Japan tightens visa rules as foreign business owners fear being forced out

TOKYO: Foreign entrepreneurs in Japan are warning that tighter visa rules could force them to shut down businesses and leave the country, even as the country faces labour shortages linked to its ageing population and low birth rate.

The stricter conditions for business manager visas were introduced by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in late 2025, amid growing domestic opposition to immigration. The policy shift has come alongside wider measures by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government targeting foreign nationals, including a sharp rise announced last month in visa fees for some tourists for the first time in nearly 50 years. The cost of single and multiple-entry permits was raised five-fold.

Among those affected is Budhathoki Samjhana, a 38-year-old Nepalese restaurant owner in Tokyo’s Okubo district. She told AFP that the new rules may force her to give up a business she built over years after arriving in Japan as a student in 2016. She saved for years before opening her first restaurant in 2023, and after launching a third outlet in January, she brought her 14-year-old daughter from Nepal to Japan after a decade apart.

Speaking about her situation, Budhathoki said “I always wanted to become a bridge between Japan and Nepal... but my dream is broken”.

She said the biggest obstacle was the jump in the minimum capital requirement to ¥30 million ($185,000) from ¥5 million ($30,000).

Budhathoki also described anxiety over her family’s future after finally reuniting with her daughter, who is now enrolled in a Japanese school. She said “Now, I'm very worried not about myself but about my daughter... What did I do to her?”

Concerns over enforcement

Although business manager visa holders are supposed to have a three-year grace period to comply with the new rules, some say enforcement has already become stricter. Indian restaurant owner Manish Kumar, who has lived in Japan for three decades, said his business manager visa would not be renewed despite that grace period. Kumar, who has operated a restaurant in Saitama near Tokyo for 18 years, said at a gathering on the issue last month “My children only speak Japanese... and we're told to go back to India”.

Visa specialists told AFP that immigration authorities have been asking for more paperwork, including tax receipts and proof of social insurance premium payments. Petition organiser Taro Tsurugashima said more than 67,800 people had signed a petition seeking suspension of the new rules. Referring to Kumar, he said “What happened to him was shocking”.

Broader political backdrop

The tougher approach follows a justice ministry announcement in May last year of a plan for zero illegal foreign residents, presented as a response to public concern. Foreigners were also a prominent issue in last year’s upper house election, in which the Japanese-first Sanseito party made gains while describing immigration as a silent invasion.

Since taking office in October, Takaichi has promised tighter screening. According to government data cited by AFP, the number of business manager visa holders had climbed to around 46,000 by mid-2025, up 70% from 2020, with about half of them Chinese nationals.

Kazuki Yuda, an administrative affairs advisor, said the visa had become an easy route for people seeking to settle in Japan without genuine business plans. He said authorities had also encountered real estate agents telling people they could secure a visa simply by buying property in Japan. Another administrative affairs advisor, Daisuke Komori, said he had turned away potential clients, many of them Chinese, who mainly wanted to relocate for their children’s education or to leave China.

At the same time, both Yuda and Komori said the tighter measures were also hurting legitimate small restaurant operators and younger entrepreneurs. One of the new requirements is that a business manager visa holder must employ a Japanese national or a long-term resident. A 30-year-old Bangladeshi man running a trading company in Tokyo told AFP that the shrinking population had made that difficult.

At an April parliament session, Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi said he had no plan to revise the rules, but said his ministry intended to respond based on individual circumstances.