Once you have set up a company, what has to be filed and by when

In short: A corporation becomes a covered workplace for social insurance even if it has only one representative director. Hire anyone and labor insurance is required as well. The item most easily overlooked is the labor insurance estimated premium declaration, which carries a separate deadline of 50 days from the day the insurance relationship is established. Filing the notification of establishment is not the end of it.

After a company is formed, the tax office filings are usually flagged by a tax accountant, but the labor and social insurance side tends to be something you have to look up yourself. Some deadlines are short, and there are two documents with different deadlines inside the same "labor insurance" — which makes this an area where it is easy to file one of them and assume you are done.

What does a corporation get enrolled in when you set it up?

Social insurance (health insurance and employees' pension insurance) is required even if you employ no one. A corporation is a compulsorily covered workplace even with a single representative director. So long as remuneration is paid to that representative director, the director is an insured person.

Labor insurance (workers' accident compensation insurance and employment insurance) starts once you hire a worker. For workers' accident compensation insurance, a business that uses workers is a covered business. For employment insurance, the procedure arises when you hire a worker who meets requirements such as 20 or more hours a week. A company with only a representative director has no labor insurance.

That difference becomes, directly, the difference in filing timing.

	Social insurance	Labor insurance
When it becomes necessary	When the corporation is formed (even with one representative director)	When you hire your first worker
Treatment of the representative director	Becomes an insured person	Not a worker, so outside the scope (there is a special enrollment route)

By when, and where, do you file?

The deadlines are all different. The days they run from are not aligned either.

What	Where	By when	Basis
Health insurance / employees' pension insurance new coverage notification (新規適用届)	The administrative center or the competent Japan Pension Service office	Within 5 days of the day the fact arose	健康保険法施行規則 Article 19 paragraph 1 / 厚生年金保険法施行規則 Article 13 paragraph 1
Health insurance / employees' pension insurance notification of acquisition of insured status (被保険者資格取得届)	Same as above	Within 5 days of the day the fact arose	健康保険法施行規則 Article 24 paragraph 1 / 厚生年金保険法施行規則 Article 15 paragraph 1
Labor insurance notification of establishment of the insurance relationship (保険関係成立届)	The head of the competent Labor Standards Inspection Office or the head of the competent Public Employment Security Office	Within 10 days counted from the day after the insurance relationship is established	徴収法 Article 4-2 paragraph 1; 同施行規則 Article 4 paragraph 2
Labor insurance estimated premium declaration (概算保険料申告書)	The competent Labor Standards Inspection Office, the competent Prefectural Labour Bureau, or the Bank of Japan	Within 50 days counted from the day after the insurance relationship is established	徴収法 Article 15 paragraph 1
Employment insurance notification of establishment of a covered place of business (適用事業所設置届)	The Hello Work office with jurisdiction over the location of the place of business	Within 10 days counted from the day after the day of establishment	雇用保険法施行規則 Article 141 paragraph 1
Employment insurance notification of acquisition of insured status (被保険者資格取得届)	Same as above	By the 10th day of the month following the month containing the day the acquisition occurred	雇用保険法施行規則 Article 6 paragraph 1

Social insurance has two "within 5 days"; labor insurance has "within 10 days" and "within 50 days"; and employment insurance's acquisition notification alone is "by the 10th of the following month." That unevenness is itself the cause of missed filings.

One note: the wording of the statute and the wording of the administrative guidance differ in places. Article 4-2, paragraph 1 of 徴収法 says "within ten days from the day it was established," while the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare describes it as "within 10 days counted from the day after the day it was established." These are the same thing said differently, under Article 140 of the Civil Code (民法, Act No. 89 of 1896) (the first day is not counted). There is no contradiction.

Why is the estimated premium declaration overlooked?

Because people think the "labor insurance procedure" is one thing. In fact there are two documents.

