Japan Corporate Registry — 法人番号 NTA Company Lookup

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Query Japan's National Tax Agency 法人番号 (Corporate Number) registry — over five million corporations — by 13-digit corporate number or by 商号 (trade name), and get back the canonical kanji name plus katakana and English readings, registered address, prefecture, corporate type, and status. Built directly on NTA's official CC BY 4.0 Web-API v4 (bring your own free application ID for live rows), it turns Japan's fragmented corporate data into clean JSON for KYC onboarding, B2B sales enrichment, and cross-border due diligence.

The Japanese government's open-data 法人番号 system is the source-of-record for every registered Japanese corporation, public body, association, foundation, and overseas firm with a JP branch. It is run by the National Tax Agency (国税庁) under the Corporate Number Act (Act No. 67 of 2013) and is explicitly CC BY 4.0 licensed — no commercial-use restriction.

This actor wraps the NTA Houjin-Bangou Web-API v4 with sensible defaults and prefecture/category filters. Live 法人番号 data requires a FREE NTA Web-API key (nta_api_key); without it the actor returns a single unbilled guidance row prompting you to register — it does not serve or bill curated data. You are charged only for live NTA rows.

⚡ What you get

For every Japanese corporation returned, the actor pushes a normalized record with:

• corporate_number — 13-digit 法人番号 (the canonical Japanese corporate identifier; reused across NTA, METI gBizINFO, and J-PlatPat IP filings)
• company_name — registered 商号 in Japanese kanji/kana (source-of-record name)
• company_name_kana — phonetic katakana name (フリガナ), useful for transliteration / fuzzy match
• company_name_en — registered English name (only if the company joined NTA's 英語表記登録 program)
• prefecture — romanized prefecture (e.g. Tokyo, Osaka, Aichi)
• prefecture_jp — Japanese prefecture (e.g. 東京都, 大阪府, 愛知県)
• city — head-office city/ward (e.g. 港区, 豊田市, 中央区)
• address — full registered head-office address
• corporate_type — normalized: kabushiki_kaisha (株式会社), godo_kaisha (合同会社 / Japan LLC), yugen_kaisha (有限会社), gomei_kaisha, goshi_kaisha, ippan_shadan_houjin (社団/財団法人), foreign_corporation (外国会社), public_corporation, other
• category — higher-level bucket: corporation, foreign_corporation, LLC, non_profit, public
• status — active or dissolved (NTA close-date + close-cause flags rolled up)
• registration_date — ISO YYYY-MM-DD date the corporate number was assigned (法人番号指定年月日)
• last_change_date — ISO YYYY-MM-DD date of NTA's most recent update for this row (商号変更/所在地変更/閉鎖など)
• source_url — stable canonical NTA detail-page URL for this corporate number
• data_source — nta_webapi_v4 (live API row, the only billed rows) / curated (unbilled zero-result fallback when a key is supplied but live returns nothing) / guidance (unbilled prompt returned when no key is supplied)

🎯 Use cases

• KYC / customer due diligence — Verify that a Japanese counterparty has a valid 法人番号 and matches the kanji name + address on file before onboarding. The 13-digit corporate number is the canonical identifier reused across NTA tax filings, METI procurement, and J-PlatPat IP records — making it the right primary key for any Japan-touching compliance system.
• B2B sales list building — Pull every active corporation in Osaka of type kabushiki_kaisha registered since 2020 — clean source-of-truth for SDR outreach, account-based marketing, or territory planning. Free at scale (NTA bulk data is uncapped under the CC BY 4.0 license).
• M&A target shortlisting — Find every active 株式会社 in a specific prefecture + city pair, then enrich with TSE / EDINET / J-PlatPat data using the same 法人番号 as the join key.
• Japan subsidiary mapping — Trace the JP entities behind a global parent (e.g. all Amazon, Google, Meta entities in Japan) using name search + foreign_corporation filter.
• Corporate-change monitoring — The actor's curated set demonstrates the dissolved status output; with a live API key, the diff endpoint reveals name changes, address moves, and closures inside any 50-day window.

