KK or GK: Which Japanese Company Should You Actually Register
Kabushiki Kaisha or Godo Kaisha. The real differences in cost, credibility and control, and why the cheaper one is right more often than foreigners are told.
You have two realistic choices when incorporating in Japan, and the advice you get depends heavily on who profits from the answer.
Kabushiki Kaisha (株式会社), KK. The joint-stock company. The default, the prestigious one, the one every large Japanese company is.
Godo Kaisha (合同会社), GK. The LLC-equivalent, introduced in 2006. Cheaper, simpler, and quietly what a lot of serious foreign operations use, including the Japanese entities of some very large American technology companies.
What actually differs
| KK | GK | |
|---|---|---|
| Registration tax | Higher, with a statutory minimum around 150,000 yen | Lower, minimum around 60,000 yen |
| Articles of incorporation | Must be notarised, adding cost | No notarisation required |
| Typical all-in setup cost | Roughly 240,000 yen and up | Roughly 100,000 yen and up |
| Ownership and management | Shareholders separate from directors | Members generally manage directly |
| Director terms | Fixed terms requiring periodic re-registration | No equivalent renewal burden |
| Public financial statements | Legally required to publish | Not required |
| Raising outside investment | Straightforward, shares | Awkward; usually convert to KK first |
| Perceived status | High | Lower, though this is fading |
Treat those figures as the shape of the difference rather than a quote. Fees and the incidental costs around them move, and the total depends on whether you use a professional.
The credibility question, honestly
You will be told that Japanese companies will not take a GK seriously. There is something to this and it is overstated.
Where it can genuinely matter: large traditional corporates, certain financial institutions, some landlords, and old-line industries where the company registry is read closely. If your business depends on selling to the top of the Nikkei, the KK is worth the extra cost as a signal.
Where it does not matter at all: technology, digital services, design and consulting, anything selling to startups or to foreign companies, and anything selling to consumers. Nobody buying software checks your incorporation type. Amazon, Google and Apple all run Godo Kaisha entities in Japan, which makes the "GK looks small" argument hard to sustain with a straight face.
The costs nobody mentions upfront
Registration is the small number. The recurring ones are what matter:
- Corporate resident tax is payable even in a loss-making year. Budget roughly 70,000 yen a year at minimum, more in larger municipalities and at higher capital levels.
- Accounting. A tax accountant (税理士) is close to unavoidable and typically runs into the low hundreds of thousands of yen per year.
- Social insurance. A company with employees, including a paid director, must enrol. Employer contributions are meaningful, roughly fifteen percent of salary. People underestimate this consistently.
The bit that connects to your visa
If you are incorporating in order to hold Business Manager status, the company type is the smaller decision. The 2025 rule change raised the capital requirement to thirty million yen and added a staffing condition, and neither of those cares whether you are a KK or a GK.
So do not agonise over the letters. Agonise over the capital, the office and the employee, because those are what the application actually turns on.
One structural note that does matter: your capital figure is public and permanent-looking on the registry, and it interacts with tax thresholds. Registering with capital above certain levels changes your consumption tax position and your resident tax band. This is worth twenty minutes with an accountant before you file, not after.
What I would tell a friend
Start as a GK unless you have a specific reason not to. The specific reasons are: you are raising equity soon, or you are selling into an industry where the registry is genuinely read.
Converting GK to KK later is possible. Spending an extra 150,000 yen at the start to buy prestige you may never need, while you are also trying to fund thirty million yen of capital, is the wrong place to put the money.