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Foreign business owners are scrambling to raise capital to stay in Japan

97 points by zdw 4mo ago

tristanj 4mo ago
A large number of Airbnb hosts were using this Business Manager Visa as a way to stay in Japan. People in China realized they could just buy/lease a guesthouse in Osaka / any tourist hotspot, and rent it out on Airbnb. Then they become a "business manager" and get a Japanese resident visa within 3 months. All you needed is to invest 5million yen, which is like 31k USD, which isn't much. People wrote entire online guides on how to do this. They even had brokers/agents helping people with the process [0]. Approximately half of all business manager visas went to Chinese nationals. In Osaka, 41% of all short-term rentals were operated by Chinese individuals [1]. The visa practically turned into an Airbnb host visa. It's not surprising at all that Japan made the rules stricter. [0] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/06/05/japan/immigration-business-visas/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/06/05/japan/immigrati... [1] https://chinatravelnews.com/article/186285/ https://chinatravelnews.com/article/186285/
- beefmumbai 4mo ago
  [dead]
- missingdays 4mo ago
  A guesthouse in Osaka is 31k USD?
  - Reubachi 4mo ago
    The visa requires licensing/registrations and token investments, all aside from the cost of purchasing a home in Osaka.
    - cucumber3732842 4mo ago
      >all aside from the cost of purchasing a home in Osaka Which they were almost certainly divvying up. A bunch of people invest $32k each. Some management company buys the home, pays them all a cut of airBNB proceeds, etc. You don't "do" anything beyond put up $32k for your $31k piece of paper.
      - mytailorisrich 4mo ago
        > Which they were almost certainly divvying up If I had to guess, I'd say probably not in most cases. A lot of Chinese are cash rich (perhaps not on average but with 1.3 billion people the absolute number is large compared to other countries) and want to invest abroad, and are buying properties all over the place. Another piece of evidence is the huge number of Chinese students in UK universities (from my experience) although the tuition fee alone is about £35k ($46k) a year.
  - tristanj 4mo ago
    5 million yen is the company capital requirement. They would form a company, invest 5 million yen into it, then the company would lease an apartment and rent it out on Airbnb. Rent would cost ¥60,000–120,000/month, they would list it on Airbnb for ¥20,000/night, then assuming 50% occupancy the return is ~¥200,000/month. It was very profitable. The payback period for the ¥5 million was 1.5 - 2 years.
    - decimalenough 4mo ago
      Also, the capital stays with the company! Wind down the company and (if it was profitable) you get your capital back.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - whizzter 4mo ago
    Iirc there's a scrap-n-build culture in Japan, houses are not really valued compared to land (due earthquake, quality, culture,etc).
- fc417fc802 4mo ago
  I feel like letting people buy their way in to visas is actually a pretty good system from a strictly pragmatic standpoint but 5 million yen seems far too low.
  - torben-friis 4mo ago
    >I feel like letting people buy their way in to visas is actually a pretty good system That depends of what you're hoping to prevent. If you want to filter out people who can't sustain themselves, petty crime or the like, it works. But it can open the door to a lot of unwanted effects. A foreign national that just extracts capital by capturing real state and collecting rent is a great example, this person is a large net loss for the country.
    - rwmj 4mo ago
      > A [person] that just extracts capital by capturing real state and collecting rent is a great example, this person is a large net loss for the country. Even to their home country.
      - junon 4mo ago
        Genuine question: how so? I'm not familiar with the economics of this.
        embedding-shape 4mo ago
        The general feedback loop is "have lots of money === easier to make more money", and doing so via passive approaches like "own property, rent it out" basically spirals out of control to a few owning a lot, unless you try to restrict it somehow. Add in that "vacation rentals" is hugely interesting for real estate owners as you get so much more per owned property, and suddenly local residents are even harder hit by property not being available even for long-term rent anymore. Final drop being that the real estate owner doesn't even live, work or spend their money in the country of the property itself, and suddenly it's basically all downside for the country and the people living there.
- shevy-java 4mo ago
  It's not just business related though - Japan has gotten more hostile to foreigners. And no, it is not restricted only to chinese foreigners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGAmKqTWjxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGAmKqTWjxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXLOsYTfl7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXLOsYTfl7k (These two videos are quite recent at the time of writing this here.) Don't get fooled by the deliberate (but misleading) title(s). This is a narration of more and more restrictions coming. So the article here also taps into this 1:1. In some ways it reminds me of Nigel Farage in the UK, though in Japan it is not quite as tied to an individual person.
- hirako2000 4mo ago
  And how are they not managerial, entrepreneur, doing business ? Is there something illegitimate in doing an activity that yield profit when the national is Chinese ? Or when it's a short term let ? Or when it is something that doesn't directly contributed to innovation benefiting the nation ?
  - embedding-shape 4mo ago
    I don't think it's "illegitimate" as such, just parasitic behaviour the world probably needs less of. They buy up real estate, then rent it out, living in another country, basically just extracting wealth, and while it's legal, it's still lazy and kind of despicable behaviour from a "we're all humans on this planet" perspective. From the perspective of Japanese people, you see foreigners coming to where you live and strictly making things worse, not better. But of course if we limit our perspective to an economic one, then it seems like a wise and sound approach to "escaping the hamster wheel" for the average Chinese person, easy money right? I think people in Japan probably don't have that perspective though, but instead look at the tail-effects of allowing that sort of behavior. That's why they changed the rules probably.
