Company Records for Japan, on demand

Japan's company register is the commercial and corporation registration system administered by the Legal Affairs Bureaus and District Legal Affairs Bureaus of the Ministry of Justice under the Commercial Registration Act. Any person may, on payment of a fee, request a certificate of the matters recorded in the registry, the 登記事項証明書 or toukibo tohon, and the request can be made at a registry office in another district. Registered information can also be viewed online through the Registered Information Provision Service (登記情報提供サービス), operated by the Civil Legal Affairs Association (一般財団法人民事法務協会).

A certificate of registered matters for a stock company states the corporate name, head office location, business purposes, method of public notice, total number of shares to be issued, types and numbers of outstanding shares, restrictions on share transfers, amount of capital, directors, representative directors, auditors and the date of establishment, together with the corporate number. The corporate number (法人番号, hojin bango) is a 13-digit identifier assigned by the National Tax Agency, which publishes each entity's number, name and head office address on its Corporate Number Publication Site.

Shareholders are not part of the public register. A company's shareholder register is kept at its head office under the Companies Act and is open to inspection by that company's shareholders and creditors rather than the general public, so registry documents identify a company's directors and capital, not its owners.