered organisations; the debit card's international brand and usage limits; and the date on which the 2026 amendment to the Act comes into force.

FAQ

One last piece of sequencing. The account is not the end of the setup; it is the thing every later step assumes you already have. Tax registrations, social insurance, and the consumption tax position that changes on 1 October 2026 — the subject of a separate article on the October 2026 consumption tax changes — all run through it. Getting it open early, with documents that are still inside their validity windows, buys you room everywhere else.