Japan Seal (Registered-Seal Change) Registration Notification (印鑑（改印）届書)

This file is the source-review record for this document version, per the manual-source-review-v1 practice.

Current claim

• status: draft
• verification.method: manual-source-review-v1
• verification.lastVerifiedAt: 2026-07-09
• maturity.level: structural-reference

Why this candidate, this cycle

This is the recurring "GovSchema Standard Research" cycle (GOV-2035). Its own phased brief names the same six generic verticals (DMV, Business Formation, Visa, Passport, Taxes, National ID & Civic Documents) every prior cycle of this same recurring issue has already named. Per this registry's established precedent for this recurring issue (GOV-1546, GOV-1574, GOV-2019, GOV-2026, and others), the brief was treated as a prompt to re-scan CATALOG.md's own "Known Gaps & Opportunities" section fresh, not as a literal, always-current to-do list.

That section's own item 6 (built up across GOV-2005/GOV-2012/GOV-2019/GOV-2026) already named the strongest, most concretely-sourced open candidate directly: Japan's Seal Registration Notification (印鑑届書), flagged since GOV-2019 as an open companion-schedule candidate on the same houmukyoku.moj.go.jp index page that both of this registry's published Houmukyoku company-formation schemas (jp/houmukyoku/stock-company-establishment-registration-application, jp/houmukyoku/limited-liability-company-establishment-registration-application) were sourced from, and referenced by name in both of those schemas' own documents[]/scope notes as a related-but-out-of-scope filing. This cycle picked it up directly rather than re-screening for a brand-new candidate, since it was already confirmed live and well-sourced by two prior cycles' own screening notes.

Sources examined

• Document (id, version): jp/houmukyoku/seal-registration-notification / 1.0.0
• Spec version: GovSchema 0.3.0
• Authority: Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局), Ministry of Justice (houmukyoku.moj.go.jp).
• Index page (fetched live, HTTP 200): https://houmukyoku.moj.go.jp/homu/COMMERCE_11-1.html ("商業・法人登記の 申請書様式") — its own dedicated 印鑑届書 row links one blank template plus thirteen separate per-entity-type worked-example ("記載例") PDFs, each labeled distinctly from the blank-template link itself (unlike the incorporation-application rows this registry's two sibling schemas were sourced from, where the first PDF linked from each row turned out on inspection to be a worked example).
• Blank template (fetched live, HTTP 200, 81174 bytes, 1 page): https://houmukyoku.moj.go.jp/homu/content/001188212.pdf — labeled on the index page as the stock/共通 template ("様式") common to every entity type the Bureau registers, not tied to one specific company type. An Excel edition (001206590.xlsx) is linked alongside it and was not separately opened.
• Worked example, stock company (fetched live, HTTP 200, 243835 bytes): https://houmukyoku.moj.go.jp/homu/content/001188608.pdf — "第１　株式会社" section, used to cross-check the blank template's field labels against a filled specimen for the simplest (individual submitter, no corporate representative) case.
• Worked example, membership company / 持分会社 (fetched live, HTTP 200, 346332 bytes, 6 pages): https://houmukyoku.moj.go.jp/homu/content/001188610.pdf — "第３　持分会社" section, the category covering Godo Kaisha (合同会社), whose own worked examples specifically illustrate the corporate-representative-member/ performing-officer (職務執行者) scenario this document scopes out (see below) across four of its own six pages, plus a page-6 reference table of each membership-company subtype's own capacity-title vocabulary.
• Retrieved / reviewed: 2026-07-09.
• Reviewer: GovSchema Engineering (Standards Engineer — initial authoring source review).

Bot-mitigation note

Unlike three prior Japan cycles' finding that houmukyoku.moj.go.jp returns HTTP 403 to a plain default-curl User-Agent, this cycle's direct curl -I check against the blank template's own URL (no browser User-Agent) returned HTTP 200 on the first attempt — a narrower gate than previously assumed, not applied uniformly across every path on this domain. A browser User-Agent (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/124.0 Safari/537.36) was used regardless, for consistency with the sibling schemas' documented workaround and to avoid re-testing the boundary of which specific paths are gated. node tools/verify-sources.mjs registry/jp/houmukyoku/seal-registration-notification/1.0.0 reports "1 directory, 5 URLs checked, 0 warning(s), 0 allowlisted, all clear" — confirmed directly, immediately before opening this PR.

Extraction method

The blank template has zero AcroForm/Widget annotations (confirmed via pdfjs-dist's getAnnotations() on its single page) but a full, genuine Japanese text layer, extracted with pdfjs-dist (a throwaway /tmp scratch install, not added to this repo's tracked package.json) via getTextContent() — the same technique already used for this registry's other Japan documents. Both worked examples were extracted the same way and diffed against the blank template's own field labels to confirm every row's meaning and to identify which annotated notes ((注１)–(注４), printed at the foot of the form) govern which row:

• (注１) — the physical seal impression's own size constraint (a 1cm–3cm square), not a data field.
• (注２) — seal-card carry-over instructions → sealCardCarriedOver, priorSealCardNumber, predecessorName.
• (注３) — instructions distinguishing the submitter-files-in-person case from the agent-files case (who signs, whose personal seal is affixed) → filedByAgent and the embedded power-of-attorney block.
• (注４) — the personal seal certificate attachment requirement, and its waiver when reusing the certificate already attached to a simultaneous registration application → reuseSealCertificateFromIncorporationApplication and the personalSealCertificateFile document entry.

