When establishing a Kabushiki Kaisha (Stock company)(*1) in Japan, paying the capital into a bank account is necessary. The payment must be made before the registration of the company.

In principle, the bank account to which the capital will be paid should be the founder’s (promoter’s) personal bank account. It should not be an account of the company. At this stage, the corporation itself does not exist yet.However, suppose the founder does not have a bank account.

In that case, it is allowed to use the personal account of the representative director or director who is a different person from the founder (Ministry of Justice, Civil and Commercial Code No. 41, March 17, 2017,)

If all of the founders and directors do not have a bank account in Japan, the account to which the capital is paid can be third-party. In other words, if a collaborator has a bank account in Japan, the capital can be transferred to that collaborator’s bank account.

Financial institutions for the payment of capital are not limited to the domestic head office and branch offices of Japanese banks but can also be overseas branches. It is also possible to use a foreign bank’s branch in Japan.

(*1) In the case of Godo Kaisha, the bank account for capital investment is not mandatory.