    - hirako2000 4mo ago
      I don't disagree with certain occupations being more parasitic than others, but most jobs can be deemed parasitic. In a fair market "lazy" jobs can't exist or someone else would do it at a better price. Short term let entrepreneurs are just doing arbitrage, because there is a need for it. What you see as making things worse for some which is true, is also making things better for many others. Fix the system, rather than cracking down on foreigners doing what you may then tolerate locals to do.
  - bombcar 4mo ago
    It’s the difference between setting up a system to encourage investment and hoping for a factory, or at least a large department store, and instead getting a DataCenter that employs 30 people total.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
- timr 4mo ago
  Yep. There was also a proliferation of Indian restaurants in the major cities, for the same basic reason. (Though I have to say that seems like a much harder road than operating a guesthouse for people from your own country, which is what I presume was the Chinese approach.) Since you can bring in relatives on this kind of visa, I’ve heard the expression “One curry pot equals three people”. There have been stories in the Japanese press about long-time restauranteurs being shut down by the new rules.
  - rayiner 4mo ago
    > Since you can bring in relatives on this kind of visa, I’ve heard the expression “One curry pot equals three people”. Family reunification is a gaping loophole in any skilled immigration law and developed countries need to seriously limit it. The New York Times did a good podcast on how uncapped family reunification ended up being a loophole that totally overturned all the limits and compromises in the 1965 immigration reform laws in the U.S.: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/election-immigration.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi...
    - modo_mario 4mo ago
      Same in belgium. It's almost if not the biggest source of migration.
    - timr 4mo ago
      > Family reunification is a gaping loophole in any skilled immigration law and developed countries need to seriously limit it. I don’t know if I’d go that far. I tend to think it’s kind of cruel to separate families indefinitely in the name of labor, but I do see that restrictions are necessary to prevent abuse. There’s an entire spectrum of reasonable debate here.
      - rayiner 4mo ago
        It's not about "abuse." It's that family reunification undermines the filters that are at the heart of every immigration law. My dad came over from Bangladesh on an H1 and he's the guy you put on the brochure when you market skilled visa programs to voters. He's a public health expert who had a job in-hand in the U.S. And he moved his kids to a neighborhood without any other Bangladeshis and raised us without any foreign attachments or sympathies. Because that's the kind of person who self-selects into leaving everything behind to undertake an arduous immigration process. But none of those filters apply to family reunification. You don't need skills, you don't need a job. You're making much less of a sacrifice in terms of leaving your family behind, since by definition you already have family in the U.S. You can move into an enclave with people from your country and live your life and raise your kids the same way you were doing back home. You just enjoy the benefits of living in a richer country. The result of all that is you end up with this bizarre system where you apply intensive screening to select 65,000 H1Bs, 19,000 O-1s, etc. But then you hand out hundreds of thousands of greencards to people who meet no criteria other than having family who is already here.
Semaphor 4mo ago
Thought the name seems familiar: Jake Adelstein got his 2009 memoir Tokyo Vice turned into a (fun to watch, apparently very dramatized, though that was already criticized for the memoirs) 2 season HBO series in 2022.
- rwmj 4mo ago
  The book is far more interesting than the drama. In fact I'd go so far to say that the drama has really nothing much to do with the book besides the title and some superficial characters.
- trashcan2137 4mo ago
  The newspaper he apparently worked in stated that he was never part of the reporting teams for organized crime and had written only a very few articles about the yakuza during his time there. He got called out several times about his stories so I wouldn't be surprised if he's making stuff up again.
  - Semaphor 4mo ago
    > He got called out several times Good point, WP [0] has some details, looks like pretty credible call outs. I did read about that when I watched the show, but proceeded to forget because I didn’t actually care that much ;) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Adelstein#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Adelstein#Career
ElProlactin 4mo ago
Many countries are tightening the immigration screws. For example, Thailand just reduced visa exempt stays for most countries from 60 to 30 days and have been going hard after illegal foreign businesses set up under Thai nominees. While there are usually political and economic factors that contribute to these decisions, I've been living overseas for almost two decades and have noticed that rampant abuse is now almost everywhere you look in any country that is interesting to foreigners. A few years ago, I was sitting at busy bar near the beach in Bali and a couple of guys were loudly discussing a scheme they used to get KITAS investor visas without actually putting up the required capital. This is just the beginning of this type of thing methinks.
- bluealienpie 4mo ago
  Fundamentally the issue is that visa requirements are restrictive creating concentrated demand for labor. There are countries with higher paying jobs that can done online, but every position doesn't just shift overseas. We put the onus on the individual to stop illegal activity, but it’s the business owners that hire and sustain this kind of employment. A high minimum wage would negate the need and desire for irregular migration. It would also provide good paying jobs for migrants who could afford to live in the country.
- aurareturn 4mo ago
  For Southeast Asia specifically, they've been battered by low quality, trashy tourists - more so after Covid. Locals are respectful but many tourists are entitled in SEA. You see plenty of videos on social media of tourists starting fights with locals, being disruptive in public areas, and generally doing something illegal. Recent example in Vietnam: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DY_-NcwDTaJ/ https://www.instagram.com/reels/DY_-NcwDTaJ/ A lot of trashy tourists are moving from Bali over to Vietnam. I few sorry for the locals. Yes, they'll make a few extra bucks a week from more tourists but at the cost of seeing your society get destroyed slowly. Dear Vietnam, please do not try to become the next Thailand and Bali for tourism. Do not welcome sex tourists, criminals, crypto bros, begpackers. Don't sell your soul for a few extra dollars.
