The Japanese invoice registration number

The format

The registration number is the letter T followed by thirteen digits. For a company those thirteen digits are its 法人番号 (corporate number), the identifier every Japanese administration already knows it by; for an individual or an unincorporated association they are a number issued for this purpose.

• TFixed prefix. It is part of the number, not decoration.
• 1Check digit — and it comes first, not last.
• 010001001359The twelve digits it checks.

The check is computed over those twelve digits: read right to left, odd positions count once and even positions twice, and the check digit is 9 minus that sum modulo 9. Like the ABN, it can be verified offline.

Why the register exists

Japan moved to a qualified invoice system (インボイス制度) in October 2023. Since then a business can only reclaim consumption tax on a purchase if the invoice carries the supplier's registration number and the supplier is a registered qualified invoice issuer.

That gives the register a property none of the European company registers has: presence in the file is the answer. A number that is not there is not a registered issuer, and an invoice quoting it will not support a deduction.

Finding the company behind the number

The public register

The NTA publishes the whole register every month, as of the end of the previous month, in CSV, XML and JSON, zipped and signed, with no account. Daily difference files cover the forty days between editions. It is free, complete, and keyed by exactly the number you hold.

What is published, and what is not

For a corporation: the name, the head office address, the registration date, and the cancellation or lapse date when there is one. For an individual: only what the person consented to publish, which is often nothing but the number and the dates. That is a privacy rule, not a gap in the data, and it is why a lookup on a sole trader's number may confirm the registration without naming anyone.

A Japanese address is published as a single string, with the prefecture and municipality given separately as codes and no postcode at all. There is no locality to split out, so Vatlas returns the address as it is written.

Japan-specific pitfalls

• Keep the T. It is part of the registration number. The thirteen digits alone are the corporate number, which is a different thing.
• A lapse date is often in the future. 失効年月日 is the day a registration will end; a number carrying one is still valid until then.
• The register is a history, not a snapshot. One number can appear several times in the file, once per event. Only the row flagged as the latest is where the registration stands.
• Most individuals are anonymous. Publication of a personal name is opt-in.
• The corporate number is not the registration. Every Japanese company has a 法人番号; only registered issuers are in this file.

One API, inside Europe and out

Vatlas turns a business tax number into a company record: legal name, national identifier, legal form, status and address. Same call, same shape, for a Japanese registration number and for a French VAT number.

curl "https://api.vatlas.dev/v1/lookup/JPT1010001001359" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $VATLAS_KEY"

Response:

200 OK

{
  "data": {
    "vatNumber": "JPT1010001001359",
    "countryCode": "JP",
    "nationalId": "1010001001359",
    "name": "株式会社エル・アイ・シー",
    "legalForm": null,
    "status": "active",
    "address": {
      "line1": "埼玉県さいたま市緑区大字三室１４４３番地",
      "line2": null,
      "postalCode": null,
      "city": null,
      "country": "JP"
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "source": "NTA",
    "sourceDate": "2026-08-31"
  }
}

meta.sourceDate is the day the register speaks for — the end of the month the edition covers — and not the day you asked.

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Business numbers in other countries

• Australia
• Singapore
• Brazil
• France
• Germany
• All countries

Last updated 8 September 2026.