---
title: How many Chinese companies are in Japan? 317, or 25,000
description: METI counted 317 Chinese-parent firms, Toyo Keizai lists 3,146 foreign firms, 24,840 Chinese nationals hold Business Manager visas. Same question, three rulers.
image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/covers-2026-10/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many-cover-en-2026-10.png
---

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en?hsLang=en)

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[日本語](https://nobusato.jp/ja/blog/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many)[English](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many)[中文](https://nobusato.jp/zh/blog/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many)

Japan by the Numbers

In this article

1. [Who gets counted in each number?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many#s1)
2. [Nearly three times in ten years, then the door narrowed](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many#s2)
3. [Who else is competing for Chinese-speaking talent?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many#s3)
4. [Which number should you use?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many#s4)

[Japan by the Numbers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/tag/japan-by-the-numbers)

# How many Chinese companies are in Japan? 317, or 25,000

Who gets counted decides the answer

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)7 min read

Contents4

1. [Who gets counted in each number?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many#s1)
2. [Nearly three times in ten years, then the door narrowed](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many#s2)
3. [Who else is competing for Chinese-speaking talent?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many#s3)
4. [Which number should you use?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/chinese-companies-in-japan-how-many#s4)

Ask how many Chinese companies there are in Japan and you can get 317, 3,146 or 24,840, each from a serious source. The spread is about a hundredfold. None of the numbers is wrong. They count different things, and if you draw "Chinese competitors" on a market map without checking which one you're using, the box is a hundred times too big or too small.

## Who gets counted in each number?

There is no official statistic called "number of Chinese companies in Japan." There are three rulers, each cut differently.

The first is the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's survey of foreign-affiliated companies. It counted firms where foreign owners held more than a third of the shares, and only those that answered the questionnaire. The last round, run in 2020 and covering fiscal 2019, tallied 2,808 companies. Of those, 317 had a Chinese parent, 11.3%. Europe accounted for 1,197 and the United States for 607. The ministry discontinued the survey after that round, so the official series stops at fiscal 2019. And 317 is the number that replied. The real figure is larger.

The second is Toyo Keizai's directory of foreign-affiliated companies, the 2026 edition. It lists 3,146 firms: 1,100 major ones, mostly with capital of at least 50 million yen and foreign ownership of 49% or more, plus 2,046 other notable foreign firms with foreign ownership of 20% or more. That covers all foreign companies, not just Chinese ones. The parent-country index is in the book, and there is no public Chinese subtotal online. Foreign subsidiaries in Japan with real scale and a public profile are roughly this order of magnitude.

The third is the Immigration Services Agency's statistics on foreign residents. At the end of December 2025, 46,781 people held the "Business Manager" residence status. Of those, 24,840 were Chinese nationals including Hong Kong, 53.1% of the total. Nepal was second at 3,158, Pakistan third at 3,014, then Vietnam, South Korea and Sri Lanka. This ruler measures people, not companies. One owner running one shop is one company. Two partners are two people and one company. It also leaves out executives posted from a head office, who usually hold an intra-company transfer visa or an engineer and specialist visa.

For a denominator: Japan had 3.375 million enterprises as of June 2021 by the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency's count, of which 10,364 were large enterprises, 0.3%. Chinese-run businesses, counted by their owners, come to a little over twenty thousand, under 1% of all Japanese enterprises. It is also more than twice the number of large Japanese companies. The units differ, so don't compare them directly, but it gives you a sense of scale.

Same question, different rulers, a hundredfold gap

Ways of counting "Chinese companies in Japan." METI survey of foreign-affiliated companies (fiscal 2019, respondents), Toyo Keizai directory 2026 edition (all foreign firms), Immigration Services Agency resident statistics (end of December 2025, persons)

**The rulers**　scaled to 24,840

- METI surveyChinese parent, over 1/3 foreign-owned, replied

  317 firms
- Toyo Keizai directoryall foreign firms, capital of 50m yen or more etc.

  3,146 firms
- Business Manager visaChinese nationals incl. Hong Kong

  24,840 people

**Chinese Business Manager holders, ten years**　end of each December

- 2015

  8,690
- 2020

  14,317
- 2024

  21,740
- 2025

  24,840

Every number is right. They count different things. Write the question down first, then pick the ruler.

Figure 1. "How many Chinese companies are in Japan" gives 317 Chinese-parent respondents to METI's survey (fiscal 2019), 3,146 foreign firms of all nationalities in Toyo Keizai's 2026 directory, or 24,840 Chinese nationals holding a Business Manager visa (end of 2025, up from 8,690 ten years earlier).

## Nearly three times in ten years, then the door narrowed

Chinese holders of the Business Manager status went from 8,690 at the end of 2015 to 14,317 in 2020, 21,740 in 2024 and 24,840 in 2025. That is 2.9 times in a decade. All nationalities combined went from 18,109 to 46,781, 2.6 times. So China's share of the owner-operator visa has been rising, not just the count.

