Once a complete document pack is ready, recording an Attorney for Customs Procedures (ACP, 税関事務管理人) appointment with Japan Customs typically takes 1 to 2 weeks. That covers document-pack review, a pre-filing consultation, the notification filing itself, and Customs recording it. It excludes eligibility confirmation and contracting, which run on the client's own document turnaround.
What Is an ACP Appointment and Why Does the Timeline Matter?
An ACP appointment is the mechanism that lets a non-resident company name itself as importer of record (IOR) on its own Japan customs declarations, using a Japan-resident agent to handle customs procedures on its behalf. The timeline matters because the appointment must be on record before any import declaration (輸入申告) is filed. A buyer planning a launch date needs to know how much runway to build in before the first shipment can move.
Under Customs Act Article 95 (関税法第95条), a non-resident principal appoints a Japan-resident Attorney for Customs Procedures to act as the statutory contact point before Japan Customs. The non-resident remains the named importer on every declaration; the ACP does not take title to the goods and does not become the importer itself. That structural distinction is why the appointment is filed as a notification rather than a service agreement, and why the timeline discussion below is separate from any commercial contracting the client and provider agree between themselves.
Is the ACP Appointment an Approval or Just a Notification?
It is a notification (届出), not an approval or licence (承認・許可). Japan Customs records the filing; it does not review and grant it the way a licence application would.
The appointment is filed on Customs Form C No. 7500 (税関事務管理人届出書), submitted in two copies: an original and a 交付用 copy that Customs stamps and returns to the filer as proof of record. Because it is a notification rather than a licensing decision, Japan Customs publishes no fixed statutory processing period for it. Any timeline quoted for how long recording takes is an operating estimate built from practice, not a legal deadline, and should always be presented as a range rather than a guaranteed date.
What Has to Happen Before the Appointment Can Be Filed?
Three things have to be confirmed and assembled first: eligibility, a signed engagement, and a complete document pack. Skipping any of them is what turns a routine filing into a delayed one.
The eligibility gate under Customs Act Article 95 is strict: the non-resident principal must have no address, residence, or office in Japan. This has to be confirmed before any engagement begins, because if the company already has a Japan presence, the ACP structure is not available at all and the conversation moves to a different structure such as an IOR arrangement instead. Once eligibility is confirmed, the standard sequence runs through a service engagement agreement, a setup fee, then assembly of the document pack: corporate documents of the non-resident principal, the signed appointment instrument, and the intended port or ports of entry.
The appointment cannot be filed retroactively. The complete pack, including the signed instrument, has to be ready before any import declaration is even contemplated, which is why providers push document collection to the front of the process rather than letting it run in parallel with early shipments. Many providers also run a pre-consultation (事前相談) with the intended Customs office to confirm the office of filing and the exact form set before submitting; this step is standard operating practice at the provider level, not a statutory requirement, but it is what catches office-specific requirements before they cause a rejected filing.
Key points:
(a) The 1-to-2-week estimate covers document-pack-through-recording only; eligibility confirmation and contracting sit ahead of that window and move at the client's own pace. (b) One appointment filing is required per Customs office; a company planning to use more than one port of entry needs a separate 届出 filing at each additional office. (c) The appointment being recorded is not the same as any individual shipment clearing; each shipment still goes through its own import declaration filed by a licensed customs specialist (通関士), with the client named as importer of record.
Does Recording the Appointment Mean Shipments Can Clear Immediately?
No. Appointment recording and shipment clearance are two separate tracks with separate timelines. Once the appointment is on record, the ACP becomes the statutory contact point for Customs correspondence, but each shipment still runs through its own import declaration process at the relevant Customs office. That per-shipment clearance work sits on a different clock, and questions of who bears responsibility if a declaration is filed incorrectly are addressed separately once shipments are actually moving (see who is liable if a Japan customs declaration is wrong under ACP).
A company that already has an appointment on record with one provider and is switching to another faces a related but distinct question: whether the existing appointment carries over or needs to be re-filed. That continuity question is covered in the Japan ACP provider transition guide, and it is worth reading before assuming a provider switch resets the clock back to zero.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the ACP appointment be expedited if we need to ship sooner?
The 1-to-2-week range describes the document-pack-through-recording steps under normal turnaround; it is not a statutory floor that a fee can override, since Japan Customs sets no published processing period for this notification. The fastest way to compress the timeline is to have the eligibility confirmation, signed engagement, and complete document pack (corporate documents, signed appointment instrument, intended ports) ready before requesting a filing date, since those upstream steps are what typically add delay rather than the filing itself.
What happens if we later add a second port of entry?
A separate 税関事務管理人届出書 filing is required for each additional Customs office, since one appointment covers one office. Plan the intended port mix into the initial document pack where possible; adding a port later means running the notification process again for that office specifically.
Does having the ACP appointment recorded mean our first shipment is approved?
No. The appointment being recorded only establishes that a Japan-resident agent is on file with Customs for the non-resident importer; it has no bearing on any individual shipment. Each shipment still requires its own import declaration (輸入申告), filed by a licensed customs specialist with the non-resident named as importer of record, and that per-shipment clearance runs on its own separate timeline. For a comparison of how this timeline lines up against setting up an IOR structure, see the related post on IOR setup timing; for the appointment process itself, see the ACP service page.
Conclusion
The ACP appointment timeline has two distinct phases: an eligibility-and-contracting phase that depends entirely on how quickly the client turns around its own documents, and a document-pack-to-recording phase that typically runs 1 to 2 weeks once everything is complete. Treat both phases as separate planning inputs, and treat the appointment being recorded as the start of shipment-level customs work, not the end of the process.
This article is informational only and does not constitute legal, tax, or regulatory advice. Consult a qualified advisor before acting on the content. Last updated: August 2026.