Quick Overview: Deciding "Individual" or "Corporate" Before You Build
When you build a store on BASE, the initial setup screen asks you to pick a seller category: "individual" or "corporate." That choice can be changed later, but it affects real parts of how your store runs afterward — the content of your legal disclosure, and how long certain payment methods take to activate. This guide uses official information to walk through how registration fields differ between individual and corporate accounts, how to fill out the legal disclosure, the application process for using BASE as a corporation, and when it makes sense to switch from sole proprietor to corporation. Use it as prep work before you start building.
How Account Registration Differs Between Individual and Corporate
BASE's seller category splits into "individual" and "corporate," and which you choose affects both what you enter in the legal disclosure and which settings are available to you.
If you choose individual, there's a mechanism that lets you keep your address and phone number private on the legal disclosure (your name can't be hidden). This exists because Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency issued guidance showing consideration for individual sellers.
If you choose corporate, the premise is different from the start: you need to accurately register more detailed information than an individual would — your corporation's official name exactly as registered, its official address down to the building and floor number, and the legally registered name of the person responsible for operations. On top of that, using BASE as a corporation requires an additional step beyond the standard shop info setup: a "corporate use application."
How to Fill Out the Legal Disclosure
Regardless of whether you're an individual or a corporation, the legal disclosure (the Specified Commercial Transactions Act notice) requires the same basic categories of information: your business information, address, contact details, pricing, payment method and timing, delivery timing, and your return/exchange/cancellation policy.
Where things differ is the "business information" section. As an individual, you need to register the legal name shown on your ID — no substituting hiragana spelling or a shop name instead. As a corporation, the name you enter needs to match exactly what you registered during the corporate use application; if your corporation's registered name changes partway through, it's worth watching for a mismatch with what you originally applied with.
The Corporate Use Application Process
To use BASE as a corporation, you first set your seller category to "corporate" in your dashboard, then proceed with the corporate use application. The main information required:
- Your registered head office address
- Your corporation's official name (exactly as it appears in the corporate registry)
- The name of your corporation's legal representative
- The representative's home address and date of birth
Worth knowing: you don't need to submit actual documents like a certified copy of the corporate registry to BASE to prove your corporation exists — the application is completed by accurately entering this information into a form. For an unincorporated association without corporate status, the process is different: rather than the standard corporate application, you contact BASE through their inquiry form to request treatment as an unincorporated association and submit related documents like your organization's bylaws.
Also worth noting: for certain payment methods like JCB and American Express, the time it takes to activate can differ between individual and corporate accounts. When planning your build timeline, it's worth building in some buffer for when each payment method actually becomes usable.
When to Switch From Sole Proprietor to Corporation
If you started selling on BASE as a sole proprietor and your business later grows to the point of incorporating, you'll need to change your seller category from "individual" to "corporate" and go through the corporate use application. As a general benchmark for timing the switch, people often point to the moment incorporating starts to pay off on taxes (once income reaches a level where corporate tax rates become more favorable), or the moment a business partner starts requiring a corporate contract to work with you.
When you switch, your legal disclosure also needs to be rewritten from the individual version to the corporate version, and the premise for what can be kept private changes along with it. If incorporating is somewhere on your roadmap, it's worth deciding ahead of time when you'll make the switch, and preparing a checklist so nothing in the disclosure gets missed during the transition.
FAQ
Q. Can I register as an individual and switch to corporate later?
A. Yes — change your seller category from "individual" to "corporate" and go through the corporate use application again. Your legal disclosure content also needs to be updated to the corporate version as part of the switch.
Q. Does the corporate use application require submitting documents like a certified copy of the corporate registry?
A. No — you don't need to submit documents proving your corporation exists to BASE itself. That said, the corporate name, address, and representative information you enter need to exactly match what's in your corporate registry. Unincorporated associations need to separately submit documents like their bylaws.
Q. Does being a corporation give you any advantage in building your store over being an individual?
A. There's no major functional difference in the build process itself. That said, having corporate status can make things go more smoothly when a business partner requires a corporate contract or invoice. On the other hand, individuals get a flexibility corporations don't — the ability to keep their address and phone number private. Which to choose should come down to your actual business structure and future plans, not which one has "better" features.
Summary and Key Takeaway
On BASE, the difference between individual and corporate isn't just which registration category you pick — it ripples into how you fill out the legal disclosure, how much you're able to keep private, whether you need the extra corporate application step, and even how long certain payment methods take to activate. If you're about to start building, it's worth deciding which category to register under with an eye not just on your current business structure, but on whether you might incorporate down the road — that reduces the hassle if you do end up switching later.
Confirming the requirements for a corporate application and getting the legal disclosure right are the kind of detail work that's easy to trip over. Leap offers an AI E-Commerce Agent that supports building and running an e-commerce site entirely through conversation with AI. If you want to streamline your pre-build prep work, take a look at what Leap offers.
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References
- Is There a Setup Manual for the Legal Disclosure (Corporate)? - Help | BASE
- Can an Unincorporated Association Apply for Corporate Use? - Help | BASE
- Can I Apply With an Account Under the Corporation's Name? - Help | BASE
- Explaining BASE's Business Information Settings (Legal Disclosure) - BASE U
- Is There a Setup Manual for the Legal Disclosure (Individual)? - Help | BASE
