social insurance– tag –

JETRO publishes an actual cost model for setting up in Japan: incorporation, capital, visas, office, housing — and one line for hiring a single manager that costs more than incorporating the company. This article works through JETRO's own numbers to show why the entity is the one-time cost and the people are the recurring one.

Every comparison of Japan's three entry forms is built from the same seven columns: cost, timeline, governance, liability, tax, banking, visas. None of them has a column for the people you are going to hire. That column is the one that changes what the choice actually costs, because a representative office is treated as a sole proprietorship for health and pension insurance while a branch is treated as a corporation.