Does Your Software Need a Telecom Filing in Japan?
Japan's Telecommunications Business Act can apply to overseas software companies with no Japanese office or servers. For a typical SaaS business, the key question is whether a feature carries communications between users. If it does, a notification may be required before launch.
Does your service target Japan?
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) identifies a Japanese-language service, yen payment options and Japan-directed advertising as examples showing that an overseas provider intends to serve users in Japan. These are indicators, not an exhaustive checklist. Incorporation and server location do not decide the answer.
For software providers without telecommunications line facilities in Japan, the relevant procedure is generally notification under Article 16, rather than the registration regime used for larger network operators. Foreign corporations filing a notification must also designate a representative or agent in Japan.
Does it carry communications between users?
The practical distinction is between communicating with your user and carrying a communication from one user to another. MIC's guidance examines whether the content is passed on without processing or editing, and whether the recipient is designated when it is sent.
| Feature | Typical filing position |
|---|---|
| Email, direct messaging or conferencing with designated participants | Notification generally required |
| File sharing restricted to recipients chosen by the sender | May require notification |
| Public posts or a bulletin board anyone can read | Generally no notification, subject to special rules for designated large platforms |
| Selling your own products or publishing your own content | Generally no notification |
Assess each feature separately. A messaging function can change the position of an otherwise ordinary SaaS product. Requiring users to log in does not, by itself, change messaging into a different kind of service.
What about AI chat and third-party tools?
An AI company answering its users' prompts is normally a party to the communication, rather than an intermediary between other people. That function alone generally does not require notification.
Using a third-party AI model does not automatically change this. If your company receives the user's request and uses a model provider to prepare its own response, your company is a party to each communication: one with the user and another with the model provider. Where the service design and terms reflect this arrangement, the AI chat function alone generally does not require notification.
By contrast, if your company provides a chat service that carries messages between users, it may need to file a notification—even if a third-party vendor supplies the underlying system. The distinction is between answering users' requests and carrying communications between them.
An additional requirement: are you operating a telecommunications business?
Carrying communications between users does not, by itself, mean you must file. The activity must also qualify as operating a telecommunications business: providing a communications service to meet other persons' demand, as an independent business, repeatedly and continuously with the intention of generating revenue.
For example, an internal chat system used only by your own employees ordinarily serves your company's own operational needs. Offering a messaging service to customers for a subscription fee is different: it serves those customers' needs and generates revenue. A free service funded by advertising can also qualify. Charging users directly is not necessary, and neither is making an actual profit.
Before launch, therefore, check both the communication function and the business arrangement. If your company provides user-to-user communications and operates that service as a telecommunications business, notification will generally be required for the software services discussed here, unless a specific exemption applies.
If notification is required
Prepare the filing and, for a foreign corporation, designate a representative or agent in Japan. MIC recommends advance consultation for foreign providers. Notification is not a licence approval, but the filing must be complete and valid. Operating without a required filing can attract criminal penalties.
No filing does not mean no obligations
The secrecy of communications and prohibition of censorship can still apply to telecommunications businesses excluded from notification.
The external transmission rule is another separate obligation. It can apply even where a service has no user-to-user messaging and requires no telecom notification. SaaS providers should therefore check it separately: first, whether their service falls within the covered categories; second, whether code in their website or app causes users' devices to send information externally.
Common tools to check include:
- Google Analytics: tags can send page views, usage events, browser and device information, and cookie-based identifiers to Google for usage analysis. Advertising features do not need to be enabled for these transmissions to occur.
- Google Ads tags: depending on the setup, these send information about visits and actions such as sign-ups or purchases to Google to measure advertising results or show ads again to previous visitors (remarketing).
- Other analytics and behaviour-tracking tools: these may send browsing activity or interaction data to their providers. As a practical SaaS example, electronic-signature provider CloudSign publishes an external-transmission notice listing Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity, among other tools.
Using one of these tools does not automatically put every website within the rule. MIC distinguishes covered services from, for example, a company's page merely advertising its own services. Check the actual service and page, not just whether a tracking tag is present.
For covered transmissions, a common compliance route is to notify users or make the required information readily accessible in advance: what information is sent, which organisation receives it, and how both your company and the recipient use it. A clear external-transmission notice can serve this purpose. Consent or a qualifying opt-out are alternative routes; this rule does not universally require a cookie-consent banner. Statutory exceptions also exist, including for information necessary to provide the service.
Google provides reference information specifically for these disclosures, but your notice should reflect your own tools and settings. The rule is separate from Japan's personal information law and can cover identifiers and browsing data even when they are not personal information.
Before entering Japan, check three things: who communicates with whom, who provides the service, and what information leaves the user's device. These questions are easier to resolve while designing the product and its terms.
For a review of your service and filing requirements, get in touch.
Sources
- MIC, Guideline on application of the Act to foreign corporations.
- MIC, Manual for Market Entry and Supplementary Edition.
- MIC, External transmission rule FAQ.
- Google, Data collection in Analytics and Safeguarding your data.
- Google Ads, About setting up your data segments.
- Telecommunications Business Act — English translation (reflecting amendments through Act No. 70 of 2022); Japanese text on e-Gov. Relevant provisions: Articles 2, 3, 4, 9, 16, 27-12 and 164.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. The result depends on the service's design and contractual arrangements.