GK Establishment, Corporate Banking, and FEFTA Compliance for a Non-Resident Foreign Investor

Company formation — GK incorporation, corporate banking, and FEFTA compliance for a non-resident investor.

Background

A Canadian-born investor, based overseas at the time of the engagement, sought to establish a Japanese limited liability company (GK) as an investment vehicle for acquiring hotel property in Japan. The client had no prior business presence in Japan and required end-to-end support — from entity formation through regulatory compliance — conducted entirely in English.

Challenge

The client operated from overseas, with no existing professional network in Japan. The GK needed to be fully operational — registered, banked, and compliant with Japan’s Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (FEFTA) — within a compressed timeline driven by a pending real estate transaction. Corporate bank account opening for a newly formed, 100% foreign-owned entity with a non-resident representative posed particular difficulty, as Japanese banks apply heightened scrutiny to such applications.

What We Did

We handled the GK incorporation from the articles of incorporation through completion of commercial registration, then navigated the corporate bank account process, preparing the application and managing the exchanges with the bank’s compliance team on the client’s behalf. Following establishment, we prepared and filed the required FEFTA report with the Bank of Japan. Throughout, we served as the client’s primary point of contact in Japan, coordinating with a specialist international tax advisor and a cross-border attorney handling separate aspects of the transaction.

Outcome

From initial contact to completion of all registrations, banking, and regulatory filings: approximately three months. The GK was incorporated, a corporate bank account was opened despite the inherent difficulty of banking a newly formed, fully foreign-owned entity, and the FEFTA report was accepted by the Bank of Japan. The client specifically noted that direct English communication was critical to his decision to engage our office.

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