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Business data in Japan. Where the records live.
Japan is home to more than four million companies, each assigned a 13-digit Corporate Number that the National Tax Agency publishes as open data, a deep, overwhelmingly Japanese-language SME base sitting behind the country's famous manufacturers.
What Atlas holds for Japan
Source: the Atlas database, updated automatically.
The official records
The legal source of truth for Japan is NTA Corporate Number.
Two public systems anchor Japanese company data. The National Tax Agency issues a 13-digit Corporate Number (法人番号, hōjin bangō) to every legal entity and publishes the trade name, registered address, entity type and status free of charge at houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp; the system holds over five million records. This sits alongside the older commercial registry kept by the Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局), which records the detailed company ledger and a separate registration number. Together they make Japan one of the more completely registered markets in Asia.
Yet the data is almost entirely in Japanese, with company names written in kanji and addresses in the Japanese postal format.
How to use the register
- Start from the register, not from a bought list. It is the legal record of every company.
- Read the status field. Registers keep closed companies too. See how many have closed in other registers.
- Check the website belongs to the company, with the registration number or a distinguishing name on the page.
Sources
Descriptions are based on the national sources above. Figures in the text are rounded and change over time. Found an error? Write to atlasforgex@proton.me. More countries: business data by country and registers by country.