How do you tell whether a real estate company is licensed? — Ask for the number, then check it on the spot

Ask for the number, then check it on the spot. "Could you tell me your real estate brokerage licence number?" — that is the whole question. For a company with an office in Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's own search service will confirm it. Nationwide, there is the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's system.

This page deals only with how to check that a company is genuine. How to protect yourself in the transaction itself is in Part 1 of our feature on selling property before leaving Japan, and what a valuation figure actually is in Why not just go with the company that quotes the highest price?.

Last updated: ◯ ◯◯ 2026

Why do you need to check the licence?

Because there is nothing standing behind an unlicensed counterparty.

In Japan it is unlawful to carry on a real estate brokerage business without a licence (Real Estate Brokerage Act, Articles 3 and 12). And an unlicensed counterparty has none of the following.

What a licensed company has	An unlicensed counterparty
Administrative supervision (instruction, suspension of business, revocation of the licence)	None
A guarantee scheme (the guarantee deposit for compensation and the like; same Act, Article 64-8)	None
The duty to maintain an office and a full-time licensed real estate transaction specialist	None
Entry on the licensing authority's register — a state of affairs a third party can check	None

"They came through someone I know" is no substitute for a licence. Case 2 in Part 1 of the feature follows an owner who kept paying fees to a "man who knows property" met on social media. When he vanished, there was nothing left to trace. (The cases in the feature are reconstructions of typical patterns of trouble, not accounts of particular incidents.)

How do you check?

Ask for the number first.

Could you tell me your real estate brokerage licence number?

That is all. A licensed company answers at once. Hesitation, no number on the business card, "we are a special case and do not need one" — at that point you are finished.

Once you have the number, check it on a government site. There are two.

Where	What you can check
Bureau of Housing Policy, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, 宅地建物取引業者免許情報提供サービス (Real Estate Brokerage Licence Information Service; takken.metro.tokyo.lg.jp)	(i) Governor-licensed companies whose offices are all within Tokyo; (ii) Minister-licensed companies whose head office is in Tokyo; (iii) notifying businesses with a head office in Tokyo (trust companies deemed to hold a Minister's licence)
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, 建設業者・宅建業者等企業情報検索システム (Corporate Information Search System for Construction and Real Estate Brokerage Businesses; etsuran2.mlit.go.jp)	Minister-licensed companies and prefectural-governor-licensed companies, nationwide

For a Tokyo property the Tokyo service is quicker. Where another prefecture is involved, use the Ministry's system. Both are free and open to anyone.

You can search by trade name or by licence number, so check whether the number the company gave you matches the trade name, address and representative that come back. If they do not line up, the number belongs to someone else.

What does the figure in brackets in a licence number mean?

It is the number of renewals.

Read "Governor of Tokyo (1) No. 113304" like this.

Part	Meaning
Governor of Tokyo	The licensing authority — who issued the licence
(1)	The number of renewals
No. 113304	The serial number under that licensing authority

A real estate brokerage licence runs for five years. Each renewal adds one to the figure in brackets, so (1) is roughly the first five years and (2) roughly five to ten — as a rough guide.

The licensing authority tells you something too.

Wording	Meaning
Governor of ◯◯ Prefecture	Offices within a single prefecture
Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism	Offices in two or more prefectures

A Minister's licence is not the grander of the two. It reflects where the offices are, nothing more.

A higher figure does not mean a safer company

The figure in brackets is a rough guide to how long a company has traded, and it carries no meaning beyond that.

The misreading	What is actually so
(1) is new, so it is risky	A company shows (1) when it is newly established — and equally when it has moved its office and taken the licence out afresh
A high figure means it can be trusted	Trading for a long time and handling your transaction carefully are two different things
A high figure means no disciplinary record	The number tells you nothing about disciplinary records (see below)

What to look at is whether there is a number at all, and whether it matches when you check it. Years in business are a footnote.

Can you find out whether a company has been disciplined?

You can. The licence number will not tell you, but supervisory dispositions are published.

Supervisory dispositions against a real estate brokerage company come at three levels: an instruction, a suspension of business, and revocation of the licence. The licensing authority — a prefectural governor or the Minister — publishes them, and they can be checked on the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's ネガティブ情報等検索サイト (Negative Information Search Site) and on prefectural websites.

