Japan publishes less about its companies than any other G7 economy, and it does so on purpose. The free layer, run by the tax authority, gives you three facts: the legal name, the head office address and a 13-digit corporate number. Everything else about the company - the directors, the capital, what it is actually in business to do - sits in the commercial register and costs a few hundred yen per company. The owners are in neither place. Here is what each source holds, in the order you would use them.
Every entity that comes into existence by registration in Japan is given a 13-digit corporate number, and the tax authority publishes a record for each one. The site is the Corporate Number Publication Site, run by the National Tax Agency at houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp. It is free, it needs no account, and it has an English interface.
You can search three ways: by the 13-digit number if you already have it, by name, or by address and prefecture. What comes back is three fields - the corporate number, the name, and the address of the head office - plus the history of any name or address change filed since the number was assigned. The same site publishes the full file and a daily change file in CSV and XML, free, which is how accounting systems keep their supplier lists in step.
Use it to settle identity and nothing else. It gives you the legal name exactly as registered, which is the name every later step needs, including the list check. It will not tell you what the company does, how big it is, or who runs it.
The register itself is kept by the Legal Affairs Bureau (homukyoku) under the Ministry of Justice, and it is kept in Japanese. There are two ways in. The Registration Information Service (toki joho teikyo sabisu) lets you view the current record on screen or as a PDF for about JPY 334 per company. That is a view, not a certificate: no seal, no certification, and it is the level most buyers stop at.
If you need a document rather than a screen, you order a certificate of registered matters (toki jiko shomeisho). The national fee runs about JPY 490 when you request it online and collect it at the counter, about JPY 520 when you request online and have it posted, and about JPY 600 on paper. Anyone can request one. You do not have to be the company or a shareholder.
For a kabushiki kaisha, the ordinary stock company, the register records the legal name and the 12-digit registration number, the head office address, the date of incorporation, the capital, the business purpose, the directors and the representative director with their appointment dates, any statutory auditors, the number and classes of shares the company is authorised to issue, and any branch, merger or dissolution on the record. That is the substance of a Japanese check: who is formally on the hook for the company, and how much capital sits behind it.
One caution before you lean on the business purpose. It is drafted by the company's own scrivener and is usually broad, listing dozens of activities. A purpose that names your product means the company may legally sell it, not that it does.
Neither source shows who owns the shares of a kabushiki kaisha. The shareholder register (kabunushi meibo) is kept at the company, not filed with the state, so the commercial register can name every director and the authorised share classes and still say nothing about who holds them.
There are two exceptions worth knowing. The partnership forms - godo kaisha (GK), gomei kaisha and goshi kaisha - are registered differently: their members are registered matters, so for a GK you do see the members' names and addresses on the register. And listed companies disclose their large holders through EDINET, the Financial Services Agency's free filing system, where anyone above 5% has to file.
Japan has no public beneficial ownership register. Since 31 January 2022 there has been a voluntary system: a company may submit a list of its beneficial owners to the Legal Affairs Bureau, the registrar checks and retains it, and the company can obtain a certified copy - but the list is not open to the public, and it exists mainly so a company can hand it to a bank. The threshold there is two-tier, with a holder above 50% treated as the sole owner on the list, which is exactly how a holder sitting at 25% stays off it.
That may be about to change. On 2 October 2026 the Japan Times reported that the government intends to require corporations to report their beneficial owners - names, addresses, dates of birth and nationalities - to the Legal Affairs Bureau at the time the company is established. The duty would cover domestic corporations with their head office in Japan apart from listed companies, plus certain foreign corporations that keep an office, hold real estate or trade continuously in Japan. Ownership is defined as more than 25% of the voting rights, the details would go into a register that government agencies and financial institutions can reach, and non-compliance would attract a penalty after a written notice. The bill was to go to the extraordinary session of the Diet that opened on 5 October 2026, and the FATF review of Japan falls around the summer of 2028. Until that law passes and its register goes live, the answer today is still nothing public.
The order that works. Take the exact legal name from the free corporate number site. If the name or the address has changed, read the change history so you are matching the right entity. Pull the register record or the certificate to see the directors, the capital and the purpose. If the form is a GK, read the members while you are in there. Then run the sanctions and export-control lists against the registered legal name, in Japanese as well as in the romanised form, because transliteration is where matches get lost.
Then compare the bank details to the registered name. A register can only tell you who is on record at the Legal Affairs Bureau. It cannot tell you whether the account on the invoice belongs to that entity, and that is the check that decides whether the money reaches your supplier or somewhere else.
| Source | Who runs it | What it gives you | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate Number Publication Site | National Tax Agency | Legal name, head office address, 13-digit corporate number, and the history of name and address changes | Free, no account |
| Commercial register (toki) | Legal Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Justice | Incorporation date, capital, business purpose, directors and representative director, auditors, share classes, head office, branches, mergers and dissolution | About JPY 334 to view, about JPY 490 to 600 for a certificate |
| EDINET | Financial Services Agency | Annual securities reports and large-shareholding filings, listed companies only | Free, no account |
None of the three is a beneficial ownership register, and none of them shows the shareholders of a stock company. Read the row before you assume a source will answer the question you actually have.
There are two, and they answer different questions. The Corporate Number Publication Site, run by the National Tax Agency, is free and gives the legal name, head office address and 13-digit corporate number for every entity created by registration. The commercial register at the Legal Affairs Bureau holds the substance - directors, capital, business purpose - and costs a few hundred yen per company. Neither one shows the shareholders of a stock company.
For a kabushiki kaisha, no. The shareholder register stays at the company, so the commercial register lists the directors and the authorised share classes but not the people holding them. For a godo kaisha (GK) and the other partnership forms the members are registered matters, so those you do see, with names and addresses. Japan has no public beneficial ownership register as of October 2026.
The commercial register is kept in Japanese, and even a foreign company's own name appears there in katakana. The free corporate number site has an English interface, but it publishes an English name or address only where the company registered one. Match the romanised name you were given against the registered Japanese name before you draw a conclusion.
No. It confirms the entity exists, what it is registered as, and who is on record as running it. It says nothing about who controls it or whether the bank account belongs to that entity. Run the sanctions and export-control check separately and compare the payment details to the registered name.