Ａ.　See the investment from capital there are 2 types, ”A: establish by only yourself” ”B: joint stock and management”  in the case A 3types「representative office」「branch office」「subsidiary（Japanese company）」 it needs to consider from the view point of your business purpose and business scale.

Types of form

	Representative office	Branch office		Subsidiary
				Kabushiki Kaisha Limited company	Godo Gaisha LLC
Sales promotion	Disapproved	Approved
Decision	Your country			Japan
Registration	Unnecessary	Necessary
Cost to establish	–	①registration：100thousand yen ②stamp： 50 ③agency fee：440	①：250 ②： 50 ③：490		①：100 ②： 50 ③：440
Capital	unnecessary		1yen or more
Number of investors	－		1 person or more
Listing on the stock market	－		approved			Disapproved
Taxation for Profit	－	Basically taxable to the income in Japan	All income (Japan and out of Japan) and investors dividend			All income (Japan and out of Japan) and investors dividend
Merit	Unnecessary registration	Easy procedure and low cost	Relatively trustworthy			Widely free handed in management
Demerit	Restricted for business	Looked like unreliable compare to corporation(financing）	Relatively need complicated procedures and cost			Compare to limited company not well known and unapproved stock listed

＊By Investment Guidebook of JETRO etc. (Shizuoka prefecture)

Characteristic

（１）Representative office

• It is the office for supplementary action to promote business of foreign company by public relations and prepare for full-scale business in the future.
• It approved market research, collecting information, purchasing equipment and public relations, but prohibited to direct sales.
• It is unnecessary to report to public agency, if it has no permanent equipment in japan nontaxable for profit of corporation.

（It needs report to the financial service agency, if the business is financial like bank or insurance ）.

• Due to impossible to register, it is impossible to get bank account and act like corporation.

（２）Branch office

• It needs to establish branch office or subsidiary to do sales promotion or continuous business in Japan. Relatively it’s easier to establish branch office.
• It is possible to start business after register decide the address of the base and have representative. Differ to representative office branch office is taxed but it is possible to open bank account.
• It is a part of foreign company, fiscal year has to be same as the parent company, and the parent company has to be responsible to the branch office’s debt and credit by the branch office’s action.

（３）Subsidiary（Japanese corporation）

• It has corporate rights in Japan and has to form a member of the board of directors to start business.
• There are two types of subsidiary responsibility is limited are Kabushiki Gaisha(limited company)and Godo Gaisha(LLC).（in Japan there are another types of companies Gomei Gaisha, Goshi Gaish, but those types require non-limited responsibility. So it is very rare to establish these types.）。
• The investors of Kabushiki geisha and Godo Gaisha have limited responsibility, in the invested amount, but in Godo Gaisha’s establishment it has merit needs cheaper cost freely management, but in japan Godo Gaisha is looked like is not well known and difficult to gather large amount of investment etc.