The JPY 30,000,000 is not frozen for the life of the company. Once the Certificate of Eligibility (COE) is issued, the capital becomes ordinary company funds and can pay the qualifying employee's salary, the office lease, and the business plan the applicant filed. The rule that actually bites is narrower: withdrawing capital before COE issuance is a documented rejection reason, and renewal is tested on business activity, not on the bank balance.
Does the JPY 30,000,000 Have to Stay in the Bank Account Forever?#
No single rule requires the full JPY 30,000,000 balance to remain untouched after the Management Visa (経営・管理) is approved. The figure functions as a gate the applicant has to clear once, at formation and at Certificate of Eligibility review, not as a permanent minimum the company's bank statement must show every month after.
The confusion is understandable because the capital threshold itself is a hard, non-negotiable number. The post-October 16, 2025 reform raised the paid-in capital requirement from JPY 5,000,000 to JPY 30,000,000, alongside a qualifying full-time employee requirement, a language proficiency standard, and a certified business plan. Details on the full entity and capital package are in the October 2025 Business Manager Visa reform guide. None of those sources describes a continuing minimum-balance covenant that survives approval.
What Happens If You Withdraw Capital Before the Visa Is Approved?#
Withdrawing capital before COE issuance is listed as a documented rejection reason, separate from and worse than simply underfunding the company. The examiner is not just checking that JPY 30,000,000 was deposited at some point; the examiner is checking that the deposit was genuine and still represents real capital devoted to the business at the point of decision.
This is why the sequence of events matters more than the amount. A company that deposits JPY 30,000,000, files for the COE, and then moves funds out to cover office rent or supplier invoices while the application is still pending creates the fact pattern examiners treat as evidence the capital was never real working capital, just a balance assembled to clear the threshold. Withdrawing capital before the COE is issued is treated as evidence the deposit was not genuine, regardless of what the money was spent on. Founders assembling the capital from abroad, and watching a yen-denominated threshold move against a foreign-currency pot, face a related risk covered in Can Yen Appreciation Push Your Japan Company Below the Management Visa Capital Threshold?: a currency move can push the deposited amount below the line even without a single withdrawal.
Founders who have not yet assembled the full JPY 30,000,000 sometimes ask whether they can file anyway and top up later. The answer sits closer to the Startup Visa bridge than to a partial filing; what happens when the capital cannot be raised in time is covered in What Happens If You Can't Raise JPY 30 Million Before Your Japan Startup Visa Expires?.
What Can the Capital Be Spent on After COE Issuance?#
Once the COE is issued and the visa is approved, the capital is ordinary company funds and can be spent on the running costs the business plan committed to. That includes the qualifying full-time employee's salary and social insurance contributions, the office lease, professional fees for the business plan certifier, and the operating costs the certified plan described as necessary to execute it.
This is the expected sequence. A single-founder SaaS subsidiary that capitalises at JPY 30,000,000, hires a Japanese or Permanent Resident salesperson, rents a dedicated office, and spends the capital on payroll and rent over its first year is doing what the business plan said it would do. The capital sitting idle after approval, with no payroll run and no office signed, would be a worse outcome at renewal than a lower balance backed by invoices and a payroll ledger.
What Does Immigration Check at the One-Year Renewal?#
Renewal tests whether the business operated. The examiner looks for tax filings, payroll records, social insurance contributions, and customer invoices showing the company transacted real business during the period.
A verification update dated September 2026 confirmed that renewal also tests fulfillment of public dues (公租公課の履行) across three specific obligations: labour insurance, social insurance, and tax. A company that spent down its capital on genuine salaries and rent, filed its taxes, and paid its social and labour insurance contributions on time has the kind of evidence renewal rewards. A company that spent the same money with no payroll, no revenue, and no filings to show for it fails renewal on operational grounds, independent of what the bank statement reads.
The legal basis for the capital figure itself is worth knowing precisely, because its wording is broader than "paid-in capital." The Ministerial Ordinance Prescribing the Criteria under Article 7 of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (出入国管理及び難民認定法第七条第一項第二号の基準を定める省令, commonly 基準省令), Item 2(ro), sets the test as the total amount of property devoted to the business, including the amount of stated capital and total capital contributions, being at least JPY 30,000,000. Practitioner practice reads this as the capital figure for advisory purposes, which is the reading that should govern how a founder plans around it, but the wider statutory wording is a separate reason the balance is not meant to be a frozen, static number watched line by line.
Processing time is a practical reason to plan the spending timeline carefully rather than treat the capital as locked until some fixed date. The published standard processing time for the initial Certificate of Eligibility application remains one to three months, but the Immigration Services Agency's own monthly statistics recorded an average of 114.5 days to COE issuance for approvals in October 2025, and the trend has been lengthening. A founder budgeting the qualifying employee's salary and the office lease against this waiting period should plan around the observed range.
Three stages carry different rules, and keeping them separate avoids the most common mistake founders make with the capital.
(a) Before COE issuance, the capital must be verifiably deposited and not withdrawn; pulling funds out at this stage is treated as a documented rejection reason regardless of the purpose. (b) After COE issuance and visa approval, the capital is ordinary company funds and spending it on the qualifying employee's salary, office lease, and business-plan execution is normal and expected. (c) At the one-year renewal, the examiner tests operational evidence, tax filings, payroll, social insurance, customer invoices, and fulfillment of public dues across labour insurance, social insurance and tax; no rule requires the JPY 30,000,000 balance itself to still be sitting in the account.
Frequently Asked Questions#
Can I pay myself a salary from the JPY 30,000,000 once the visa is approved?
Yes, once the COE is issued and the visa is in effect, the capital is ordinary company funds and can fund legitimate compensation consistent with the certified business plan. The compensation should match what the plan described and be run through normal payroll and social insurance channels, since that same record is what renewal later checks.
Does the JPY 30,000,000 have to still be in the account at the one-year renewal?
No rule in the current framework requires the balance itself to remain. Renewal is tested on operational evidence: tax filings, payroll records, social insurance contributions, customer invoices, and fulfillment of public dues across labour insurance, social insurance and tax.
Is it safe to use some of the capital for office setup costs before the COE is issued?
No, this is the one window where spending the capital creates real risk. Capital withdrawn before COE issuance is a documented rejection reason because the examiner is testing whether the deposit was genuine at the point of decision, and moving money out beforehand, for any purpose, undermines that evidence. Office setup and other pre-approval costs should be funded separately from the capital pool, with the sequence confirmed before any funds move.
Aplash coordinates the entity formation, the capital payment routing, and the visa filing as one engagement rather than three separate workstreams, which is where this sequencing question is usually caught before it becomes a rejection. More on how that coordination works is on the immigration services page.
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: October 2026.