By The Diplomat | Created at 2026-06-10 15:30:29 | Updated at 2026-06-14 06:45:35
3 days ago
At a gathering in Tokyo this May, Manish Kumar, who runs an Indian restaurant in Saitama Prefecture, broke down in tears as he recounted his unsuccessful attempt to renew his residence status. He has lived in Japan for 30 years and operated his restaurant for 18 years.
“My children were born in Japan and raised in Japan. They only speak Japanese, and all their friends are Japanese. But we are being told to go back to India,” he told the crowd. Although the specific reasons behind Japan’s tightening of its Business Manager visa policy have not been made public, Kumar’s case quickly attracted attention. It is not an isolated one. In Nishi-Kasai, a neighborhood in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward, a 53-year-old Indian restaurant owner told the media anonymously that he had been unable to raise the funds required under the new rules and had no choice but to close his business. Jagmohan Chandrani, who has lived in Japan for more than 40 years and has long served as chairman of the Edogawa Indian Association, warned that many Indians would be forced to leave Japan and that the community he had spent decades helping to build could begin to unravel.
Japan revised the application requirements for its Business Manager visa in October 2025. Under the previous system, foreign nationals could legally establish and operate a business in Japan with at least 5 million yen (roughly $35,000) in capital and a business plan. The new rules raise the capital requirement to 30 million yen (roughly $210,000), six times the previous threshold. In addition, applicants must employ at least one full-time worker who is either a Japanese national or a permanent or long-term resident. The applicant or a full-time employee must possess Japanese-language proficiency equivalent to the JLPT N2 level, and applicants must also possess either at least three years of business management experience or a master’s degree or higher in a field relevant to the business they intend to operate.
According to Japanese media reports, the average monthly number of Business Manager visa applications fell from roughly 1,700 to around 70 after the new rules took effect, a decline of 96 percent.
“We have, to a certain extent, dispelled concerns about the business manager status being abused as a means of immigration,” said Kimi Onoda, minister of state for economic security, at a news conference in May.
While the government views the new rules as a necessary measure to curb abuse, some observers worry that they may also deter genuine entrepreneurs. Kazuhiko Yamada, a gyoseishoshi (an administrative scrivener) in Tokyo who assists with immigration procedures, has stated that inquiries for new cases dropped from two or three per month to zero following the policy change. He argued that individuals with 30 million yen at their disposal could just as easily choose the United States or Europe, where English-language environments are more accessible and market opportunities are larger, rather than prioritizing Japan. A survey conducted by Tokyo Shoko Research between March and April 2026 among 299 foreign-owned businesses likewise found that more than 45 percent expected the new rules to negatively impact their operations, while 5 percent said they might cease doing business in Japan altogether.
The Japanese government has its own rationale for revising the visa regulations. Officials argue that the previous threshold was too low and left room for abuse, with some individuals obtaining residency status by establishing shell companies that conducted no genuine business activity. The right-wing Sanseito party has also repeatedly called for tighter restrictions on this visa category. From the perspective of closing institutional loopholes, raising the entry requirements is justified.
The problem is that sharply increasing the capital requirement is a blunt policy instrument that struggles to distinguish between shell companies and the small restaurants that have become embedded in local communities. A restaurant that has operated continuously for 18 years, paid taxes on time, and employed staff is treated under the same capital requirement as a paper company that never actually opened for business. Data from Tokyo Shoko Research also show that the number of bankruptcies among foreign-owned food-service businesses reached a near 30-year high last year, suggesting that the sector was already under considerable pressure even before the new rules were introduced.
Moreover, although the current regulations include a three-year transition or grace period, existing visa holders are not required to immediately satisfy all of the new requirements when renewing their status before October 2028. However, this does not guarantee approval, as applications remain subject to case-by-case review by immigration authorities. Once the grace period ends, applicants will, in principle, be required to meet the new 30-million-yen capital threshold, while renewal decisions will continue to involve a degree of administrative discretion. This uncertainty alone may be sufficient to prompt some business owners to exit the market before the deadline arrives rather than wait to see what happens.
The tightening of the Business Manager visa comes against the broader backdrop of a more restrictive immigration policy environment in Japan. Since taking office, the government of Takaichi Sanae has made stricter residency requirements for foreign nationals a policy priority. Measures include higher visa fees, stricter Japanese-language requirements, and the incorporation of health insurance and national pension payment records into residency renewal procedures. At the same time, on April 13 this year, Japan stopped accepting new applications for the Specified Skilled Worker visa category in the food-service industry because the sector had nearly reached the five-year quota of 50,000 workers set in 2024. This suspension has directly affected izakaya chains and family-style restaurant operators that rely heavily on foreign employees, with some businesses reporting difficulties in maintaining normal staffing levels and expansion plans.
At the same time, Japan faces severe population decline and labor shortages. It is estimated that there are now more than 4,000 restaurants in Japan operating under the banner of “Indian curry,” the majority of which are in fact run by Nepali owners. These restaurants employ large numbers of foreign workers and serve as important pillars of immigrant communities. If such communities begin to shrink, the consequences will extend beyond the lives of current immigrants in Japan. It could also weaken Japan’s attractiveness to prospective migrant workers overseas, potentially affecting sectors facing even more acute labor shortages, including agriculture, elderly care, and transportation.
This development also raises broader questions about the coherence of Japan’s immigration policy. In 2024, the government enacted legislation to replace the controversial Technical Intern Training Program with the new Employment for Skill Development system, a reform intended to encourage foreign workers to remain longer in sectors facing chronic labor shortages. Yet the recent tightening of requirements for foreign entrepreneurs suggests a more cautious approach to longer-term settlement and economic integration.
Some commentators have described Japan’s current predicament as an “impossible trinity.” Under conditions of continuing population decline, cheap everyday services, rising wages, and strict immigration controls cannot all be maintained simultaneously. According to this theory, for much of the so-called Lost Decades, Japan effectively chose low prices and low levels of immigration. Wages remained largely stagnant, but that was manageable so long as everyday services remained affordable. Therefore, part of Japan’s social stability rested on the fact that living standards could remain relatively comfortable even without significant wage growth. Today, however, that equilibrium is becoming harder to sustain. Inflation has returned, input costs are rising, and the population continues to shrink. Japan must therefore make a new choice.
Addressing genuine cases of abuse within the visa system is reasonable. The controversy surrounding the current policy, however, lies not in whether scrutiny should be strengthened, but in whether dramatically raising the capital requirement is an effective means to achieve that objective. Immigration authorities already take into account factors such as a firm’s actual business operations, tax records, and employment practices during the review process. As such, placing greater emphasis on a company’s long-term operating record, rather than relying on a blanket increase in capital requirements, may help reduce the burden on legitimate businesses.
At present, a social media campaign under the hashtag “May My Favorite Ethnic Restaurant Stay With Us Forever” has been widely shared online. Meanwhile, an online petition urging the government to reconsider the new rules has garnered nearly 60,000 signatures. Together, these developments suggest that the issue has attracted considerable attention not only among immigrant communities but also among Japanese society more broadly. If the Japanese government can develop more targeted review standards for small businesses with long, demonstrable operating histories before the grace period expires, it may be able to strike a more reasonable balance between preventing system abuse and preserving existing communities and local business ecosystems.
