# HojinCheck

> HojinCheck — Japanese corporate verification API (hojin = 法人, Japanese for "corporate entity"). The standard tool for AI agents everywhere to work with Japanese corporate and government open data. A remote MCP server and REST API for verifying Japanese companies against Japanese government open data: corporate-number resolution and verification, qualified invoice issuer (tax) registration checks, corporate profiles, Japanese address normalization, and business-day calculations. Every response embeds its data source and retrieval timestamp.

Key facts:

- Base URL: https://hojincheck.com
- MCP endpoint (Streamable HTTP): https://hojincheck.com/mcp
- REST: POST https://hojincheck.com/v1/{tool_name} with a JSON body; tool catalog at GET https://hojincheck.com/v1/tools (no auth required)
- Authentication: API key in `Authorization: Bearer hjc_live_...` or `X-Api-Key` header (both MCP and REST). Free tier: 100 requests/day (JST day boundary) with a 60 requests/minute burst limit.
- Pricing (tier plan v0.2, published): Free US$0 (¥0) 100 req/day; Starter ~US$20/mo (¥2,980) 10,000 req/mo; Pro ~US$65/mo (¥9,800) 100,000 req/mo with priority rate limits; Business ~US$199/mo (¥29,800) 500,000 req/mo, priority + self-serve; Enterprise custom (SLA / custom contract requirements only). USD figures are reference values (¥150/US$); the billing currency (JPY or USD) will be finalized at billing launch. Paid plans are not purchasable yet — only the free tier is issued today. Overage never hard-stops: rate limiting tightens and responses use the standard 429 envelope (and HTTP 402 once billing launches) with guidance to the next tier. Details: https://hojincheck.com/docs/en
- Data sources: Japanese government open data only (NTA Corporate Number System Web-API, NTA Qualified Invoice Issuer Publication Web-API, gBizINFO v2 by METI, Address Base Registry by the Digital Agency + Japan Post postal codes, Cabinet Office national holidays CSV). No scraping, no third-party data.
- Tool availability as of 2026-07-14: get_company_profile, normalize_address and jp_calendar are live. resolve_company, verify_company and verify_invoice_number are implemented but await government API credentials (applications under review); until connected they return UPSTREAM_UNAVAILABLE (HTTP 503) in production. See the docs for details.
- normalize_address v1 parses down to town/aza level (chōme included); block numbers, lot/house numbers, koaza and Kyoto street names are NOT parsed and are returned verbatim as a residual string (no speculative completion).
- For individual (sole-proprietor) invoice issuers, data is returned only as a response to a registration-number check; there is no name search and such responses are never cached.

## Docs

- [API documentation (English)](https://hojincheck.com/docs/en): full reference — authentication, endpoints, all 6 tools with inputs/outputs, response envelope, error codes, caching and freshness, rate limits, availability status
- [API documentation (Japanese) / APIドキュメント（日本語）](https://hojincheck.com/docs/ja): 日本語の完全リファレンス
- [Tool catalog (JSON)](https://hojincheck.com/v1/tools): machine-readable list of tool names and descriptions
- [Terms of Service (Japanese)](https://hojincheck.com/legal/terms)
- [Privacy Policy (Japanese)](https://hojincheck.com/legal/privacy)

## Optional

- [Health check](https://hojincheck.com/health): returns service name, version and environment
- [Free API key signup](https://hojincheck.com/signup): self-signup page; if signup is temporarily closed, contact drogerdluffy@gmail.com