Japan Company Check (corporate number)

Check any Japan legal entity by its corporate number (hojin bango) in one call and get a clean English JSON answer with red flags, source attribution and a date on every field. Built for AI agents (MCP) and for KYB / AML onboarding, counterparty and supplier due diligence, vendor risk and compliance checks.

• One number → one answer from official open registers plus GLEIF Global LEI Index: Level 1 (LEI-CDF), Level 2 (RR-CDF), Reporting Exceptions and Official sanctions lists: US OFAC (SDN and Consolidated non-SDN), EU consolidated financial sanctions (FSF), UK Sanctions List (FCDO) — legal entities only.
• One schema for every country: the same fields and flags whether you check one Japan company or a thousand — your agent parses one format.
• Agent-ready: an MCP server (Streamable HTTP, /mcp) with check_company, check_companies and list_sources, a plain GET /check?country=&id= endpoint, and classic batch runs (list of numbers → dataset).
• Change history: registers publish only the current state; we keep our own snapshots, so every answer shows what was added or removed since history_since (e.g. a status change or a new sanctions listing).
• Pay per check ($0.05 per company), no subscription. Malformed numbers, sole traders and individuals are not charged. In Standby (MCP / HTTP) mode Apify also bills the small platform usage of the server run, as for every Standby Actor. Set a maximum cost per run in Apify to cap spending: when it is reached, the Actor returns an error instead of data.

What we check

Source	Licence	Publisher updates
National Tax Agency (Japan): Corporate Number Publication Site — basic three items (name, location, corporate number) of all corporate number holders, full monthly file plus daily change files (JP)	Several, see Data licences	daily
GLEIF Global LEI Index: Level 1 (LEI-CDF), Level 2 (RR-CDF), Reporting Exceptions	CC0 1.0	daily
Official sanctions lists: US OFAC (SDN and Consolidated non-SDN), EU consolidated financial sanctions (FSF), UK Sanctions List (FCDO) — legal entities only	Several, see Data licences	daily

Data refreshed at least weekly; every field carries its source date (provenance), and every answer lists each source with the date it was loaded (sources[].loaded_at; list_sources is free).

flags — true is a red flag: not_found (the number is not in the register dump), not_active, insolvency, liquidation, sanctions (match by registration number or LEI), sanctions_name_match (same name, same country: verify manually). false means there is no record in the loaded snapshot — it is not a clean bill of health. null means unknown. Call list_sources (free) for load times.

Japan: NTA Corporate Number Publication Site full file covers every corporate number ever assigned to registered companies and other legal persons, national and local government bodies and foreign companies, live and closed (monthly full file plus daily change files). Unincorporated associations and estates of deceased persons (kind 499) are not served. Liquidation and bankruptcy are not in the file. A T-prefixed number may be a sole proprietor's invoice registration number (not a corporate number): if it is not in the register, the result is unknown and not billed.

Status comes from the NTA corporate number file: dissolved = the register record was closed (liquidation completed, merger, closure by the registrar), with dissolved_at and the cause. A company that has resolved to dissolve or is being wound up (解散, 清算中) is still active in this file, and bankruptcy is not recorded: liquidation and insolvency are always null.

Lookup by the 13-digit corporate number (check digit verified), also with a T prefix (invoice registration number) and full-width digits. 12-digit commercial register numbers are not accepted (no check digit): use the 13-digit number from houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp.

Identifiers

Country	Identifier	Format	Example
Japan (JP)	corporate number (hojin bango)	13 digits (corporate number; the first digit is a check digit), optionally with a T prefix (invoice registration number). 12-digit commercial register numbers (kaisha hojin-to bango) are not accepted because they have no check digit: look up the 13-digit corporate number at https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/	1180301018771

Spaces, dashes and a country prefix are accepted. Legal entities only: sole traders and other natural persons are not supported, not stored and not charged. No data about people (officers, owners, contacts) is ever returned; addresses are city level only.

Input

{
  "country": "JP",
  "ids": [
    "1180301018771"
  ]
}

Up to 10,000 numbers per run.

Output (one dataset item per company, shortened)

{
  "country": "JP",
  "id": "1180301018771",
  "id_scheme": "JP-HOJIN",
  "name": "…",
  "status": "active",
  "legal_form": {
    "code": "…",
    "name": "…",
    "name_en": "…"
  },
  "address": {
    "city": "…",
    "country": "JP"
  },
  "flags": {
    "not_found": false,
    "not_active": false,
    "insolvency": null,
    "liquidation": null,
    "sanctions": false,
    "sanctions_name_match": false
  },
  "provenance": {
    "status": {
      "source": "register",
      "as_of": "2026-11-05T03:00:00+00:00"
    }
  },
  "history": [],
  "history_since": "2026-11-05",
  "sources": [
    {
      "key": "register",
      "title": "…",
      "license": "…",
      "loaded_at": "…"
    }
  ],
  "disclaimer": "… Not legal advice."
}

Use from an AI agent (MCP)

Add the Actor as a remote MCP server: https://kyb-data--japan-company-check.apify.actor/mcp with your Apify token, or through mcp.apify.com. Tools: check_company(company_id, country), check_companies(company_ids, country) (up to 50), list_sources().

Data licences

All data comes from official open sources under open licences; attribution (title, dataset URL, licence, loaded_at) is included in the sources field of every answer.

• National Tax Agency (Japan): Corporate Number Publication Site — basic three items (name, location, corporate number) of all corporate number holders, full monthly file plus daily change files: Public Data License 1.0 (PDL1.0, compatible with CC BY 4.0; commercial use permitted). Source: National Tax Agency Corporate Number Publication Site (国税庁法人番号公表サイト（国税庁）), https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/download/zenken/ — created by processing (加工して作成) by Company Check; not an official or unedited NTA publication. (licence text: www.digital.go.jp/en/resources/open_data/public_data_license_v1.0); publisher's terms: https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/en/riyokiyaku/; modified: normalised to the Company Check schema; street, block and building numbers, English and foreign addresses and the last 4 digits of the postcode dropped (address kept at prefecture, municipality and 3-digit postcode level); closure causes and change types translated; daily change files applied over the monthly full file
• GLEIF Global LEI Index: Level 1 (LEI-CDF), Level 2 (RR-CDF), Reporting Exceptions: CC0 1.0 (GLEIF LEI Data Terms of Use, II.3: "The data available through the Access Service are provided under the CC0 licence"; read 2026-11-05)
• Official sanctions lists: US OFAC (SDN and Consolidated non-SDN), EU consolidated financial sanctions (FSF), UK Sanctions List (FCDO) — legal entities only: OFAC: US government work, not subject to copyright (17 U.S.C. 105); EU FSF: © European Union, reuse authorised with acknowledgement (Commission Decision 2011/833/EU, CC BY 4.0); UK: contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (FCDO) (licence text: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3)

Disclaimer

Data from official open registers and official sanctions lists, as attributed in sources, as of the load date shown. Registers can be incomplete or late. Not legal advice — verify important decisions with the original register.