Official company and property records in Japan
Japan maintains separate registers for companies, real property, insolvency proceedings, intellectual property and beneficial ownership. Each family sits with a different authority and a different access rule. Some records reach a foreign applicant directly; others run only through a licensed registered agent. The exact route for each family is being confirmed against the primary source.
The registers present
For a foreign applicant, the surprise is rarely the fee stated on the register's own tariff; it is the certified translation, the courier leg back out of the country and the notarised copy that sit around it. Public records Japan maintains sit across five separate families, and each carries its own key, its own office and its own rule on who may ask.
The Japan company register sits apart from real property, insolvency and intellectual property, each held in its own file rather than in one combined index. It carries the registered name, the registered address, the representative director and the date of each officer change. The record is kept per company rather than per group, so a subsidiary and its parent each hold a separate file. Whether a foreign applicant can order a certified extract without a resident intermediary is TO_VERIFY.
Real property sits in a register keyed to the parcel rather than to the owner's name. Where the applicant holds only an owner's name and no parcel reference, a company search Japan permits by name is unlikely to return the record; the key that opens this register is the parcel or building number, not the person behind it. Access terms for a foreign applicant are being confirmed against the primary source.
Insolvency and court filings sit with the courts rather than with the corporate register, and a filing against a company does not automatically appear on that company's own corporate file. Whether the underlying court record is open to a foreign applicant at all, and through which office, is TO_VERIFY.
Beneficial ownership is recorded for a narrow set of regulated entities rather than for companies generally. Whether a public search exists for the ordinary trading company, and what it would return, is TO_VERIFY at the time of writing.
Intellectual property sits in its own register, separate from the corporate file, and a change of company name is not always reflected there on the same date. The two records can disagree for a period, and which one a receiving party accepts depends on what is being asked of it.
What is closed here
Historical filings from before each register's move to an electronic index are not searchable online. Where a record predates that migration, a written request to the local office is the only route, and even that route is TO_VERIFY for a foreign applicant.
The shareholding register – who holds how many shares in a given company – is held by the company itself, not filed with any public register. No register in Japan will return it; requesting it means requesting the company, not the state.
Beneficial ownership at the level of the natural person behind a shareholding structure is not open to general public search for an ordinary trading company. Where it exists at all, it sits with a regulated-sector supervisor rather than with the corporate register, and confirming its scope is TO_VERIFY.
None of this is a defect in the register. It is what the record was built to hold. The layer above it – who ultimately controls the entity – sits outside the state's own recording function, in Japan as in most jurisdictions this cell covers.
How documents from here are used abroad
A Japan certified document is typically issued in Japanese. A receiving party outside Japan that does not read Japanese arranges a certified translation, separately from the register that issued the original. Where the receiving jurisdiction runs its own authentication chain, an extra step sits before the document is accepted, and which step applies to a Japanese-issued document is TO_VERIFY.
Age matters more than the register realises. A Japan registry extract can be treated as stale within weeks of issue, regardless of what the register itself states about the record's currency on the day it was produced.
Where two records disagree – the corporate file showing one company name and the intellectual property file still showing an earlier one – a receiving party will usually ask which is current. The answer sits with the corporate record, not with the older filing.
Access barriers a foreign applicant meets
A national identifier or an electronic signature that the applicant does not hold closes several routes before the request is even logged. Where the online portal asks for a resident credential the applicant lacks, a paper route through the local office remains open, though it is slower, and its exact terms for a foreign applicant are TO_VERIFY.
A company search Japan runs online for some families still meets this same credential barrier at the point of submission, not at the point of payment. The barrier sits before the fee, not inside it.
A licensed registered agent in the jurisdiction can stand in the applicant's place for several of these families. This does not remove the underlying limit – a closed register stays closed – but it removes the identifier barrier for the families where the barrier is procedural rather than a matter of access rights.
Language is the barrier that arrives last and costs most. Forms, receipts and the record itself typically arrive in Japanese, and the translation step is arranged outside the register, after the document is already in hand.
Route, authority and reuse
The issuing authority differs by register family, and which office holds which family is TO_VERIFY at the time of writing. Fees, turnaround and the language of issue are confirmed only once each family has been checked against the primary source; none is stated here as a specific value.
Availability to a foreign applicant is not uniform across the five families. Some accept a direct written request, others accept a request only through a licensed registered agent in the jurisdiction, and a small number remain closed to a foreign applicant regardless of route. Reuse terms – whether a document obtained for one purpose may be reused for another – are set family by family and are also TO_VERIFY.
Which register holds company records in Japan?
Company records sit in a register kept separately from real property, insolvency and intellectual property. It carries the registered name, address, representative director and officer changes. Which authority maintains it, and on what terms a foreign applicant may order an extract, is TO_VERIFY against the primary source.
Can a foreign applicant obtain documents from Japan directly?
For some families a direct written request is possible; for others the route runs through a licensed registered agent in the jurisdiction. Which route applies to a given family, and whether a resident identifier is required at the point of request, is TO_VERIFY at the time of writing.
What is not recorded in the Japan registers?
The shareholding register sits with the company itself, not with the state, so no public register returns it. Beneficial ownership at the level of the individual behind a structure is not open to general public search for an ordinary trading company. Both sit outside the recording function of the registers described above.
Does a Japan company extract need a certified translation for use abroad?
Where the receiving party does not read Japanese, a certified translation is normally arranged, separately from the register that issued the original document. Whether the receiving jurisdiction also asks for an authentication step on top of the translation depends on that jurisdiction, not on the Japanese register itself.
How current does a Japan registry extract need to be?
A receiving bank or court will often treat an extract as stale within weeks of issue, even where the register itself attaches no expiry date to the document. Ordering close to the date of use reduces the risk of rejection on currency grounds alone.
What happens if a Japan register cannot produce the record requested?
Where the record does not exist in the form asked for, or the register cannot issue it to a foreign applicant, that is confirmed before an order is placed, not after. No fee is taken for a record that cannot be delivered.
Tell us the jurisdiction and the record you are after; we return the route, the issuing authority and the limit before any order is placed. If the document does not exist in this jurisdiction or cannot be obtained for you, we say so before you pay and we do not take the order.
REGISTRUM obtains and delivers official records issued by public registers and licensed registered agents. This page describes what those records contain and how they are obtained. It is not advice on the legal effect of any record. To order, write to info@registrumfirm.com.