An internal form-tracking code printed in one corner ("（乙号・８）", a form-numbering convention analogous to a page/exhibit code) and the office-use processing boxes ("印鑑処理番号", "受付 調査 入力 校合") are Bureau-internal, not applicant-supplied data, and are excluded as non-fields — the same treatment this registry gives every other document's office-use-only box.

What the form maps to

• 商号・名称 / 本店・主たる事務所 → entityName / headOfficeAddress — the header's own entity-identity rows, worded to cover both a company (商号) and a non-company entity such as an NPO or incorporated association/ foundation (名称), since the blank template is common to every entity type the Bureau registers, not company-specific.
• 会社法人等番号 → corporateNumber, optional; the worked stock-company example's own annotation states it is filled in only if already known and is unnecessary when this notification accompanies a brand-new entity's own establishment registration (no number has yet been assigned at that point) — directly parallel to how a brand-new entity has no seal card yet to carry over (sealCardCarriedOver: false).
• 資格 → submitterCapacity, modelled as free text rather than an enum. The blank template itself prints a baseline choice (代表取締役・取締役・ 代表理事・理事) plus a blank parenthetical for any other capacity; the membership-company worked example's own page-6 reference table fills in that parenthetical's meaning for 合名会社/合資会社/合同会社 (社員／代表社員／ 無限責任社員／有限責任社員／清算人／代表清算人, varying by subtype), but no single source examined enumerates every entity type's own full title set (e.g. NPOs', cooperatives', and school/medical corporations' own capacity titles are not covered by that table) — free text was chosen for the same reason methodOfPublicNotice was modelled as free text in the sibling incorporation schemas.
• 印鑑提出者「住所」「氏名」「フリガナ」「生年月日」 → submitterAddress/submitterName/submitterNameFurigana/ submitterDateOfBirth — the seal submitter is always a natural person, even when standing in for a corporate representative member/director (see scope note below), so submitterDateOfBirth is a plain date field throughout.
• 印鑑カードの引継ぎ checkboxes → sealCardCarriedOver (boolean), gating priorSealCardNumber/predecessorName via requiredWhen — irrelevant (false) for a brand-new entity, since no seal card yet exists.
• 届出人 checkboxes (印鑑提出者本人／代理人) → filedByAgent (boolean), gating the notification's own embedded power-of-attorney block (agentName, agentAddress, powerOfAttorneyDate, delegatesSealNotification, delegatesDocumentReturnRequest) via requiredWhen. Unlike the sibling incorporation schemas' own agent/proxy fields (sourced only from a worked example, since the incorporation templates' blank forms either omit or under-annotate that row), this seal notification's blank template itself prints the complete power-of-attorney box verbatim, including both of its own independent delegated-power checkboxes — a stronger, directly-blank-template-sourced finding than either sibling schema's own agent/proxy fields.
• 市区町村長作成の印鑑証明書は，登記申請書に添付のものを援用する checkbox → reuseSealCertificateFromIncorporationApplication (boolean), gating the personalSealCertificateFile document via requiredWhen (equals: false) — the form's own explicit waiver of a separate certificate attachment when filed simultaneously with a registration application that already encloses one.
• （地方）法務局 支局・出張所 / 年月日届出 → destinationLegalAffairsBureauOffice / notificationDate — the filing block, directly parallel to the sibling schemas' own legalAffairsBureauOffice/applicationDate fields.

What is NOT modelled (out of scope), and why

• The corporate-representative-member (職務執行者) scenario — when the entity's representative (e.g. a Godo Kaisha's 代表社員) is itself a corporation, the individual acting in its stead (職務執行者, "performing officer") files this notification instead, with materially different attachment requirements the membership-company worked example documents across four of its own six pages: a registered-matters certificate for the corporate representative member (waivable by citing its own company/ corporate number, the same waiver this registry's jp/houmukyoku/limited-liability-company-establishment-registration-application sibling schema already models for its own corporateMemberRegisteredMattersCertificateFile); and, specifically when the performing officer is not itself the corporate member's own representative, an additional 保証書 ("guarantee letter") from that corporate member's own representative certifying the performing officer's seal — a distinct supporting-document type this document does not model at all. The source itself treats this as a clearly bounded, separate filing scenario (its own worked-example set gives it four dedicated pages, distinct from the individual-submitter case's own one page), so it is scoped out entirely for this v1.0.0 rather than partially modelled, and flagged here as a well-sourced candidate for a future companion-schedule cycle (the same worked example, 001188610.pdf, already identifies and illustrates it).
• The Excel (.xlsx) edition of the blank template (001206590.xlsx, linked alongside the PDF at the same index-page row) — not opened or cross-checked this cycle; the PDF's text-layer content is the basis for this document.
• The physical seal impression itself (届出印) — printed on the template as a box for the actual ink stamp, not data the applicant supplies as text; excluded as a non-field, consistent with how this registry excludes every other document's physical-signature/stamp box.
• Office-use-only boxes (印鑑処理番号; 受付 調査 入力 校合; the 「（乙号・８）」 internal form-tracking code) — Bureau-internal, not applicant-supplied; excluded as non-fields.

