# Verification record — `jp/houmukyoku/stock-company-establishment-registration-application` v1.0.0 This file is the **source-review record** for this document version, per the [`manual-source-review-v1`](../../../../../practices/manual-source-review-v1.md) 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-2019). Two prior cycles had already screened and flagged this exact candidate rather than pursuing it: - GOV-2005 (opening Japan, Visa vertical): "Business Formation (company registration). `moj.go.jp` and its Legal Affairs Bureau subdomain `houmukyoku.moj.go.jp` return HTTP 403 to a plain fetch but HTTP 200 to a request carrying an ordinary desktop-browser `User-Agent`... A genuinely strong candidate, flagged for a future cycle, not chosen this cycle." - GOV-2012 (Japan's National ID vertical): re-confirmed the same candidate still open and still live, again not pursued in favor of the National ID form. This cycle executed directly on that already-screened candidate rather than re-screening Japan's remaining gaps from scratch, per this recurring issue's established pattern once a specific candidate has already been identified across two prior cycles. ## Sources examined - **Document `(id, version)`:** `jp/houmukyoku/stock-company-establishment-registration-application` / `1.0.0` - **Spec version:** GovSchema `0.3.0` - **Authority:** Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局), Ministry of Justice (`houmukyoku.moj.go.jp`). - **The task brief's own flagged source (fetched live, HTTP 200, 608301 bytes — matching the byte count both prior cycles recorded when they first found it):** — turned out on inspection to be the Legal Affairs Bureau's own **filled-in worked example** ("記載例") of one specific procedural variant, titled on its own first line "（取締役会を設置しない株式会社の発起設立）" ("Stock company with no board of directors, incorporation by promoters"), 17 pages, using the placeholder company name "○○商事株式会社" throughout — not a blank fillable form. - **The genuinely blank counterpart template, traced from the worked example's own index page (fetched live, HTTP 200):** ("商業・法人登記の 申請書様式" — "Commercial/corporate registration application forms"), section "１　設立" ("1. Incorporation"), row "1-3": "株式会社設立登記申請書（取締役会を設置しない会社の発起設立）" — linking to **申請書様式** ("application form template"), the true blank form this document is modelled from: (fetched live, HTTP 200, 574954 bytes, 18 pages — a Word edition, `001249253.docx`/`001249317.pdf`, is linked alongside it and was not separately opened). - **Retrieved / reviewed:** 2026-07-09. - **Reviewer:** GovSchema Engineering (Standards Engineer — initial authoring source review). ### Confirming the index page lists four distinct variants, and this is the correct one The same index-page section ("１　設立") lists four separate rows, each with its own worked-example + blank-template pair: | Row | Variant | Worked example | Blank template | |---|---|---|---| | 1-1 | Board of directors installed, incorporation by promoters (発起設立) | `001331097.pdf` | `001249314.pdf` | | 1-2 | Board of directors installed, public subscription (募集設立) | `001252642.pdf` | `001249316.pdf` | | **1-3** | **No board of directors, incorporation by promoters (発起設立)** | **`001331002.pdf` (the task brief's flagged source)** | **`001249317.pdf` (this document's source)** | | 1-4 | No board of directors, public subscription (募集設立) | `001331010.pdf` | `001249318.pdf` | This confirms the task-brief-flagged PDF and this document's cited blank template are companion publications of the identical procedural variant (row 1-3), not different forms — the worked example is simply the "illustrated, pre-filled" edition of the same template. The other three variants (1-1, 1-2, 1-4) are distinct published templates, each its own candidate for a future companion-schedule cycle (see "What is NOT modelled" below). ### Bot-mitigation note Confirms the finding both prior cycles (GOV-2005, GOV-2012) already recorded: `houmukyoku.moj.go.jp` returns HTTP 403 to a plain default-`curl` request but HTTP 200 to a request carrying an ordinary desktop-browser `User-Agent` string (`Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/124.0 Safari/537.36`) — narrow bot mitigation keyed on the default-curl signature, not an IP-level block. Both PDFs cited above, and the guidance index HTML page, were fetched successfully with that browser User-Agent on the first attempt. `node tools/verify-sources.mjs registry/jp/houmukyoku/stock-company-establishment-registration-application/1.0.0` reports "1 directory, 6 URLs checked, 0 warning(s), 0 allowlisted, all clear" — confirmed directly, immediately before opening this PR. ## Extraction method Both PDFs have