Paying for it

First, which one are you?

Staying overseas No Japanese bank will lend to a new company whose director lives abroad. Your money comes from you, plus whatever the seller will carry. Read the next two boxes and skip the loan.

Moving to Japan On a visa that lets you run a business (spouse, permanent resident, Business Manager, Highly Skilled), the government loan and the subsidy both open up. Read all of it.

Already resident Same as moving, with one head start: a Japanese bank history. That is the single thing lenders weigh most.

1. Seller financing. Works from anywhere.

The owner takes part of the price in instalments after closing, usually over 2 to 3 years. No bank, no residency test, no paperwork beyond the sale contract.

• Owners with no successor care that the business survives. Many will listen. Owners who need cash now will not.
• Set it out properly: deposit at closing, number and timing of payments, interest or none, what happens if payments stop.
• It can sit alongside an earn-out, where part of the price depends on next year's results.
• One question changes who can buy: "would the owner consider part of the price paid over 2 to 3 years". It is in every Japan Deal Flow deal pack. Want one listing checked properly? A Listing Check is A$150, 48 hours, the hidden figures and the guarantee question answered: pay here. A full Deal Pack is A$600, five business days: pay here. Either way, reply to the receipt with the listing number.

2. The government subsidy. Residents with a company.

Japan's Business Succession and M&A Subsidy pays two-thirds of what you spend on experts when buying a business: broker or adviser fees, due diligence by an accountant or lawyer, listing-site fees. Up to ¥6M, plus ¥2M more if you do due diligence. About 6 in 10 applications get through.

Round 16 is open now and closes 6 November 2026, 5pm Japan time. New rounds open a few times a year.

The catches, and they matter:

• The applicant must be a Japanese company or a sole trader registered in Japan. A person overseas with no entity cannot apply.
• Broker or adviser fees only count if the firm is on the government's registered list. Batonz and TRANBI are. Japan Deal Flow is not, so my fees never qualify. A registered accountant or law firm doing due diligence does.
• It is paid after the work is done, on receipts. You front the money.
• Nothing signed before the grant decision counts. Sign the broker contract early and you lose it.
• If the deal does not close inside the subsidy period, the cap drops to ¥3M and only due diligence counts.
• You need a government business ID (GビズID), which takes 2 to 3 weeks and needs a Japanese address.

3. The government loan. Residents only.

Japan Finance Corporation, the state lender, has succession loans for exactly this. The small-business arm lends up to ¥72M at roughly 3 to 5.7 percent, up to 20 years on equipment and 7 on working capital. The SME arm lends up to ¥1.44B at about 3 percent, capped, ten years with a grace period, for share purchases. Rates rose in 2025 and 2026; the 1 to 2 percent you may have read elsewhere is gone. Approvals for first-time buyers are often far below the cap. JFC can lend without the owner's personal guarantee, which is the thing that scares most buyers off, but ask, because the bank that already lends to the company usually wants the new owner's name on the existing one.

• You need a visa that allows running a business, and the repayment has to fit inside your visa period. Spouse and permanent resident visas get the easiest run.
• Expect to show about a quarter to a third of the loan in your own savings, with bank statements showing where it came from. Money borrowed for the day gets found and rejected.
• Three or more years in the same industry helps a lot. A business plan and an interview in Japanese. An interpreter is sometimes allowed.
• Batonz, one of the two big listing sites, has a built-in JFC loan desk that opens after your first meeting with the seller.
• Tokyo also runs its own loan for foreign founders, up to ¥15M, residents only.

4. Free help that most buyers never use

• Every prefecture has a public succession support centre. Free advice, no nationality rule, and a "successor bank" that matches would-be owners with businesses that never reach a listing site.
• If you buy the shares of a company, its existing bank relationship comes with it. If you buy only the business, you start from zero. The deal cards say which.
• Ask about the owner's personal guarantee on any bank loans and whether the lender will release it. Settle that in the contract, not after.

5. Someone in Japan to carry the deal. Retainer first.

The listing sites introduce. They do not negotiate for you, and neither does Japan Deal Flow. If you are overseas and want a person in Tokyo to carry the negotiation, the company setup and the visa side, I introduce Masaki Tanzawa of Global Trans Associate: an independent business setup and visa coordinator, with visa filings done by Sone Ayumi Administrative Scrivener Office.

• ¥300,000 retainer to start, then a quote on the scope of the project. The retainer counts toward the final fee. Expenses are billed separately. Milestone payments are possible.
• He does not work on success fee only. Nobody good in Japan does. If that is the only shape you can offer, this is not the route.
• Japan Deal Flow receives a referral fee if you engage him. Ask for the introduction by replying to any issue of the newsletter.

What this means in practice

Staying overseas: your cash, plus seller financing, plus a company set up in Japan with a resident director you trust. Refinance with JFC later if you move.

Moving to Japan: set the company up first, then apply for the subsidy before signing anything, then the JFC loan. Keep a clean trail on your savings from now.

Buying a company to get a visa stopped working in October 2025. The Business Manager visa now needs ¥30M capital, a full-time employee and Japanese at N2. Treat any purchase as an asset play.