🔑 NTA application ID (optional but recommended)

NTA Houjin-Bangou Web-API v4 requires a free id (application ID) on every request. Register at https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/webapi/ — the form is in Japanese (a Romaji-friendly English version is linked at the top of the page), there is no commercial-use restriction, and IDs are typically issued within 1 business day. With an ID, this actor calls:

• GET https://api.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/4/num — lookup by 13-digit corporate number (up to 10 numbers per call)
• GET https://api.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/4/name — search by 商号 (kanji / kana / Romaji, up to 100 results per page; the actor paginates automatically up to max_records)
• GET https://api.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/4/diff — date-range diff for newly assigned / renamed / dissolved corporations within any 50-day window (used internally for delta monitoring)

Without an application ID, the actor returns a single unbilled guidance row (data_source: "guidance") telling you to register the free NTA key — it does not return or bill for curated data. The free key takes a minute to obtain and unlocks the full live 法人番号 register (5M+ corporations). Billing is live-only: you are charged solely for nta_webapi_v4 rows; guidance rows and any curated zero-result fallback rows are never billed.

Sample input & output

// input
{"company_name_filter":"トヨタ","nta_api_key":"<your-free-NTA-id>",
"prefecture_filter":"all","category_filter":"all","max_records":200}

// output (curated / live row shape)
{"corporate_number":"1180301018771","company_name":"トヨタ自動車株式会社",
"company_name_kana":"...","company_name_en":"TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION",
"address":"...","prefecture_jp":"愛知県","category":"...","status":"..."}

Exact live field set is UNVERIFIED without an NTA application ID; the curated field shape above is confirmed from the main.py push loop.

📊 Sample output

👁 Japan Houjin-Bangou Corporate Registry — sample output

🚀 How to use

No key — unbilled guidance prompt (no charge)

{
"company_name_filter":"Sony",
"max_records":50
}

Returns a single guidance row (data_source: "guidance", no charge) prompting you to register the free NTA key. Add nta_api_key to get live rows.

Live NTA lookup by exact corporate number

{
"nta_api_key":"<your-NTA-application-id>",
"corporate_number":"7010401088724"
}

Live name search restricted to Tokyo

{
"nta_api_key":"<your-NTA-application-id>",
"company_name_filter":"三菱",
"prefecture_filter":"Tokyo",
"category_filter":"corporation",
"max_records":200
}

Python client

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("nexgendata/japan-houjin-bangou-corporate-registry").call(
 run_input={
"nta_api_key":"<your-NTA-application-id>",
"company_name_filter":"Toyota",
"prefecture_filter":"Aichi",
"max_records":100,
}
)
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
print(item["corporate_number"], item["company_name"], item["address"])

cURL

curl-X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/nexgendata~japan-houjin-bangou-corporate-registry/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN"\
-H"Content-Type: application/json"\
-d'{"nta_api_key":"YOUR_NTA_APPLICATION_ID","company_name_filter":"Nintendo","max_records":50}'

日本語の説明

国税庁の法人番号公表サイト（CC BY 4.0ライセンス）から、日本の全法人情報を構造化データとして提供します。法人番号、商号、所在地、設立年月日、法人区分などの公的情報を一括検索できます。

主な用途：

• KYC（顧客確認）
• B2B営業リスト作成
• M&A企業デューデリジェンス
• 日本支社・子会社マッピング

国税庁Web-API v4の3つのエンドポイントをラップしています：

• /4/num — 法人番号（13桁）による単体・複数（最大10件）照会
• /4/name — 商号（漢字・カナ・ローマ字）によるあいまい検索、ページネーション自動処理
• /4/diff — 50日以内の指定・変更・閉鎖差分の取得

国税庁アプリケーションIDの登録：

NTA Web-APIは無料の id（アプリケーションID）が必要です。登録は https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/webapi/ から。商用利用制限はありません。アプリケーションIDなしの場合は、本Actorは主要日本法人のキュレーション済みリファレンスセット（47都道府県・全法人種別を網羅）を返します。スキーマ検証やKYCパイプライン開発、デモ実行に十分なデータです。

注意事項：

• 国税庁ポリシーに準拠した識別UAを使用：Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NexGenDataBot/1.0; +https://thenextgennexus.com/bot; contact: hello@thenextgennexus.com)
• 1リクエストあたり最大100件、1.2秒以上の間隔で礼儀正しくページネーション処理
• 出力スキーマには漢字商号 + カナフリガナ + 登録英語名（あれば）の3言語フィールドを保持

