Japanese Version

　Hiring companies and institutions of world talents in Japan are classified into four categories, depending on their size: a large company is classified as Category 1, a medium as Category 2, a small as Category 3 and a start-up company less than one year old as Category 4.

　Category 1 or 2 company has to submit a fewer number of work permit application documents than Category 3 or 4 company. As in the previous blog post, only a few types of documents are required by the former to be submitted for the resident status of “Engineer, Specialist in Humanities and International Services”, reduced from seven types of documents to be submitted by the latter, for example.

　Effective from January 2020, requirement has been relaxed for a hiring company to be classified as Category 2. More precisely as in the following, the old threshold of “JPY 15 million or more” is lowered to “JPY 10 million or more” in the new. This means that more companies are classified as Category 2 and thus can enjoy the benefit of less application documents to be submitted.

• Old requirement until Dec 2019: An institution or an individual whose total amount of income withholding tax of the previous fiscal year is JPY 15 million or more.
• New requirement since Jan 2020: An institution or an individual whose total amount of income withholding tax of the previous fiscal year is JPY 10 million or more.

Reference: MOJ web page on category requirements for “Engineer, Specialist in Humanities and International Services” (Japanese)