• Notification of establishment of the insurance relationship — the document notifying that the insurance relationship has been established (within 10 days)
• Estimated premium declaration — the document declaring, and paying, the estimated premium for that fiscal year (within 50 days)

Once you file the notification of establishment, a labor insurance number is assigned, so it looks as though the procedure is finished. But the premium declaration has not been made. Because 50 days is a longer deadline than the others, it gets set aside and forgotten — that is the most common sequence by far.

And because the deadline is long, by the time you notice, it has passed. Filing the notification of establishment and the estimated premium declaration together on the same day is the reliable approach. The destinations can differ, but the Labor Standards Inspection Office accepts both.

The estimated premium is calculated by multiplying the total wages you expect to pay in that insurance year by the premium rate. After the year ends, you declare the definite premium and settle the difference (repeating this every year is the annual renewal, 年度更新). Anything overpaid is settled up, so a somewhat inaccurate estimate can be recovered from. Not filing at all is the greater problem.

When you wind a company up, the mirror image applies and you file a definite premium declaration. That is covered in Winding up a company: what to do about social insurance and labor insurance.

How does this divide from the registration and tax filings?

It divides. The filings needed right after formation fall into at least three streams, and a different professional handles each.

Stream	Content	Whose work it is
Labor and social insurance	New coverage notification, notification of establishment of the insurance relationship, estimated premium declaration, notification of establishment of a covered place of business, notifications of acquisition of insured status	A Shakai Hoken Roumushi (Certified Social Insurance and Labor Consultant)
Registration	Incorporation registration, registration of changes of officers	A judicial scrivener
Tax	Corporation establishment notification, application for approval of blue return filing, notification of establishment of an office paying salaries	A tax accountant
Licenses and permits	The licenses, permissions and notifications your business needs	A Gyoseishoshi (Certified Administrative Procedures Legal Specialist)

This office handles only the first row. Registration goes to a judicial scrivener and tax to a tax accountant; in each case we will point you to them and you engage them directly. This office does not accept referral fees.

Note also that the drafting of articles of incorporation and licence and permit documents that accompany company formation is handled at Company formation and licences and permits, but that is the work of 四葉行政書士事務所, a business entity separate from 四葉社会保険労務士事務所. Even where you ask for both, you enter into a separate contract with each, and invoices and bank accounts are separate as well.

Get the timing straight in advance, at least. The social insurance new coverage notification requires a certificate of registered matters, so you have to wait for the incorporation registration to be completed. On the other hand, the 5-day deadline does not wait for the registration to be completed. In practice you assemble the documents in advance so that you can move the moment the registration is done.

What changes if you incorporated through a cloud service?

On the deadline side — nothing. Cloud incorporation services such as freee Company Formation (freee会社設立) let you prepare the articles of incorporation, the registration application and other documents by following the on-screen guide (per materials published as of 14 August 2026). It is true that the incorporation itself gets done faster.

But what these services prepare is mainly the documents on the incorporation (registration) and tax side. The labour and social insurance filings in the table above — 5 days, 10 days, 50 days — begin separately, after the incorporation is done. If anything, the faster the incorporation, the sooner the social insurance "5 days" arrives. Everything looks finished when the on-screen guide ends — and that is the most typical way companies get stuck on labour insurance after a cloud incorporation.

The division of roles is as in the table in the previous section. Incorporating through the cloud does not move the licensing lines. How the line runs between the software and the shakai hoken roumushi is drawn in We've brought in freee HR. So what does a retained shakai hoken roumushi actually do?.

Frequently asked questions

Q. There is only one representative director and we have set the officer's remuneration at zero. Is social insurance still required?
A. Where no remuneration is paid, the premise for being an insured person is absent, so in practice a notification as a covered workplace is sometimes not made. But it is not as simple as "set it to zero and you don't have to enroll" — the judgment turns on whether remuneration is in fact arising. How you set officer remuneration also feeds directly into tax, so please consider it alongside a tax accountant.

