Business Manager Visa Capital Requirement Raised to ¥30 Million — Nepali Curry Shop Owners Face Closure

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The story

Japan’s Immigration Services Agency has raised the capital requirement for the “Business Manager” visa — the residency status foreigners use to start and run companies in Japan — to a new threshold of ¥30 million. Yahoo! News reports that this is hitting cash-strapped sole proprietors hard, including a Nepali restaurateur who has run a curry shop in Tokyo for about nine years and now faces closure because he can’t meet the new requirement; industry watchers predict that as much as 90% of Nepali- and Indian-run curry shops could disappear by 2028. The report sparked a thread on 5ch where some welcomed the tougher rules, while others questioned whether the change actually accomplishes anything, since Chinese-funded companies — which can easily raise ¥30 million — would simply “slip through” the net and be the ones left standing.

● The “¥30 million wall” could wipe out authentic curry

“With the visa requirements getting stricter, I think 90% of the restaurants run by Nepali and Indian people will be gone by 2028. The places where you can get authentic curry for around ¥1,000 will probably disappear.”

Speaking with a note of regret is Mr. Bista (pseudonym, 35), who hails from Nepal and has run a curry restaurant in Tokyo for about nine years. He now finds himself up against the new “¥30 million in capital” requirement for the “Business Manager” residency status.

Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here

What people said

4AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:21
I mean, CoCo Ichi (a mainstream curry chain) is fine by me
133AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:52
Re: #4
It's just retort-pouch curry and frozen fried food though.
25AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:27
I'd think it'd be way easier to work back in their home country, so why stay in Japan?
34AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:28
Re: #25
Well, the average annual income in Nepal is only about ¥500,000.
46AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:30
Re: #25
Because Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world.
45AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:30
The old 'shell company' trick is getting shut down too, serves them right.

They're just trying to become a normal country, yet somehow people still complain.
61AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:33
I'd also like them to require a Japanese joint guarantor.
65AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:34
Re: #61
That'd be the quickest fix. Make them sign a continuing guarantee, and if anything goes wrong, put full responsibility on that Japanese guarantor and their relatives.
81AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:39
Curry shops are supposedly a hotbed for illegal entry, right?
The reason staff keep changing all the time is apparently because new arrivals keep coming in one after another and
get sold off as cheap labor, or something like that.
88AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:41
Re: #81
Actually, that 'being sold' part isn't that common.
Once someone who came over as staff saves up a bit of money, they open their own shop and switch to the side collecting fees for bringing in the next Nepali worker.
101AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:45
So there was a loophole to slip through.

They need to close that and get things back to normal.
121AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:49
Re: #101
Regulating foreigners' condo purchases has been shelved for now…

Government, LDP hold off on restricting foreign condo purchases, prioritize fact-finding first

https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUA030Z70T00C26A6000000/
115AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:48
A Chinese business owner I dealt with recently on a work matter brought this up and just casually said, '¥30 million? No problem, I can easily come up with that.'
120AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:49
Re: #115
Those guys are raking it in, I mean that's just normal for them.
126AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:51
Tightening the business manager visa does have some effect, but raising the visa renewal fee is completely pointless.

Companies end up covering part of the fee hike.

Then they use that as an excuse to ask the government for subsidies.

So it accomplishes nothing at all.
173AnonymousSep 11, 2026 15:04
Re: #126
They just brought it in line with other countries. That's literally all it is.
145AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:56
The era when they handed out business manager visas to foreigners who couldn't even scrape together ¥30 million — that's the part that was crazy.
156AnonymousSep 11, 2026 14:58
Re: #145
Then go raise ¥30 million and go throw it in the Shinano River.
You can't even manage ¥30 million, can you? lol
184AnonymousSep 11, 2026 15:05
Personal remittances flowing overseas from immigrants in Japan have topped ¥1 trillion.

This flow of remittances is also one factor behind the current 'weak yen.'
192AnonymousSep 11, 2026 15:08
Re: #184
If some kind of separate foreigner economic zone forms, that'd be unbearable. All the Japanese would end up poor (´・ω・`)
187AnonymousSep 11, 2026 15:06
Foreign owner, foreign staff,
and most of the customers are foreign too.
Japan doesn't need restaurants like that.
203AnonymousSep 11, 2026 15:11
Re: #187
At least this weeds out Chinese people without money.
As for the rest, they can look at how the foreign companies that survive with ¥30 million in capital actually behave, and if it's bad, just amend the law again.
191AnonymousSep 11, 2026 15:07
No wait, Chinese people are in trouble too — the Chinese government is cracking down hard, so it won't be so easy for them to come to Japan anymore.
207AnonymousSep 11, 2026 15:11
Re: #191
If you stir things up like 'Japan's such a great country that all the Chinese will flee here and China will collapse,'
China will probably just crack down even harder lol
201AnonymousSep 11, 2026 15:10
Takaichi is living out the whole 'money is everything' philosophy for real. Japanese people without money don't get a second glance either, so of course foreigners without money won't be taken seriously.
205AnonymousSep 11, 2026 15:11
Rich Chinese people at least aren't going to turn to robbery, so that's fine, isn't it.
216AnonymousSep 11, 2026 15:13
Re: #205
People with money can be far worse.
No thanks to anyone with no respect for the law.

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

The “Business Manager” residency status allows foreigners to start companies in Japan and stay on as their operators, and it has long been criticized for being abused via shell companies with little real substance. The new ¥30 million capital requirement appears aimed at weeding out those hollow shell-company setups, but opinion on 5ch was split. Many users questioned whether the rule would actually work, arguing that it singles out cash-poor operators — like the Nepali and Indian curry shop owners running budget ¥1,000-range restaurants — while well-funded Chinese-backed companies can clear the new bar with ease. Some also claimed that remittances foreign workers send home are contributing to the weak yen, or raised concerns about friction between foreign communities and local residents, but these were speculation within the thread, not facts confirmed by the original article.

※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Newsplus) thread “Visa Crackdown Leaves Foreigners Saying ‘Japan’s Hopeless Now’… The Absurdity of Honest Foreigners Getting Pushed Out While Chinese Capital Slips Through.”

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