Representative Office vs Branch vs Subsidiary in Japan: The Comparison From the Hiring Side
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.
