Requirement of Business Manager Visa in Japan

The business scale requirement for Business Management visa is one of the following. In such, what exactly does “equivalent in scale” mean?

(a) The business must be operated by two or more full-time employees residing in Japan other than those engaged in the management or administration of the business.
(b) The amount of capital or the total amount of capital contribution is at least 5 million yen.
(c) The business must be recognized as being on a scale equivalent to the above.

In order to qualify as “equivalent in scale,” the scale of the business must be such that it can be regarded as substantially equivalent to (a) or (b). For example, the scale equivalent to (a) is the scale of a business that currently employs only one full-time employee, but will be operated by investing approximately 2.5 million yen labor cost to employ another full-time employee.

For example, the scale equivalent to (b) is the scale of the business operated by a foreigner who intends to start a business in the form of a sole proprietorship with an investment of 5 million yen or more. In this case, 5 million yen investment is the total amount invested as necessary to operate the business, such as the cost of securing a business office, hiring staff salaries, and purchasing office equipments, but not a simple deposit of 5 million yen kept in the bank account.