- eloisant 4mo ago
  That's pretty crazy when you see that in developed countries, Japan in particular, population is aging and declining. Countries should be competing for the best immigrants, not closing their doors.
Shank 4mo ago
> In one case, investigators in Kanagawa Prefecture found that a Sri Lankan national had set up roughly 600 shell companies. He also allegedly submitted business manager visa applications for at least six Sri Lankan nationals by listing them as company presidents on paper, even though they actually worked manual labor jobs. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the government has a problem with this practice. The problem is trying to create a system of requirements that is both feasible to put on paper and also testable. When the issue was raised, the income requirements were changed as an immediate reaction, but the ISA has broad authority to grant or deny based on many circumstances. Put differently, acts like this were already illegal, but difficult for the ISA to catch. So they changed the base requirements which are theoretically much easier to catch than the actual illegal behavior.
- RaSoJo 4mo ago
  He also allegedly submitted business manager visa applications for at least six Sri Lankan nationals by listing them as company presidents on paper, even though they actually worked manual labor jobs. From Asterix & Cleopatra (1965): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSL0D_ZUAAAvbeM.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSL0D_ZUAAAvbeM.jpg Relevant as ever.
  - alexpotato 4mo ago
    Loved Asterix as a kid and now realizing I should go back and re-read them to get the more adult themed jokes.
- mmooss 4mo ago
  > The problem is trying to create a system of requirements that is both feasible to put on paper and also testable. ... and fair, just, and respects freedom and other rights. Telling people one thing in 2015, giving them a decade to build a life in Japan, and then a decade later telling them they have to leave violates many of those things. Obviously the political subtext is contempt for fairness, justice, and human rights. It's not hard to see how destroying the foundations of freedom and prosperity will turn out; you can see it already in the impact on many people who are immigrants and others outside a certain power structure (conservative, racially dominant, wealthy) in many countries. Removing human rights is license to act with contempt for others. > In one case One case doesn't indicate a problem. I don't believe it's dependent on any problem: Is it coincidence that xenophobia is suddenly popular in all these countries around the world, simultaneously?
blueTiger33 4mo ago
[flagged]
- nozzlegear 4mo ago
  Violence?
  - gacgacgac 4mo ago
    OP is just classically racist, equating immigration with violence.
tecleandor 4mo ago
> The police suspect around 1,000 people may be working in Japan illegally through these types of schemes. In a country with a population of 123 million, that's a non issue just for pleasing far right Nippon Kaigi friendly voters.
- eunos 4mo ago
  > Nippon Kaigi friendly voters *Sanseito. Nippon Kaigi friendly are mostly trad big corps. These days the anxiety came from everyday folks that are starting to consider Sanseito vs good ol' LDPJ. While not 100% the same, I do think that the last LDPJ huge victory reminds me of 2019 UK election, the last big hurrah for Conservative, before Reform starts seeping in.
  - tecleandor 4mo ago
    Yeah well, I said Nippon Kaigi because the PM and a good bunch of the people around them are Nippon Kaigi, but yeah, Sanseito is having fun too.
DiscourseFan 4mo ago
It will become increasingly difficult to police international borders. On the other hand, commercial space travel will create new states that can police there borders. The borders don’t disappear but they will change
- fred_is_fred 4mo ago
  Commercial space travel to where? Where will these new borders be?
shevy-java 4mo ago
I was surprised when I first heard of that. I actually noticed this on Paolo from Tokyo's youtube channel first. The vibe was strange, because Paolo seemed happy about stricter controls. I was baffled about that, since it ran counter to the rest of Paolo's channel (which is actually best with regards to the series "A day in the life of a japanese xyz"; this is actually insightful and even historically important). So Japan sending the message "gaijin leave now" kind of would make me reconsider where to go - aka not Japan. If it is in Asia, well, there may now be friendlier countries. And the technological gap isn't that huge anymore; South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan - these are almost equal to Japan. Even some parts in mainland China (but who wants to live in sinomarxistic-capitalism - that's such a weird psycho combination). Even Thailand, while it is not on the same standard as the other countries, may seem friendlier now than Japan with his anti-foreigner's policies. It seems their true mindset has never really changed. That may also explain why the english language is still regarded as a hostile entity to many; contrast this to Singapore please.
- modo_mario 4mo ago
  Singapore is not a nation, singaporean not an ethnicity and even Lee Kuan Yew had serious doubts about what people they could integrate. They also don't allow this kind of 'get in on a business visa by pricing out locals with some airbnb's bullshit'.
cedws 4mo ago
As a Brit living in Japan (non-resident) I think they should protect themselves at all costs, lest what happened to my country happen to theirs. If the business visa was abused, that abuse should be stopped, not just allowed to happen like we would do.
- croes 4mo ago
  First > at all costs That’s with nearly 100% certainty always wrong at leads to disaster Second I doubt the new requirements will hinder shell companies that much. The honest people on the other hand will be screwed.
- klausa 4mo ago
  I'm sorry, you're simultaneously (somehow?) living here as a non-resident, and complaining about people _abusing the system_? That's pretty rich, gotta say!
  - timr 4mo ago