⚖️ Legal & data sources

• Source-of-record: National Tax Agency (国税庁) Houjin-Bangou Web-API v4 — https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/webapi/
• License: CC BY 4.0 (NTA's open-data declaration — see https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/setsumei/operation/). Attribution to the National Tax Agency is recommended when republishing.
• Statutory basis: Corporate Number Act (Act No. 67 of 2013) — mandates that every Japanese corporation has a public 13-digit 法人番号 and that the registry is freely accessible.
• Bot etiquette: This actor sends a Japanese-government-friendly polite-identified UA — Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NexGenDataBot/1.0; +https://thenextgennexus.com/bot; contact: hello@thenextgennexus.com) — per NTA open-data convention. Default name-search pagination throttles to 1 request per 1.2 seconds.

❓ FAQ

Q. Why is company_name_en null for most rows? A. Only Japanese corporations that explicitly enroll in NTA's 英語表記登録 program (the "registered English name" program at https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/eigotouroku/) have an en_name field populated. Roughly 50,000 of the 5M+ registered corporations have done so — mostly TOPIX-listed and foreign-affiliated firms. For other rows the actor returns null rather than fabricate a transliteration; downstream consumers can run furigana → Hepburn conversion on company_name_kana if needed.

Q. What's the difference between corporate_type: foreign_corporation and a godo_kaisha like Google G.K. / Amazon Japan G.K.? A. foreign_corporation (外国会社) is the NTA category for an overseas-parent firm registered as a JP branch under the Companies Act §817. A godo_kaisha (合同会社 / Japan LLC) is a JP-domiciled limited liability company — many global tech firms (Google, Amazon, Meta) operate in Japan via a G.K. subsidiary rather than registering as a 外国会社, so they show up with corporate_type: godo_kaisha and category: LLC. Filter on category: foreign_corporation for the strict 外国会社 case, or on category: LLC to include the G.K. structure.

Q. How do I monitor newly-registered corporations? A. Pass a date-range via the underlying NTA /4/diff endpoint (the actor uses it internally for any rolling-window updates). At scale, schedule this actor daily with max_records: 2000 and dedupe against your warehouse on corporate_number. NTA publishes diffs same-day for new registrations and within 1-2 business days for name/address changes and closures.

Q. Is the curated dataset enough to ship? A. For demos, schema validation, and KYC pipeline development — yes. For production B2B sales / actual KYC sweeps, register a free NTA application ID (takes 1 business day, no commercial restriction). The data_source field on every row makes it trivial to filter curated vs live rows.

Q. What does the NTA kind code mean? A. NTA's kind field is a 3-digit corporate-type code. The actor normalizes it via the published NTA mapping table: 101/201 → public_corporation, 301 → kabushiki_kaisha, 302 → yugen_kaisha, 303 → godo_kaisha, 304 → gomei_kaisha, 305 → goshi_kaisha, 401 → ippan_shadan_houjin, 399/499 → other. Raw kind codes are preserved on every row via the source-URL link.

Q. Why a polite-bot UA instead of a generic crawler UA? A. Japanese open-data agencies (NTA, INPIT/JPO, MoF, BoJ) explicitly invite identified crawlers in their open-data policies. A polite-UA with contact email is the published convention and avoids the rate-limit tightening that anonymous traffic occasionally triggers during peak hours.

🔗 Related Actors

Part of NexGenData's APAC corporate-registry / KYC suite — same record shape and pay-as-you-go tier across jurisdictions:

• Taiwan MOEA Company Registry (統一編號) — live MOEA GCIS open data by 8-digit 統一編號, plus a name resolver for major firms.
• Hong Kong Companies Registry — HK CR number & director lookup (English + Traditional-Chinese names, status, directors).
• Singapore ACRA Company Lookup — live data.gov.sg ACRA dataset, bulk UEN / name search with SSIC codes.

Use the 法人番号 here as the join key, then chain into the Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore registry actors for a cross-jurisdiction APAC KYC sweep.

🏷️ About NexGenData

NexGenData publishes production-grade actors for finance, compliance, KYC, IP, and regulatory data — sourced directly from government and exchange portals, with stable schemas, polite-bot etiquette, and the same cross-actor join keys (corporate numbers, LEIs, CIKs) wherever possible. Find the full fleet at https://apify.com/nexgendata.