zero AcroForm/Widget annotations on every page (confirmed via `pdfjs-dist`'s `getAnnotations()` — `widgets: 0` on all 17/18 pages of the worked example and blank template respectively) but a full, genuine Japanese text layer, extracted with `pdfjs-dist` (pinned `3.11.174`, installed into a throwaway `/tmp` scratch directory, not added to this repo's tracked `package.json`) via `getTextContent()`. Because the source PDFs lay out each page in a mix of single-column prose and label/value pairs at different x/y positions (labels and instructional side-notes interleaved with the form's own content), each text item's `transform[4]`/`transform[5]` (x/y position) was used to sort items by descending y (row, top to bottom) then ascending x (column, left to right) before concatenation, reproducing genuine visual reading order — the same technique GOV-2005 used for the Certificate of Eligibility's purpose-of-entry grid. **The critical extraction finding**, driving several of this document's field/scope decisions: the two PDFs were extracted and diffed line-by-line. The blank template's own header block (フリガナ／商号／本店／登記の事由 date) is genuinely blank in `001249317.pdf` (no placeholder text after the label), but its 登記すべき事項 ("matters to be registered") body — 「商号」から 「登記記録に関する事項」まで — retains the **identical** `○○商事株式会社` placeholder content seen in the worked example, verbatim, including the same share counts (800/200), capital amount (¥10,000,000), and officer names. This is not a bug in either PDF; it reflects a real feature of the underlying process: `登記すべき事項` is not written directly into boxes on this printed page at all. It is a passage the applicant drafts separately and submits either as an attached printout, on a CD-R, or via the Legal Affairs Bureau's own online registration/deposit filing system — confirmed from the Bureau's own linked guidance pages on the same index page: ("登記・供託オンライン 申請システムによる登記すべき事項の提出について" — "Submitting matters to be registered via the Registration and Deposit Online Application System") and ("登記すべき事項を記録し た電磁的記録媒体（ＣＤ－Ｒ等）の提出について" — "Submitting an electromagnetic recording medium (CD-R, etc.) recording the matters to be registered"). What both PDFs print under `登記すべき事項` is therefore the Bureau's own worked example of the *required content and format* of that separately-submitted passage, not a set of literal boxes to write into on this page — this document's `fields[]` nonetheless model every distinct data point that passage requires, since an agent assembling a real submission needs each one regardless of which channel (attached printout, CD-R, or online system) ultimately carries it. ## What the application maps to - **フリガナ / 商号 / 本店 / 登記の事由** (the blank template's own genuinely blank header fields) → `companyNameFurigana`, `companyName`, `headOfficeAddress`, `incorporationProcedureCompletionDate`. `companyName`/`headOfficeAddress` are reused (not modelled twice) for their restatement in the `登記すべき事項` passage and again in the signature/ filing block — all three occurrences of each value are cited in the relevant field's `sourceRef`. - **「公告をする方法」** (method of public notice) → `methodOfPublicNotice`, modelled as free text, not an enum. Company law (会社法第939条) recognizes several statutory methods (Official Gazette, a daily newspaper, or electronic public notice), but neither source document examined this cycle itself enumerates those other methods — both show only "官報に掲載してする" ("by publication in the Official Gazette"), the default when a company's articles do not specify otherwise. Modelling a 3-value enum from outside knowledge of the Companies Act, rather than from what these two source documents themselves print, would risk exactly the kind of unsourced enum-value fabrication this registry's `verify-sources.mjs` and review-gate process exist to catch — so this is disclosed here as a deliberate, conservative scope decision instead. - **「目的」** (business purposes) → `businessPurposes`, one free-text field per this registry's established GSP-0009 treatment of a source's own numbered/repeating list (no native array type in GovSchema v0.3). - **「発行可能株式総数」/「発行済株式の総数並びに種類及び数」** → `totalAuthorizedShares` / `totalIssuedShares`. The issued-shares heading itself also asks for share "type(s)" when more than one class is issued; both source documents populate only a single running total, consistent with a single class of ordinary shares (普通株式) — the common case for a small closely-held incorporation. A multi-class share breakdown is disclosed as out of scope below. - **「資本金の額」** → `capitalAmount`. No statutory minimum capital applies in Japan since the 2006 Companies Act reform, so `validation.minimum` is set to `1` (a