    What’s rich about it? You can live in Japan as a non-resident and still be following 100% of the rules. I agree with the GP. It’s their country. They set the rules. If they want to change the rules because those rules aren’t working for them, that’s their prerogative. As a USian, I’m actually sort of jealous that they have the ability to make changes so quickly.
    - klausa 4mo ago
      >You can live in Japan as a non-resident and still be following 100% of the rules. Not for any reasonable definition of "live in", you can't.
      - timr 4mo ago
        Well, it depends a little on what OP meant by “resident” - often that gets used by expats to mean “permanent resident”, which is a pretty high bar. But even if you just assume that OP is here on the digital nomad visa thing, you’re effectively living here. More to the point, you’re following the rules, and it’s not at all ironic or contradictory to have an opinion that the rules can be changed by the host.
jingpostmedia 4mo ago
[flagged]
deleted 4mo ago
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rayiner 4mo ago
> Foreign business owners could lose their residency status after the government increased the capital requirement from 5 million yen (approx. $31,000) to 30 million yen (approx. $187,000).1 A $31,000 capital requirement for a "business" is a joke. A food cart--not a truck, just a cart--requires more capital than that.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- DrProtic 4mo ago
  Agreed, 31k is a joke, never heard of such a low number for this type of thing ever. I’m surprised it was that low. Even 187k is very low compared to Europe, I’m pretty sure all European countries have it higher than that.
jonathanstrange 4mo ago
A dying country that doesn't want small business to continue, that's not something I had in my 2026 bingo card collection. Be that as it may, I would just close down the business and incorporate elsewhere. Let them sort out their population crisis on their own, I'm sure children will magically pop out of nowhere.
deleted 4mo ago
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gslepak 4mo ago
I applaud the Japanese for being capable of recognizing that many parts of their culture are unique and worth preserving. That what makes Japan Japan is not just the land and the name, but the people and their culture.
- tecleandor 4mo ago
  How asking for more money is protecting anything?
  - gslepak 4mo ago
    They are not just asking for more money, from TFA they are imposting additional requirements like better Japanese fluency etc. In general they are raising the bar for who is allowed to live there, and all of that protects Japan.
    - tumult 4mo ago
      No, that's not required for this visa. The capital requirement is the major change. Also, foreign restaurant owners are already fluent in Japanese, because they deal with Japanese customers every day. The language requirement change is for other visa types. The rich people abusing this visa as second home have no trouble depositing a bit more money to meet the requirement. It only affects legitimate businesses that can't raise and float that kind of cash. It's performative punishment to appease the growing far-right sentiment. If they wanted to verify businesses were real, they can go there and foot and inspect. (They already have the right to do this, and all businesses that qualify for this visa must have a public office or commercial space with a clearly listed sign that can be accessed easily.) Also, they enacted the change and applied it retroactively to existing visa holders who were waiting to have their visa updated. So people are now being rejected on new rules that were announced and enacted after they had filed to update their visa (which you must do every 1-3 years.) Japan is not a theme park for foreign tourists to gawk at. It's a real place where people live and work.
      - gslepak 4mo ago
tumult 4mo ago
So sad to see the comments here from people who don't know any better cheering this on. They don't know what is actually happening. The rules change was applied retroactively to people who already had renewals filed (which you have to do frequently) but not yet approved, and are being rejected based on the rules change that was announced after having already filed. The new rules are being used as a way to visibly punish the (already very small, 3%) immigrant population in Japan to appease the growing number of people with far-right anti-immigration sentiment. There is a Japanese-led movement attempting to raise awareness of this issue, at least as far as it affects ethnic restaurants, which I suppose is the most visible effect of it to regular Japanese people: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260529/p2a/00m/0na/003000c https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260529/p2a/00m/0na/00... As they point out, the stated goal of this policy change was to clamp down on rich people from other countries buying a "second home" with a visa in Japan. But the policy change to increase the capital requirement does not stop this. It only affects legitimate business. Because the rich people just deposit more money and meet the requirement. As the people in the link above point out, if the government was actually serious about this, they could instead verify the businesses are real by going there. The people running small businesses, especially restaurants, cannot raise that kind of cash very quickly. And floating that amount of money in cash is just a bad idea. More: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16536637 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16536637 More: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16615301 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16615301 Example: https://www.ndtv.com/feature/japan-deportation-threat-leaves-indian-resident-in-tears-my-kids-only-speak-japanese-11503937 https://www.ndtv.com/feature/japan-deportation-threat-leaves... The people here cheering this on, saying "Japan should throw out more foreigners to preserve Japan" need to realize that Japan is not a theme park. It's a real place that people live and work. And this policy change doesn't even do what it claims to do.
kachilu-ai 4mo ago
I live in Japan, and this tracks with what I’ve seen over the past few years. There has been a noticeable increase in Chinese-run Airbnbs, especially in tourist areas. I’ve also heard of quite a few problems with some of these properties, such as operators not meeting licensing requirements or causing issues with nearby residents. Japan also has a relatively generous social security system, especially national health insurance, which makes medical costs extremely low compared with many other countries. So I can see why this kind of route would keep attracting people from overseas.

