The practical mechanics, for investors outside Japan
Screening for Japanese companies is the easy part. The question that follows — how do I actually buy this? — has a more awkward answer than it does in most markets, and it is the point where a lot of overseas interest in Japanese equities quietly stops. This page covers the routes that exist, the trading rules that catch first-timers out, and what happens to your dividends.
The large domestic brokers — SBI, Rakuten Securities, Monex — are built for residents of Japan. Account opening generally requires a Japanese address, a residence card (zairyū card) for foreign nationals, and a My Number tax identification number. Nationality is not the barrier; residency is. If you don't live in Japan, this route is usually closed, and it is the reason the rest of this page exists.
A small number of global brokers route orders directly to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, letting you buy the actual listed shares in yen. This is the only route that gives you access to the full universe of roughly 3,800 listed companies — including the small and micro caps where Japan's deep-value opportunities tend to sit, and which have no ADR and appear in no ETF.
Interactive Brokers and Saxo are the two most commonly cited names with genuine TSE access. Availability differs by your country of residence, and both maintain product and eligibility lists that change over time — check your own eligibility directly with the broker rather than trusting any third-party summary, including this one.
We have no affiliate, referral or commercial relationship with any broker, and we receive nothing if you open an account anywhere. These are named because they are the practical answers to the question, not because we are paid to name them.
A number of large Japanese companies — Toyota, Sony, Mitsubishi UFJ, Honda and others — have American Depositary Receipts trading in the US. Convenient if your existing broker is your only option, but the coverage is limited to a few dozen of the largest names, and many trade thinly on OTC markets with wide spreads. For a value screen aimed at overlooked small caps, ADRs will almost never contain what you found.
Broad Japan ETFs (and currency-hedged variants) give you the market, not a company. They solve the access problem completely and the stock-selection problem not at all. If your interest in Japan is thematic rather than company-specific, this is the low-friction answer and there is no shame in stopping here.
This is the big one. Since October 2018 the trading unit for domestic stocks has been standardised at 100 shares, so orders are placed in 100-share increments. A stock quoted at ¥3,000 therefore requires roughly ¥300,000 — on the order of $2,000 — for a single minimum position. Screens that surface cheap-looking small caps can produce names with a surprisingly high entry ticket, and this catches out investors used to buying single shares. Some brokers offer fractional or odd-lot (tan'gen miman) dealing for domestic clients, but you should not assume it is available to you.
The TSE trades 09:00–11:30 and 12:30–15:30 JST, with a one-hour midday break. The 15:30 close is new: it was extended by thirty minutes on 5 November 2024, the first change to the closing time in seventy years, and a closing auction now runs from 15:25 to 15:30. Older guides still saying 15:00 are out of date. From the US or Europe this is an overnight market, so limit orders rather than market orders are the norm.
Japan moved to a two-business-day settlement cycle in July 2019. Note that Japan keeps its own holiday calendar — including Golden Week in late April and early May, and a run of autumn holidays — during which the market is closed and settlement does not progress.
You are taking currency exposure whether or not you want it. Your broker will either convert at the point of trade or let you hold a yen balance; the second is usually cheaper if you intend to trade more than once. A position that rises 20% in yen can still lose you money in your home currency, which over the past few years has not been a hypothetical.
Dividends on listed Japanese shares paid to non-resident individuals with small holdings are generally subject to Japanese withholding tax at 15.315% (15% plus a 2.1% reconstruction surtax). Tax treaties often reduce this — under the US–Japan treaty the rate for portfolio dividends is typically 10% — but treaty relief is not automatic: it normally requires a form filed through your broker, and some brokers handle this well while others do not. You may also owe tax at home on the same income, with or without a credit for what Japan already took.
This is a description of how the mechanics generally work, not tax advice. Rates, treaty eligibility and filing requirements depend on your specific circumstances — confirm with your broker and a qualified adviser in your own jurisdiction.
Japan's most distinctive opportunities — companies sitting on more cash than their entire stock market value — are concentrated in small and micro caps. Many of these barely trade: on some days only a handful of shares change hands, and the gap between the buy price and the sell price can be wide. Buying in is usually easy. Selling a meaningful position back out, without pushing the price down as you do it, can take much longer. This is one reason the opportunity exists in the first place — larger investors mostly can't use it either.
Katana is a free screener built directly on EDINET annual filings — no login, English UI, and presets that cite their methodology. If you haven't run a screen yet, that is the step before this page matters.
New to the market itself? The companion guide covers how Japanese disclosure works and what makes this market unusual.