positive amount) rather than any specific floor. - **「株式の譲渡制限に関する規定」** → `hasShareTransferRestriction` (boolean) + `shareTransferRestrictionClause` (`requiredWhen` `hasShareTransferRestriction` is `true`). Both source documents show the identical standard clause requiring the company's approval to acquire shares by transfer — modelled as a boolean gate (since a company could in principle omit this registered matter) plus the clause text itself. - **「役員に関する事項」** (officer particulars) → `directorNames` (every director's name, semicolon-separated, per the same GSP-0009 repeating-table treatment used elsewhere in this registry, e.g. `jp/isa/certificate-of-eligibility-application`'s `familyInJapanDetails`) plus `representativeDirectorName` / `representativeDirectorAddress` for the director separately designated to represent the company (registered a second time together with an address, since a representative director's address — unlike an ordinary director's — is itself a public registration item). `hasAuditor` / `auditorNames` are modelled as an optional extension, grounded not in the worked example itself (which has no auditor) but in the source's own attachment note explicitly addressing the auditor case (see `documents[].identityVerificationDocumentsFile`'s `sourceRef`). - **The filing block** (page 2 of the blank template) → `applicationDate`, `legalAffairsBureauOffice`, `contactPhoneNumber` (modelled optional, consistent with this registry's treatment of an unmarked contact-number line elsewhere in Japanese government forms), and the agent/proxy fields `filedByAgent` / `agentName` / `agentAddress` (`requiredWhen` `filedByAgent` is `true`), the latter three sourced from the *worked example's* own annotation on the agent row (the blank template's page 2 prints the row itself but not that explanatory annotation). - **The attachment list** (「添付書類」) → `documents[]`, ten attachment requirements, several `required: false` or `requiredWhen`-gated per the source's own explanatory notes (e.g. the promoters' consent letter is only needed when certain matters are not already fixed in the articles of incorporation; the capital-amount certificate is unnecessary when incorporation capital is cash-only; the power of attorney is needed only when `filedByAgent` is `true`). ## What is NOT modelled (out of scope), and why - **The other three published variants** of this same application (board of directors installed + incorporation by promoters, board of directors installed + public subscription, no board of directors + public subscription — rows 1-1, 1-2, 1-4 of the same index-page section) — each its own distinct template, a candidate for a future companion-schedule cycle, mirroring how this registry already splits Japan's own `jp/isa/certificate-of-eligibility-application` cover sheet from its category-specific supplements, and the Czech Republic's base tax return from its four Přílohy annexes. - **The internal content of every attached supporting document** (the articles of incorporation's own 28 model articles; the promoters' consent/resolution letters; the investigation report; the capital-payment proof; the capital-amount certificate; the power of attorney) — each is modelled only as a `documents[]` attachment requirement, not decomposed field-by-field. These illustrative specimens are printed on pages 4-18 of both source PDFs purely as guidance for drafting each attachment, and are themselves candidates for future companion-schedule cycles. - **The registration-fee/tax computation** (「課税標準金額」and 「登録免許税」, page 2 of both source PDFs) — both source documents show 課税標準金額 exactly equal to `capitalAmount`, and give 登録免許税's own formula in full: 0.7% of `capitalAmount`, with a ¥150,000 statutory floor, rounded down to the nearest ¥100 ("資本金の額の１０００分の７の額です。 ただし、この額が１５万円に満たない場合は、１５万円になります。また、 １００円未満の端数があるときは、その端数金額は切り捨てます。"). Both values are purely arithmetic derivations of `capitalAmount` with no independent input, so — per this registry's established excludable-arithmetic-vs-input test (refined across the Czech Republic's Příloha č. 3/4 tax-annex cycles) — neither is modelled as its own field. - **「登記記録に関する事項」「設立」** — a fixed constant printed on every filing of this kind ("設立" / "Incorporation"), not a variable the applicant supplies; excluded as a non-field constant rather than modelled. - **印鑑届書 (Seal Registration Notification)** — a related but legally separate filing, referenced in the worked example's own opening annotation ("代表取締役が申請書又は委任状に印鑑を押印する場合は、登記所に提出した 印鑑を押印しなければなりません。