97 points by zdw 4mo ago

A large number of Airbnb hosts were using this Business Manager Visa as a way to stay in Japan. People in China realized they could just buy/lease a guesthouse in Osaka / any tourist hotspot, and rent it out on Airbnb. Then they become a "business manager" and get a Japanese resident visa within 3 months. All you needed is to invest 5million yen, which is like 31k USD, which isn't much. People wrote entire online guides on how to do this. They even had brokers/agents helping people with the process [0]. Approximately half of all business manager visas went to Chinese nationals. In Osaka, 41% of all short-term rentals were operated by Chinese individuals [1]. The visa practically turned into an Airbnb host visa. It's not surprising at all that Japan made the rules stricter. [0] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/06/05/japan/immigration-business-visas/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/06/05/japan/immigrati... [1] https://chinatravelnews.com/article/186285/ https://chinatravelnews.com/article/186285/

beefmumbai 4mo ago
[dead]
missingdays 4mo ago
A guesthouse in Osaka is 31k USD?
- Reubachi 4mo ago
  The visa requires licensing/registrations and token investments, all aside from the cost of purchasing a home in Osaka.
  - cucumber3732842 4mo ago
    >all aside from the cost of purchasing a home in Osaka Which they were almost certainly divvying up. A bunch of people invest $32k each. Some management company buys the home, pays them all a cut of airBNB proceeds, etc. You don't "do" anything beyond put up $32k for your $31k piece of paper.
    - mytailorisrich 4mo ago
      > Which they were almost certainly divvying up If I had to guess, I'd say probably not in most cases. A lot of Chinese are cash rich (perhaps not on average but with 1.3 billion people the absolute number is large compared to other countries) and want to invest abroad, and are buying properties all over the place. Another piece of evidence is the huge number of Chinese students in UK universities (from my experience) although the tuition fee alone is about £35k ($46k) a year.
- tristanj 4mo ago
  5 million yen is the company capital requirement. They would form a company, invest 5 million yen into it, then the company would lease an apartment and rent it out on Airbnb. Rent would cost ¥60,000–120,000/month, they would list it on Airbnb for ¥20,000/night, then assuming 50% occupancy the return is ~¥200,000/month. It was very profitable. The payback period for the ¥5 million was 1.5 - 2 years.
  - decimalenough 4mo ago
    Also, the capital stays with the company! Wind down the company and (if it was profitable) you get your capital back.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- whizzter 4mo ago
  Iirc there's a scrap-n-build culture in Japan, houses are not really valued compared to land (due earthquake, quality, culture,etc).
fc417fc802 4mo ago
I feel like letting people buy their way in to visas is actually a pretty good system from a strictly pragmatic standpoint but 5 million yen seems far too low.
- torben-friis 4mo ago
  >I feel like letting people buy their way in to visas is actually a pretty good system That depends of what you're hoping to prevent. If you want to filter out people who can't sustain themselves, petty crime or the like, it works. But it can open the door to a lot of unwanted effects. A foreign national that just extracts capital by capturing real state and collecting rent is a great example, this person is a large net loss for the country.
  - rwmj 4mo ago
    > A [person] that just extracts capital by capturing real state and collecting rent is a great example, this person is a large net loss for the country. Even to their home country.
    - junon 4mo ago
      Genuine question: how so? I'm not familiar with the economics of this.
      - embedding-shape 4mo ago
        The general feedback loop is "have lots of money === easier to make more money", and doing so via passive approaches like "own property, rent it out" basically spirals out of control to a few owning a lot, unless you try to restrict it somehow. Add in that "vacation rentals" is hugely interesting for real estate owners as you get so much more per owned property, and suddenly local residents are even harder hit by property not being available even for long-term rent anymore. Final drop being that the real estate owner doesn't even live, work or spend their money in the country of the property itself, and suddenly it's basically all downside for the country and the people living there.
shevy-java 4mo ago
It's not just business related though - Japan has gotten more hostile to foreigners. And no, it is not restricted only to chinese foreigners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGAmKqTWjxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGAmKqTWjxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXLOsYTfl7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXLOsYTfl7k (These two videos are quite recent at the time of writing this here.) Don't get fooled by the deliberate (but misleading) title(s). This is a narration of more and more restrictions coming. So the article here also taps into this 1:1. In some ways it reminds me of Nigel Farage in the UK, though in Japan it is not quite as tied to an individual person.
hirako2000 4mo ago
And how are they not managerial, entrepreneur, doing business ? Is there something illegitimate in doing an activity that yield profit when the national is Chinese ? Or when it's a short term let ? Or when it is something that doesn't directly contributed to innovation benefiting the nation ?
- embedding-shape 4mo ago
  I don't think it's "illegitimate" as such, just parasitic behaviour the world probably needs less of. They buy up real estate, then rent it out, living in another country, basically just extracting wealth, and while it's legal, it's still lazy and kind of despicable behaviour from a "we're all humans on this planet" perspective. From the perspective of Japanese people, you see foreigners coming to where you live and strictly making things worse, not better. But of course if we limit our perspective to an economic one, then it seems like a wise and sound approach to "escaping the hamster wheel" for the average Chinese person, easy money right? I think people in Japan probably don't have that perspective though, but instead look at the tail-effects of allowing that sort of behavior. That's why they changed the rules probably.
  - hirako2000 4mo ago
    I don't disagree with certain occupations being more parasitic than others, but most jobs can be deemed parasitic. In a fair market "lazy" jobs can't exist or someone else would do it at a better price. Short term let entrepreneurs are just doing arbitrage, because there is a need for it. What you see as making things worse for some which is true, is also making things better for many others. Fix the system, rather than cracking down on foreigners doing what you may then tolerate locals to do.
- bombcar 4mo ago
  It’s the difference between setting up a system to encourage investment and hoping for a factory, or at least a large department store, and instead getting a DataCenter that employs 30 people total.
- deleted 4mo ago
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timr 4mo ago
Yep. There was also a proliferation of Indian restaurants in the major cities, for the same basic reason. (Though I have to say that seems like a much harder road than operating a guesthouse for people from your own country, which is what I presume was the Chinese approach.) Since you can bring in relatives on this kind of visa, I’ve heard the expression “One curry pot equals three people”. There have been stories in the Japanese press about long-time restauranteurs being shut down by the new rules.
- rayiner 4mo ago
  > Since you can bring in relatives on this kind of visa, I’ve heard the expression “One curry pot equals three people”. Family reunification is a gaping loophole in any skilled immigration law and developed countries need to seriously limit it. The New York Times did a good podcast on how uncapped family reunification ended up being a loophole that totally overturned all the limits and compromises in the 1965 immigration reform laws in the U.S.: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/election-immigration.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi...
  - modo_mario 4mo ago
    Same in belgium. It's almost if not the biggest source of migration.
  - timr 4mo ago
    > Family reunification is a gaping loophole in any skilled immigration law and developed countries need to seriously limit it. I don’t know if I’d go that far. I tend to think it’s kind of cruel to separate families indefinitely in the name of labor, but I do see that restrictions are necessary to prevent abuse. There’s an entire spectrum of reasonable debate here.
    - rayiner 4mo ago
      It's not about "abuse." It's that family reunification undermines the filters that are at the heart of every immigration law. My dad came over from Bangladesh on an H1 and he's the guy you put on the brochure when you market skilled visa programs to voters. He's a public health expert who had a job in-hand in the U.S. And he moved his kids to a neighborhood without any other Bangladeshis and raised us without any foreign attachments or sympathies. Because that's the kind of person who self-selects into leaving everything behind to undertake an arduous immigration process. But none of those filters apply to family reunification. You don't need skills, you don't need a job. You're making much less of a sacrifice in terms of leaving your family behind, since by definition you already have family in the U.S. You can move into an enclave with people from your country and live your life and raise your kids the same way you were doing back home. You just enjoy the benefits of living in a richer country. The result of all that is you end up with this bizarre system where you apply intensive screening to select 65,000 H1Bs, 19,000 O-1s, etc. But then you hand out hundreds of thousands of greencards to people who meet no criteria other than having family who is already here.