For a company licensed by the Governor of Tokyo, the Bureau of Housing Policy publishes the disposition information. If a search by trade name returns nothing, there is no published disposition.

If the company is licensed, what is there if something goes wrong?

There is a guarantee scheme.

A licensed company either deposits a business guarantee bond or becomes a member of a guarantee association and pays a contribution towards the guarantee deposit for compensation. Where a customer suffers loss in dealings with a company that is a member of a guarantee association, the customer may be compensated out of that deposit (Real Estate Brokerage Act, Article 64-8).

There are requirements as to the amount and the procedure, so if you ever come to make a claim, check with the licensing authority or the guarantee association. The point here is simply that dealing with a licensed company leaves a last line of recourse. With an unlicensed counterparty there is none.

What else should you check when selling before you leave?

Checking the licence is the entrance. Use it alongside the defences set out in What the four patterns have in common in the feature.

What to check	How
Whether there is a licence number	Ask for it. Then check it on a government site (this article)
Whether there is paperwork	The brokerage agreement, the breakdown behind the offer price, an itemised statement of costs and deductions. All of it on paper
Whether completion is simultaneous (payment and registration on the same day)	The judicial scrivener confirms receipt of the funds and applies for the registration that same day
Where the money is paid	Only an account in your own name. Refuse cash in hand, and refuse transfers to accounts in the name of relatives or friends
The power of attorney	If you give one, limit its scope. What a power of attorney should say

Our own licence number

It is Governor of Tokyo (1) No. 113304, and it can be checked on either of the sites above. The Representative Director and full-time licensed real estate transaction specialist is Joji Uramatsu (Real Estate Transaction Specialist registration number: Tokyo No. 293544).

Check first, then come and talk to us. That is the right order.

What this article is based on

Point	Source
The prohibition on carrying on a real estate brokerage business without a licence, and on lending one's name	Real Estate Brokerage Act (Act No. 176 of Showa 27 (1952)), Articles 3 and 12
Compensation out of the guarantee deposit for compensation	Same Act, Article 64-8
The term of a real estate brokerage licence (five years)	Same Act, Article 3, paragraph 2
Checking licence information for companies with an office or head office in Tokyo (Governor-licensed, Minister-licensed and notifying businesses)	Bureau of Housing Policy, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, 宅地建物取引業者免許情報提供サービス (Real Estate Brokerage Licence Information Service)
Checking information on Minister-licensed and prefectural-governor-licensed companies	Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, 建設業者・宅建業者等企業情報検索システム (Corporate Information Search System for Construction and Real Estate Brokerage Businesses)
Publication of supervisory dispositions (instruction, suspension of business, revocation of the licence)	Real Estate Brokerage Act, Articles 65 and 66; Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, ネガティブ情報等検索サイト (Negative Information Search Site), and publication by each prefecture

This page provides general information only. The requirements, the amount and the procedure for compensation out of the guarantee deposit depend on the individual case. If you come to make a claim, check with the licensing authority or the guarantee association.

Real estate brokerage is handled by Yotsuba Real Estate Co., Ltd. (Real Estate Brokerage Business Licence, Governor of Tokyo (1) No. 113304), and the preparation of documents for licence and permit applications by Yotsuba Administrative Scrivener Office (gyosei-shoshi), under a separate contract in each case. For registrations we introduce you to a judicial scrivener (shiho-shoshi) and for tax matters to a licensed tax accountant, and you contract with each of them directly. We receive no referral fee.

About the author Joji Uramatsu | Representative Director of Yotsuba Real Estate Co., Ltd. and its full-time Real Estate Transaction Specialist (takken-shi). Administrative scrivener. Former China Bureau Chief of the Mainichi Shimbun, with 34 years as a journalist; posted to China, Taiwan and Thailand in that role. Passed the Certified Social Insurance and Labour Consultant examination (practice scheduled to open September 2026).

Related links

• Feature: selling your property before you leave Japan (Part 1 — the four patterns of trouble)
• Why not just go with the company that quotes the highest price?
• If you are handing over a power of attorney and going home, what should it say?
• Property advice in Chinese
• Contact us