Frequently asked questions

We communicate in English by email and chat, and we prepare reports and documents in English. Meetings and phone calls are available in Japanese only. If someone in your Japan team speaks Japanese, we are happy to hold online meetings with them. Many of our clients find written communication works well with HQ: everything is on record and time-zone differences do not get in the way.

We reply within one business day as a rule. Our business hours are 9:00–18:00 Japan time, Monday to Friday, excluding Japanese public holidays.

We use Money Forward Cloud Accounting for bookkeeping, and email, Slack or Chatwork for communication. We can adapt to the tools your HQ already uses.

Yes. Choices made before incorporation, such as share capital and fiscal year-end, affect your Japanese consumption tax status and your reporting timetable, so it helps to let us know early. Company registration is handled by our partner judicial scriveners; we gather the information and brief them in Japanese for you. See Accounting & Tax for New Japanese Subsidiaries.

Yes. We work with companies anywhere in Japan, and with HQ teams anywhere in the world.

Yes. We take over the accounting data and past filing records from your current accountant and continue from the month of the switch.

Yes. We prepare reporting packages and tax provisions, including deferred tax, in your HQ's format, for Japan entities of any size.

We do not handle these ourselves. When they come up, we introduce you to our partner international tax specialists, who work in English.

Yes. We accept year-end filing without a monthly plan, from JPY 600,000. The fee depends on the state of your books, the volume of transactions and the time left before the filing deadline.

Only for directors and assignees of our client companies. We do not take on one-off personal tax returns.

Yes. We act as tax agent for foreign companies with no office in Japan, from JPY 10,000 per month. A Japanese consumption tax return is from JPY 150,000, and other tax returns are quoted individually. Because we are certified public tax accountants, we can also prepare and file your tax returns, which anyone who is not a certified public tax accountant cannot do. If you plan to register as a tax-qualified invoice issuer, please note that a foreign business with no office in Japan generally needs both a certified public tax accountant authorised to act for it on Japanese consumption tax and, where required, a tax agent (nozei kanrinin), or its application may be refused. As certified public tax accountants, we can act in both roles.

No. Our fees are set on the basis that we work in English.

We invoice in Japanese yen. Fees are payable by bank transfer to our account in Japan, and overseas remittance fees and bank charges are borne by the client.