Semaphor 4mo ago

Thought the name seems familiar: Jake Adelstein got his 2009 memoir Tokyo Vice turned into a (fun to watch, apparently very dramatized, though that was already criticized for the memoirs) 2 season HBO series in 2022.

rwmj 4mo ago
The book is far more interesting than the drama. In fact I'd go so far to say that the drama has really nothing much to do with the book besides the title and some superficial characters.
trashcan2137 4mo ago
The newspaper he apparently worked in stated that he was never part of the reporting teams for organized crime and had written only a very few articles about the yakuza during his time there. He got called out several times about his stories so I wouldn't be surprised if he's making stuff up again.
- Semaphor 4mo ago
  > He got called out several times Good point, WP [0] has some details, looks like pretty credible call outs. I did read about that when I watched the show, but proceeded to forget because I didn’t actually care that much ;) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Adelstein#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Adelstein#Career

ElProlactin 4mo ago

Many countries are tightening the immigration screws. For example, Thailand just reduced visa exempt stays for most countries from 60 to 30 days and have been going hard after illegal foreign businesses set up under Thai nominees. While there are usually political and economic factors that contribute to these decisions, I've been living overseas for almost two decades and have noticed that rampant abuse is now almost everywhere you look in any country that is interesting to foreigners. A few years ago, I was sitting at busy bar near the beach in Bali and a couple of guys were loudly discussing a scheme they used to get KITAS investor visas without actually putting up the required capital. This is just the beginning of this type of thing methinks.

bluealienpie 4mo ago
Fundamentally the issue is that visa requirements are restrictive creating concentrated demand for labor. There are countries with higher paying jobs that can done online, but every position doesn't just shift overseas. We put the onus on the individual to stop illegal activity, but it’s the business owners that hire and sustain this kind of employment. A high minimum wage would negate the need and desire for irregular migration. It would also provide good paying jobs for migrants who could afford to live in the country.
aurareturn 4mo ago
For Southeast Asia specifically, they've been battered by low quality, trashy tourists - more so after Covid. Locals are respectful but many tourists are entitled in SEA. You see plenty of videos on social media of tourists starting fights with locals, being disruptive in public areas, and generally doing something illegal. Recent example in Vietnam: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DY_-NcwDTaJ/ https://www.instagram.com/reels/DY_-NcwDTaJ/ A lot of trashy tourists are moving from Bali over to Vietnam. I few sorry for the locals. Yes, they'll make a few extra bucks a week from more tourists but at the cost of seeing your society get destroyed slowly. Dear Vietnam, please do not try to become the next Thailand and Bali for tourism. Do not welcome sex tourists, criminals, crypto bros, begpackers. Don't sell your soul for a few extra dollars.
eloisant 4mo ago
That's pretty crazy when you see that in developed countries, Japan in particular, population is aging and declining. Countries should be competing for the best immigrants, not closing their doors.

