A Japanese qualified invoice registration number is the letter T plus 13 digits, and for a corporation the 13 digits are its corporate number. That does not mean every corporation is registered. Here is what each number proves and where to check it.
Japan has two identifiers that look alike and are often confused in invoice and ERP workflows. The corporate number (法人番号, houjin bango) is a 13-digit number the National Tax Agency (NTA) assigns to every corporation and publishes on its Corporate Number Publication Site. The qualified invoice issuer registration number (適格請求書発行事業者登録番号, usually called the T number) is the number a business prints on its invoices after registering under the qualified invoice system, which started on 1 October 2023.
According to the NTA, the registration number of a taxable business that has a corporate number is the letter T followed by the 13-digit corporate number. For example, if the corporation with the corporate number 1180301018771 registers, its registration number is T1180301018771. A taxable business without a corporate number, such as a sole proprietor, gets T plus 13 digits that are specific to that business; those digits are not the My Number and do not overlap with any corporate number.
A corporate number proves that a corporation exists in the NTA data, with a name and a registered address, and whether it is still on the register. It says nothing about invoices. A T number on an invoice is only a claim until it is checked: registration is by application, so a corporation with a corporate number is not necessarily registered, and a registration can be cancelled or lapse.
| Question | Where it is answered |
|---|---|
| Does this corporate number belong to a corporation, with what name and address? | The NTA corporate number data (Prometiam serves it as JSON) |
| Is the corporation still on the register, or closed or merged? | The same data: status is active, deregistered or merged |
| Is this T number a registered qualified invoice issuer? | The NTA qualified invoice issuer publication site |
| When was it registered, and was it cancelled or did it lapse? | The same publication site |
On the NTA publication site you enter the 13 digits that follow the T. Registration, the registration date and any cancellation or lapse date are published there.
GET /companies/search?country=JP&company_number=... accepts the corporate number or the T number (the T is dropped) and returns the name, address, kind and status.curl 'https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api/companies/search?country=JP&company_number=T1180301018771' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer rk_live_...'
The answer is the record of the corporation with the corporate number 1180301018771 (name, address, status). It carries nothing about invoice registration. A name search works too, in Japanese or in romaji, for corporations whose register entry has a katakana reading, so not every company is found by its romaji name.
Prometiam does not confirm that a T number is registered. The Japanese record has no VAT number field, and registration is not part of the corporate number data. A T number built from a corporate number tells you the format is plausible, not that the business is a registered issuer. The T numbers of sole proprietors are not corporate numbers and are not found.
The Japanese record is company records only, from the NTA corporate number data: no founding date, activity code, share capital, VAT number or officers, and no insolvency state. Stock companies (kabushiki kaisha), godo kaisha, partnership companies (gomei and goshi), special limited companies (tokurei yugen kaisha) and registered foreign companies are served; government bodies, associations and other corporations are not. Register-change events (name, status, legal form, registered address) and monitoring are available, dated when the change first appears in the register data. Data is read every working day.
A company record costs 1 credit. The 14-day trial has 500 credits and needs a card, with nothing charged during it; Starter is EUR 9.99 a month with 1,000 credits. See pricing.
Source: National Tax Agency Corporate Number Publication Site (https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/). Edited and processed by Prometiam; this is not a product of the National Tax Agency or the State. 出典：国税庁法人番号公表サイト（https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/）。Prometiamが編集・加工して作成（国税庁が作成した情報ではありません）。
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