Japan has always been a popular destination for Nepalis looking for work and a better income. About 300,000 Nepalis live there right now. Most of them are students, cooks, or small business owners. But since late 2025, a major shift in Japan’s immigration policy has put a huge number of those people in a very difficult spot.
The new rules are mostly aimed at the Business Manager visa, which lets foreigners start and run businesses in Japan. And while the intention was to stop abuse of the system, the impact is falling hard on ordinary Nepalis who have been quietly building their lives there for years.
Quick Summary: What Changed With Japan’s Business Manager Visa
| What Changed | Before October 2025 | After October 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Company Capital | JPY 5 million (approx. NPR 50 lakh) | JPY 30 million (approx. NPR 3 crore) |
| Staff Requirement | No rule | Must hire at least 1 full-time Japanese citizen or permanent resident |
| Japanese Language | Not required | Owner or one employee must pass JLPT N2 or equivalent |
| Management Background | Not required | Must have 3 years of management experience or a business degree |
| Business Plan Review | Not required | Must be verified by a certified accountant or business consultant |
| Tax and Insurance Check | Basic only | Strict verification of labor insurance, social insurance, and tax payments |
| Physical Office | Not strictly checked | Virtual or home address offices are no longer accepted |
| Deadline for Existing Businesses | Not applicable | Must meet all new rules by October 16, 2028 |
A few things to note:
The transition period runs until October 16, 2028. If your Business Manager visa comes up for renewal before that date, immigration officials will look at your current situation and decide based on whether you are making progress toward meeting the new rules. After 2028, there is no flexibility. You either meet the requirements or your renewal gets rejected.
The new rules also apply to people on a Highly Skilled Professional visa if their visa category involves business management activities. So this is not just limited to the standard Business Manager visa holders.
Why Japan Changed Its Rules
The Business Manager visa became quite popular over the years. In 2020, around 27,000 people held it. By mid-2025, that number had jumped to 45,000. That kind of growth caught the government’s attention.
The problem was that some people were using this visa not to actually run businesses, but simply as a way to stay in Japan. Fake companies, made-up transactions, businesses registered at home addresses with no real activity. It became a known loophole, and Japan decided to close it in October 2025.
The rule changes look simple on paper. But for small Nepali restaurant and shop owners, they are anything but simple.
What the New Rules Actually Require
There are three main conditions that every Business Manager visa holder now has to meet.
The first one is money. Business owners must show their company has at least 30 million yen in capital. That works out to roughly NPR 3 crore. Before the change, the minimum was only 5 million yen. That is a six-times increase overnight.
The second condition is staffing. Every business must employ at least one full-time worker who is a Japanese citizen or holds permanent residency in Japan.
The third one is language. Either the business owner or one of the full-time employees must have an N2 level of Japanese. That is the second-highest level in Japan’s official language proficiency test. It is not easy to pass. Even people who spent four years studying Japanese in language school often struggle with it.
Anyone who has lived in Japan for more than 20 years does not need to pass the language test. But that exception covers very few Nepalis.
The People Caught in the Middle
Here is where it gets complicated for the Nepali community.
Most Nepali restaurant owners in Japan did not come on a Business Manager visa. They came on cook visas. Over time, they saved up some money, opened small restaurants, and hired other Nepalis to work there. It was a quiet kind of entrepreneurship, built slowly, without much formal business knowledge.
These owners never dealt much with payroll systems, tax filings, or social insurance enrollment. Many did not know they had to. As a result, a lot of them are now failing basic compliance checks, and visa renewals are getting rejected before they even have to worry about the 30 million yen requirement.
For those who do get to the financial part, 30 million yen is simply out of reach. A small Nepali restaurant is not the kind of business that sits on that kind of capital.
How Many Nepalis Are We Talking About?
The numbers are significant.
Around 20,000 Nepalis are on cook visas and work mostly in Nepali-run restaurants. If those restaurants close due to the new requirements, these workers lose their jobs and their visa status at the same time. Finding work elsewhere is not easy because the new rules also make it harder to quietly shift from one employer to another. Social insurance enrollment is now mandatory and tracked, so working under the table is becoming less of an option.
About 50,000 Nepalis who went to Japan after finishing their bachelor’s degree in Nepal and are working in various jobs also face risk. Many of them cannot meet the N2 language standard either, which puts their continued stay in question.
Around 3,000 Nepalis hold Business Manager visas directly. All of them have until October 16, 2028 to meet the new conditions. That deadline applies to old businesses too, not just new ones.
Community insiders estimate that up to half of all Nepalis currently living in Japan could end up returning home because of these changes.
The Language Problem Nobody Saw Coming
The N2 language requirement is perhaps the most quietly difficult part of all this.
N2 is not basic Japanese. It is the level required for professional communication in a work setting. Passing it takes years of serious study. For someone who came to Japan to cook and spent most of their time working long shifts, sitting down to study advanced Japanese grammar and reading comprehension is not realistic.
Business owners who cannot pass N2 themselves have to hire a full-time employee who has passed it. But they also have to hire a separate full-time Japanese or permanent resident employee. That is two additional salary obligations for a small restaurant that was probably already running on thin margins.
What Is Already Happening
The effects showed up fast. Before October 2025, around 1,700 new Business Manager visa applications were submitted every month across all nationalities. After the rule change, that dropped to about 70 per month. A 96 percent fall.
Among the Nepali community, business owners are scrambling. Some are trying to sell their companies. Some are merging with others to pool resources and meet the capital requirement. Many are simply waiting and hoping something changes before the 2028 deadline.
A Tokyo-based research firm surveyed 299 foreign-owned companies and found that 45 percent said the new rules would affect them in some way. Another 5 percent said they were already thinking about shutting down.
What This Means for Nepal
Thousands of Nepalis returning from Japan means a drop in remittance money coming into the country. Japan is one of the bigger remittance sources for Nepal, and the money sent back by Nepali workers there supports a lot of families.
It also means a growing number of people coming home without clear plans, looking for work in a job market that already struggles to absorb them.
Japan’s government says stricter fees and rules will help fund programs that support foreign residents and build a more organized system. But for the Nepali families directly affected, the immediate reality is a lot less structured than that.
The 2028 deadline is still a couple of years away. But for many, the decision to leave has already been made.
Can Nepali Students Stay in the UK After Study? Graduate Visa Rules 2027 Explained