Shank 4mo ago

> In one case, investigators in Kanagawa Prefecture found that a Sri Lankan national had set up roughly 600 shell companies. He also allegedly submitted business manager visa applications for at least six Sri Lankan nationals by listing them as company presidents on paper, even though they actually worked manual labor jobs. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the government has a problem with this practice. The problem is trying to create a system of requirements that is both feasible to put on paper and also testable. When the issue was raised, the income requirements were changed as an immediate reaction, but the ISA has broad authority to grant or deny based on many circumstances. Put differently, acts like this were already illegal, but difficult for the ISA to catch. So they changed the base requirements which are theoretically much easier to catch than the actual illegal behavior.

RaSoJo 4mo ago
He also allegedly submitted business manager visa applications for at least six Sri Lankan nationals by listing them as company presidents on paper, even though they actually worked manual labor jobs. From Asterix & Cleopatra (1965): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSL0D_ZUAAAvbeM.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSL0D_ZUAAAvbeM.jpg Relevant as ever.
- alexpotato 4mo ago
  Loved Asterix as a kid and now realizing I should go back and re-read them to get the more adult themed jokes.
mmooss 4mo ago
> The problem is trying to create a system of requirements that is both feasible to put on paper and also testable. ... and fair, just, and respects freedom and other rights. Telling people one thing in 2015, giving them a decade to build a life in Japan, and then a decade later telling them they have to leave violates many of those things. Obviously the political subtext is contempt for fairness, justice, and human rights. It's not hard to see how destroying the foundations of freedom and prosperity will turn out; you can see it already in the impact on many people who are immigrants and others outside a certain power structure (conservative, racially dominant, wealthy) in many countries. Removing human rights is license to act with contempt for others. > In one case One case doesn't indicate a problem. I don't believe it's dependent on any problem: Is it coincidence that xenophobia is suddenly popular in all these countries around the world, simultaneously?

blueTiger33 4mo ago

[flagged]

nozzlegear 4mo ago
Violence?
- gacgacgac 4mo ago
  OP is just classically racist, equating immigration with violence.

tecleandor 4mo ago

> The police suspect around 1,000 people may be working in Japan illegally through these types of schemes. In a country with a population of 123 million, that's a non issue just for pleasing far right Nippon Kaigi friendly voters.

eunos 4mo ago
> Nippon Kaigi friendly voters *Sanseito. Nippon Kaigi friendly are mostly trad big corps. These days the anxiety came from everyday folks that are starting to consider Sanseito vs good ol' LDPJ. While not 100% the same, I do think that the last LDPJ huge victory reminds me of 2019 UK election, the last big hurrah for Conservative, before Reform starts seeping in.
- tecleandor 4mo ago
  Yeah well, I said Nippon Kaigi because the PM and a good bunch of the people around them are Nippon Kaigi, but yeah, Sanseito is having fun too.

DiscourseFan 4mo ago

It will become increasingly difficult to police international borders. On the other hand, commercial space travel will create new states that can police there borders. The borders don’t disappear but they will change

fred_is_fred 4mo ago
Commercial space travel to where? Where will these new borders be?

shevy-java 4mo ago

I was surprised when I first heard of that. I actually noticed this on Paolo from Tokyo's youtube channel first. The vibe was strange, because Paolo seemed happy about stricter controls. I was baffled about that, since it ran counter to the rest of Paolo's channel (which is actually best with regards to the series "A day in the life of a japanese xyz"; this is actually insightful and even historically important). So Japan sending the message "gaijin leave now" kind of would make me reconsider where to go - aka not Japan. If it is in Asia, well, there may now be friendlier countries. And the technological gap isn't that huge anymore; South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan - these are almost equal to Japan. Even some parts in mainland China (but who wants to live in sinomarxistic-capitalism - that's such a weird psycho combination). Even Thailand, while it is not on the same standard as the other countries, may seem friendlier now than Japan with his anti-foreigner's policies. It seems their true mindset has never really changed. That may also explain why the english language is still regarded as a hostile entity to many; contrast this to Singapore please.

modo_mario 4mo ago
Singapore is not a nation, singaporean not an ethnicity and even Lee Kuan Yew had serious doubts about what people they could integrate. They also don't allow this kind of 'get in on a business visa by pricing out locals with some airbnb's bullshit'.

cedws 4mo ago

As a Brit living in Japan (non-resident) I think they should protect themselves at all costs, lest what happened to my country happen to theirs. If the business visa was abused, that abuse should be stopped, not just allowed to happen like we would do.