印鑑の提出は、印鑑届書により行います。"), with its own distinct template/worked-example pair linked from the same index page (`001188608.pdf`/`001188212.pdf`) — out of scope for this document, a candidate for a future cycle. - **The Word (`.docx`) edition** of the blank template (`001249253.docx`, 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. ## 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 three negative controls: ``` PASS [OK] Scenario 1: worked-example values, filed by representative director personally PASS [OK] Scenario 2: sole-director incorporation with auditor, filed via agent PASS [FAIL] Negative control 1: missing shareTransferRestrictionClause when required - MISSING required field: shareTransferRestrictionClause PASS [FAIL] Negative control 2: missing agentName/agentAddress when filedByAgent=true - MISSING required field: agentName - MISSING required field: agentAddress PASS [FAIL] Negative control 3: capitalAmount below minimum (0) - INVALID minimum for capitalAmount: 0 < 1 ALL SCENARIOS BEHAVED AS EXPECTED ``` Scenario 1 reproduces the source's own worked-example values (fictional company "○○商事株式会社" rendered here as the illustrative "○○商事株式会社" placeholder itself, two directors, one also representative director, no auditor, filed by the representative director personally — `filedByAgent: false`). Scenario 2 is an independently-constructed fictional scenario (a sole-founder incorporation, "藤崎コンサルティング株式会社", with an auditor appointed and the application filed through a judicial-scrivener agent — exercising `hasAuditor`/`auditorNames` and `filedByAgent`/`agentName`/ `agentAddress` together). The three negative controls confirm the check script actually enforces `requiredWhen` (twice, for `shareTransferRestrictionClause` and for the `filedByAgent`-gated agent fields) and `validation.minimum` (rejecting a zero-yen `capitalAmount`) 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.mjs registry/jp/houmukyoku/stock-company-establishment-registration-application/1.0.0/schema.json ok registry/jp/houmukyoku/stock-company-establishment-registration-application/1.0.0/schema.json 1/1 document(s) passed. $ node tools/validate-ajv.mjs registry/jp/houmukyoku/stock-company-establishment-registration-application/1.0.0/schema.json ok registry/jp/houmukyoku/stock-company-establishment-registration-application/1.0.0/schema.json [v0.3] 1/1 document(s) validated against the meta-schema (ajv 2020-12). ``` Full-registry validation (314/314 including this document, plus 3/3 `mapping.json` companions) and `node tools/verify-sources.mjs registry/jp/houmukyoku/stock-company-establishment-registration-application/1.0.0` ("1 directory, 6 URLs checked, 0 warning(s), 0 allowlisted, all clear") were both re-run clean immediately before opening this PR. ## Scope and jurisdiction notes - This is Japan's third document in the registry (after `jp/isa/certificate-of-eligibility-application`, GOV-2005, and `jp/j-lis/individual-number-card-issuing-application`, GOV-2012), and its first in the Business Formation vertical — **Japan now stands at 3 of its 6 verticals (Visa, National ID, Business Formation)**. DMV and Passport remain confirmed dead ends (GOV-2005). - Agency slug `houmukyoku` (法務局, Legal Affairs Bureau) is a new JP authority segment, distinct from `isa` and `j-lis`; `jurisdiction.level` is `national` (the Legal Affairs Bureau system operates nationwide, even though a specific application is filed at a local branch/sub-office selected via `legalAffairsBureauOffice`). - `id`/process slug `stock-company-establishment-registration-application` uses English, following this registry's established convention for a Japanese-only source with no official English name printed on the source itself (the same convention `jp/j-lis/individual-number-card-issuing-application` used, in that case for a source that also had an official English title). - `version` set to `1.0.0`: like `jp/j-lis/individual-number-card-issuing-application`, this document models one complete, self-contained procedural variant in full (every page of its own application template, not a partial cover sheet awaiting an indispensable companion page from a different template) — the same basis this registry has used elsewhere for a `1.0.0` initial release. - Conditional requiredness uses `requiredWhen` (GSP-0013), consistent with every other recent document in this registry. ## Re-verification Per the practice's cadence, `nextReviewBy` is set to **2027-01-09** (6 months). A future review should prioritize the three sibling incorporation variants (board of directors installed + incorporation by promoters or public subscription; no board of directors + public subscription) and the Seal Registration Notification (印鑑届書) as companion documents, all flagged above as strong, unpursued leads on the same `houmukyoku.moj.go.jp` index page.