Mock-data test run

Per this registry's established practice, a one-off Node.js script (not committed to the repo) checking every type/required/requiredWhen/ validation constraint in schema.json was run against two realistic scenarios plus four negative controls:

``` [PASS] Scenario A: brand-new Godo Kaisha, seal submitted alongside incorporation application, submitter files in person, no seal card yet, cert reused from incorporation filing [PASS] Scenario B: existing stock company changing its seal, agent files, seal card carried over, own seal certificate attached [PASS] Negative 1: filedByAgent true but agentName/agentAddress/ powerOfAttorneyDate/delegatesSealNotification/ delegatesDocumentReturnRequest missing errors: missing required field: agentName; missing required field: agentAddress; missing required field: powerOfAttorneyDate; missing required field: delegatesSealNotification; missing required field: delegatesDocumentReturnRequest [PASS] Negative 2: sealCardCarriedOver true but priorSealCardNumber/ predecessorName missing errors: missing required field: priorSealCardNumber; missing required field: predecessorName [PASS] Negative 3: reuseSealCertificateFromIncorporationApplication false but no cert attached errors: missing required document: personalSealCertificateFile [PASS] Negative 4: missing top-level required field (entityName) errors: missing required field: entityName

All scenarios behaved as expected. ```

Scenario A models a brand-new Godo Kaisha ("夢見合同会社") filing this notification alongside its own establishment registration application — no seal card yet (new entity), submitter files personally, and the personal seal certificate is waived via reuseSealCertificateFromIncorporationApplication since it already accompanies the registration application. Scenario B models an unrelated, already-existing stock company ("丙山物産株式会社", reusing the membership-company worked example's own fictional corporate name for continuity) changing its representative's seal years after incorporation — seal card carried over from a named predecessor, filed through an agent (exercising the embedded power-of-attorney block in full), with its own personal seal certificate actually attached. The four negative controls confirm the check script enforces every requiredWhen gate (agent block, seal-card carry-over, certificate waiver) and a top-level required field rather than trivially passing everything. No defects were found in the schema itself.

Both registry validators were run against the schema document and pass:

`` $ node tools/validate-ajv.mjs registry/jp/houmukyoku/seal-registration-notification/1.0.0/schema.json ok registry/jp/houmukyoku/seal-registration-notification/1.0.0/schema.json [v0.3] 1/1 document(s) validated against the meta-schema (ajv 2020-12). ``

node tools/verify-sources.mjs registry/jp/houmukyoku/seal-registration-notification/1.0.0 ("1 directory, 5 URLs checked, 0 warning(s), 0 allowlisted, all clear") was re-run clean immediately before opening this PR.

Scope and jurisdiction notes

• This is Japan's fifth document in the registry (after jp/isa/certificate-of-eligibility-application, GOV-2005; jp/j-lis/individual-number-card-issuing-application, GOV-2012; jp/houmukyoku/stock-company-establishment-registration-application, GOV-2019; and jp/houmukyoku/limited-liability-company-establishment-registration-application, GOV-2026) and its second in the houmukyoku authority segment's own Business Formation vertical, but this document is a companion/supporting filing, not a new company-type application — Japan's vertical count remains 3 of 6 (Visa, National ID, Business Formation), unchanged by this cycle.
• Reuses the existing houmukyoku (法務局, Legal Affairs Bureau) authority segment already established by both sibling company-formation schemas. jurisdiction.level is national for the same reason as those siblings (the Legal Affairs Bureau system operates nationwide, even though a specific notification is filed at a local branch/sub-office selected via destinationLegalAffairsBureauOffice).
• process.type is filing (この届書 — "this notification/filing"), distinct from the sibling schemas' registration, since this document itself does not register a new entity — it registers or changes a seal, whether or not that happens to coincide with an entity's own establishment registration.
• version set to 1.0.0: this document models one complete, self-contained procedural template in full for its own scoped scenario (individual seal submitter, with or without an agent) — the Legal Affairs Bureau publishes only one blank 印鑑届書 template common to every entity type, so there is no sibling-variant ambiguity to flag, unlike the Kabushiki Kaisha incorporation application's four board/subscription-method variants.

Re-verification

Per the practice's cadence, nextReviewBy is set to 2027-01-09 (6 months). A future review should prioritize the three sibling Kabushiki Kaisha incorporation variants still flagged as open in CATALOG.md's own Known Gaps section, and this document's own out-of-scope corporate-representative-member (職務執行者) scenario as a companion-schedule candidate, both on the same houmukyoku.moj.go.jp index page.