croes 4mo ago
First > at all costs That’s with nearly 100% certainty always wrong at leads to disaster Second I doubt the new requirements will hinder shell companies that much. The honest people on the other hand will be screwed.
klausa 4mo ago
I'm sorry, you're simultaneously (somehow?) living here as a non-resident, and complaining about people _abusing the system_? That's pretty rich, gotta say!
- timr 4mo ago
  What’s rich about it? You can live in Japan as a non-resident and still be following 100% of the rules. I agree with the GP. It’s their country. They set the rules. If they want to change the rules because those rules aren’t working for them, that’s their prerogative. As a USian, I’m actually sort of jealous that they have the ability to make changes so quickly.
  - klausa 4mo ago
    >You can live in Japan as a non-resident and still be following 100% of the rules. Not for any reasonable definition of "live in", you can't.
    - timr 4mo ago
      Well, it depends a little on what OP meant by “resident” - often that gets used by expats to mean “permanent resident”, which is a pretty high bar. But even if you just assume that OP is here on the digital nomad visa thing, you’re effectively living here. More to the point, you’re following the rules, and it’s not at all ironic or contradictory to have an opinion that the rules can be changed by the host.

jingpostmedia 4mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 4mo ago

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rayiner 4mo ago

> Foreign business owners could lose their residency status after the government increased the capital requirement from 5 million yen (approx. $31,000) to 30 million yen (approx. $187,000).1 A $31,000 capital requirement for a "business" is a joke. A food cart--not a truck, just a cart--requires more capital than that.

deleted 4mo ago
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DrProtic 4mo ago
Agreed, 31k is a joke, never heard of such a low number for this type of thing ever. I’m surprised it was that low. Even 187k is very low compared to Europe, I’m pretty sure all European countries have it higher than that.

jonathanstrange 4mo ago

A dying country that doesn't want small business to continue, that's not something I had in my 2026 bingo card collection. Be that as it may, I would just close down the business and incorporate elsewhere. Let them sort out their population crisis on their own, I'm sure children will magically pop out of nowhere.

deleted 4mo ago

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gslepak 4mo ago

I applaud the Japanese for being capable of recognizing that many parts of their culture are unique and worth preserving. That what makes Japan Japan is not just the land and the name, but the people and their culture.

tecleandor 4mo ago
How asking for more money is protecting anything?
- gslepak 4mo ago
  They are not just asking for more money, from TFA they are imposting additional requirements like better Japanese fluency etc. In general they are raising the bar for who is allowed to live there, and all of that protects Japan.
  - tumult 4mo ago
    No, that's not required for this visa. The capital requirement is the major change. Also, foreign restaurant owners are already fluent in Japanese, because they deal with Japanese customers every day. The language requirement change is for other visa types. The rich people abusing this visa as second home have no trouble depositing a bit more money to meet the requirement. It only affects legitimate businesses that can't raise and float that kind of cash. It's performative punishment to appease the growing far-right sentiment. If they wanted to verify businesses were real, they can go there and foot and inspect. (They already have the right to do this, and all businesses that qualify for this visa must have a public office or commercial space with a clearly listed sign that can be accessed easily.) Also, they enacted the change and applied it retroactively to existing visa holders who were waiting to have their visa updated. So people are now being rejected on new rules that were announced and enacted after they had filed to update their visa (which you must do every 1-3 years.) Japan is not a theme park for foreign tourists to gawk at. It's a real place where people live and work.
    - gslepak 4mo ago

tumult 4mo ago

So sad to see the comments here from people who don't know any better cheering this on. They don't know what is actually happening. The rules change was applied retroactively to people who already had renewals filed (which you have to do frequently) but not yet approved, and are being rejected based on the rules change that was announced after having already filed. The new rules are being used as a way to visibly punish the (already very small, 3%) immigrant population in Japan to appease the growing number of people with far-right anti-immigration sentiment. There is a Japanese-led movement attempting to raise awareness of this issue, at least as far as it affects ethnic restaurants, which I suppose is the most visible effect of it to regular Japanese people: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260529/p2a/00m/0na/003000c https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260529/p2a/00m/0na/00... As they point out, the stated goal of this policy change was to clamp down on rich people from other countries buying a "second home" with a visa in Japan. But the policy change to increase the capital requirement does not stop this. It only affects legitimate business. Because the rich people just deposit more money and meet the requirement. As the people in the link above point out, if the government was actually serious about this, they could instead verify the businesses are real by going there. The people running small businesses, especially restaurants, cannot raise that kind of cash very quickly. And floating that amount of money in cash is just a bad idea. More: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16536637 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16536637 More: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16615301 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16615301 Example: https://www.ndtv.com/feature/japan-deportation-threat-leaves-indian-resident-in-tears-my-kids-only-speak-japanese-11503937 https://www.ndtv.com/feature/japan-deportation-threat-leaves... The people here cheering this on, saying "Japan should throw out more foreigners to preserve Japan" need to realize that Japan is not a theme park. It's a real place that people live and work. And this policy change doesn't even do what it claims to do.

kachilu-ai 4mo ago

I live in Japan, and this tracks with what I’ve seen over the past few years. There has been a noticeable increase in Chinese-run Airbnbs, especially in tourist areas. I’ve also heard of quite a few problems with some of these properties, such as operators not meeting licensing requirements or causing issues with nearby residents. Japan also has a relatively generous social security system, especially national health insurance, which makes medical costs extremely low compared with many other countries. So I can see why this kind of route would keep attracting people from overseas.