Places of Verification/Legalisation in Japan

Notary Public (Gyosei Shoshi)

Who is Notary Public in Japan?

There are two types of lawyers in Japan: bengoshi and gyosei shoshi. While the duties of the first one are quite similar to the duties of the attorney, the second one is closer to the notary public. There is a small overlap between the functions of these two lawyer types, however generally speaking they take care of different issues. Gyosei shoshi is also called Administrative Scrivener, Immigration Lawyers or Certified Administrative Procedures Legal Specialists. In order to keep this guide unified and easy to understand we will use the term notary public at all times.

What Do They Do?

Generally speaking notary public is responsible for notary deeds. The notary deed is an official document done by the gyosei shoshi in accordance with the law.

Examples of the notary deeds may be, but not limited to:

• Notarised wills/will deeds;
• Notarial deeds for contracts pertaining to monetary loans;
• Notarial deeds related to payment of damages for mental anguish or payment of child support, in connection with divorce; and
• Notarial deeds relating to the leasing of land or buildings.

Each notary public has a field of specialization. The variety of specializations is really numerous. It can basically be of any kind as long as it is dealing with the rights and obligations. That is why people with the same title of gyosei shoshi can be dealing with completely different fields.

Their duties may include, but are not limited to:

• authentication of private documents and articles of incorporation,
• attachment of officially-attested dates to documents
• preparation of wills or inheritances
• registration of vehicles
• handling the visa application documentation. In fact, they were the only specialists who are authorized by the Immigration Bureau to deal with visas (or status of residence) documents as proxies on behalf of their clients. The same right was also granted to bengoshi in 2004, however, it is common that gyosei shoshi is dealing with this type of paperwork.
• notarizing the articles of incorporation (page/link)

Where to Find Them?

One-Stop Service. These service offices allow to process your documents faster than it could be done at the regular notary public office. There are only 3 such points, and they are located in Tokyo, Kanagawa, and Osaka.

By submitting your documents to these points you do not need to go to the Notary Public office and then to the Legal Affairs Bureau in order to be able to certify your documents there and later at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Embassy / Consulate General. You can receive a certificate of the seal of the Notary Public by the director of the Legal Affairs Bureau as well as an authentification or apostille by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the same time.

Other locations.  In case you cannot go to a one-stop service office, you can go to the regular Notary Public offices, which are located all over Japan. In this case, you will need to go through more stages of legalisation. Offices of the regular notaries can be found through this page (in Japanese).

Legal Affairs Bureau

What is the Legal Affairs Bureau?

This is the institution that unifies all the Notary Publics in a certain area into one group. Depending on the geographic location of their operation, all the Notary Publics belong to one of the eight Legal Affairs Bureaus:

• Saitama
• Ibaraki
• Tochigi
• Gunma
• Chiba
• Nagano
• Niigata
• Shizuoka

In case you need to obtain some documents from the Legal Affairs Bureau, usually, you need to visit the one that corresponds to your area of residence or the nearest one.

What Do They Do?

These Bureaus do not legalise documents, but they can certify the seals of the Notary Publics. In other words, you might need a certificate from the Bureau if you need to prove that the seal of the Notary Public on your papers is true. Such Bureaus have lists of all the notaries who belong to a certain Bureau’s legal district, and thus Bureau knows which seals of which notaries are true and have legal power.

Such certifications (proofs) of seals are usually necessary when forwarding documents for processing to the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs or Embassies/Consulates as well as other institutions (called destination agencies) who asked for such verification.

Where to Find Them?

Each of the big regional Bureaus stated above has a number of smaller offices in different cities. You can find the nearest one to you using this list (in Japanese).

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (often abbreviated as MOFA) is the last and highest Institution when it comes to verification of documents.

What Do They Do?

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does two things:

• As well as the Legal Affairs Bureau, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can certify the truthfulness of the seal, but for the Head of the regional Legal Affairs Bureau. It is necessary to be able to apply for an apostille or authentication from the Embassy/Consulate General or other destination agency, or
• It can legalize your documents by applying apostille or authenticating to the documents.

Important note: If you have received an apostille or authentication form the  Embassy or Consulate general, you can not get certification of a seal from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Where to Find Them?

You can apply for both certification and legalisation in two places:

• the MOFA building in Tokyo (2-2-1 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku 100-8919), or
• the Osaka prefectural government building (2-1-22 Otemae, Chuo-ku 540-0008).

Embassy / Consulate General

Usually, this is the last place where you need to go to get documents legalized for use in other countries. Embassy or a Consulate will authenticate your documents or issue an apostille to give them legal power.

Important note: If you have received an apostille or authentication form the  Embassy or Consulate General, you can not get certification of a seal from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Which Embassy or Consulate General you go to and of which country depends on your particular case.

Which One Do I Need To Visit?

When you are preparing your documents for a certain type of application, the institution that processes your application will tell you what kind of verification/legalisation you need exactly and where to get it.

If you are confused by the hierarchy of these institutions, this table might help you to visualise the flow of the documents through different offices.