Q. Several months have passed since we set the company up. Is it all right to file now?
A. Filings are accepted even after the deadline has passed. For social insurance, however, coverage is applied retroactively, and the premiums for that period arise retroactively too. The more time passes, the larger the retroactive amount, so the sooner you file after noticing, the lighter the burden. Start by talking to us about putting the current position in order.

Q. Ours is a company of family members only. Do we need labor insurance?
A. Co-residing relatives are as a rule treated as not being workers, so if they are the only people involved, labor insurance may not apply. The judgment does, however, turn on the actual circumstances. For employment insurance there is separately room to become an insured person if the requirements in the administrative handling guidelines are met. For details, see Three places people stumble when putting family on the payroll.

Q. Can we ask you to handle all of the labor and social insurance filings?
A. Labor and social insurance filings are handled by 四葉社会保険労務士事務所. Fees are set out in the fee schedule. We do not handle registration or tax filings, so those you engage a judicial scrivener and a tax accountant to do directly. Each of those is a separate engagement.

Sources for this article

• 健康保険法施行規則 (Ordinance for Enforcement of the Health Insurance Act, Ordinance of the Ministry of Home Affairs No. 36 of 1926), Article 19 paragraph 1 (new coverage notification), Article 24 paragraph 1 (notification of acquisition of insured status)
• 厚生年金保険法施行規則 (Ordinance for Enforcement of the Employees' Pension Insurance Act, Ordinance of the Ministry of Health and Welfare No. 37 of 1954), Article 13 paragraph 1 (new coverage notification), Article 15 paragraph 1 (notification of acquisition of insured status)
• 労働保険の保険料の徴収等に関する法律 (Act on Collection of Insurance Premiums of Labor Insurance, Act No. 84 of 1969), Article 3, Article 4-2 paragraph 1, Article 15 paragraph 1
• 労働保険の保険料の徴収等に関する法律施行規則 (Ordinance of the Ministry of Labour No. 8 of 1972), Article 4 paragraph 2
• 雇用保険法施行規則 (Ordinance for Enforcement of the Employment Insurance Act, Ordinance of the Ministry of Labour No. 3 of 1975), Article 141 paragraph 1 (notification of establishment of a covered place of business), Article 6 paragraph 1 (notification of acquisition of insured status)
• Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 「労働保険の成立手続」 (notification of establishment within 10 days; estimated premium declaration within 50 days; employment insurance notification of establishment of a covered place of business within 10 days; notification of acquisition of insured status by the 10th of the following month)
• Japan Pension Service, 「新規適用の手続き」 (filing period is within 5 days of the fact arising; the destination is the administrative center or the competent Japan Pension Service office)
• Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 「雇用保険事務手続きの手引き【第1編】適用事業所編【令和7年8月版】」
• The documents freee Company Formation can prepare and output (the registration application, articles of incorporation, corporation establishment notification, etc.) — per freee K.K.'s published materials (viewed 14 August 2026). Features change; check the official site for the latest
• All statutory provisions are the versions in force as confirmed on e-Gov法令検索 on August 13, 2026

This article does not go so far as to decide whom you should consult. Labor and social insurance filings, the estimated premium declaration and the acquisition-of-insured-status procedures are the work of a Shakai Hoken Roumushi (Certified Social Insurance and Labor Consultant). Incorporation registration goes to a judicial scrivener, and tax matters such as the corporation establishment notification go to a tax accountant; in each case we will point you to them and you engage them directly. The drafting of articles of incorporation and licence and permit documents is handled by 四葉行政書士事務所 (a separate business entity; you enter into a separate contract with each office). This office does not accept referral fees. The cost of consulting 四葉社会保険労務士事務所 is set out in the fee schedule, and the questions we are asked most often are collected on the FAQ page.

This article is general information. Judgments that fit your particular circumstances are made by a qualified professional after a meeting. Written by Joji Uramatsu (Shakai Hoken Roumushi (Certified Social Insurance and Labor Consultant), Gyoseishoshi (Certified Administrative Procedures Legal Specialist), Registered Real Estate Transaction Specialist).