The line bent in 2025. The Immigration Services Agency tightened the requirements for the status in October 2025, and according to Kyodo News, only 635 people entered Japan on it in the first half of 2026, down 80.9% from a year earlier. The stock remains. The inflow has mostly stopped. For a Chinese founder who wants to come and be the representative director personally, the entrance as of October 2026 is a different entrance from five years ago.

## Who else is competing for Chinese-speaking talent?

Mostly Japanese companies and Western multinationals. Many owners draw the talent map with "Chinese companies in Japan" as the biggest circle, assuming the fight for people is with compatriots. The numbers don't support that.

At the end of 2025, 117,314 Chinese nationals held the engineer, humanities and international services visa, Japan's largest white-collar work status. That is close to a quarter of everyone on it. Chinese nationals also held 22,169 of the 32,953 highly skilled professional visas, 67%. Another 5,729 were intra-company transferees from head offices. Where do those hundred-odd thousand people work? At Japanese companies and foreign ones from every country. Chinese firms number a few hundred on METI's ruler, or twenty-odd thousand owners on the visa ruler. They cannot employ that many people.

So when you try to hire one person who speaks Chinese and understands the Japanese market, the real competition is a large Japanese company offering lifetime security and a finished grade structure, or a Western firm. The circle of fellow Chinese companies is the easiest one to poach from and the easiest to be poached from. As I put it in [The two maps](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/method-maps?hsLang=en), the talent map shows who employs the people you want, not who looks like you. The full breakdown of foreign workers in Japan is in [who the 2.57 million are, and where](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/foreign-workers-in-japan-by-the-numbers?hsLang=en).

## Which number should you use?

It depends on the question.

If you want to sell to Chinese subsidiaries in Japan, say HR systems, office space or legal services, your addressable market is the METI and Toyo Keizai order of magnitude: companies with scale, a budget and an approval process. A few hundred to a thousand-odd, and you can more or less build the list. Plan sales on twenty thousand and you overestimate by ten times.

If you want to know how hot it is for Chinese owners to start businesses in Japan, the visa stock and the new-entrant count are the fastest thermometer. That 635 for the first half of 2026 is more honest than any headline about Chinese capital fleeing or flooding in.

If you want capital flows, look at inward FDI, which is yet another ruler. I wrote about how the measurement window flips the conclusion in [China's FDI into Japan halved in 2025](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/china-investment-into-japan-2025?hsLang=en).

My own habit is to write the question in one sentence before I go looking for a number. Do it the other way around, number first and question second, and you end up with "there are over twenty thousand Chinese companies in Japan, so the market is big." The person saying it won't feel anything is off.

One gap I can't fill. The 317 is from fiscal 2019, the ministry stopped counting after that, and Toyo Keizai's country breakdown lives in the book. There is no public, citable figure for how many Chinese subsidiaries of real scale exist in Japan in 2026. My guess, from counting the directory's country index, is a few hundred. That is a guess, and I'd rather say so than dress it up.

Sources (as of October 2026)

- [Immigration Services Agency, Statistics on Foreign Residents, by nationality and residence status (e-Stat; end of December 2015, 2020, 2024 and 2025)](https://www.e-stat.go.jp/dbview?sid=0004019020)
- [Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 54th Survey of Trends in Business Activities of Foreign Affiliates (2020 survey, fiscal 2019 results)](https://www.meti.go.jp/statistics/tyo/gaisikei/result/result_54/pdf/2020gaikyou-s.pdf)
- [Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, survey index page (notice of discontinuation)](https://www.meti.go.jp/statistics/tyo/gaisikei/index.html)
- [Toyo Keizai, Directory of Foreign-Affiliated Companies 2026, coverage criteria and number of firms](https://str.toyokeizai.net/databook/dbs_gaishikei/)
- [Small and Medium Enterprise Agency, number of SMEs and small businesses as of June 2021](https://www.chusho.meti.go.jp/koukai/chousa/chu_kigyocnt/2023/231213chukigyocnt.html)
- [Kyodo News, foreign residents hit record 4.28 million at end of June, Business Manager entries plunge after tightening (October 16, 2026, Immigration Services Agency release)](https://kumanichi.com/articles/2047152)

---

Author

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)

Launching in Japan, starting with people and systems. I write about building organizations, sales teams and technology organizations in Japan, in English, Japanese and Chinese.

[Profile](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)[Contact](https://nobusato.jp/en/contact?hsLang=en)

## Read next

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[Column guide: Japan by the Numbers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/guide-japan-by-the-numbers?hsLang=en) · [Glossary](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/glossary?hsLang=en) · [The method behind the articles](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/method?hsLang=en)

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