Majority of Japanese Companies Lack a Successor to Take the Helm

More Companies Lacking Successors

A survey by Tokyo Shōkō Research found that 62.60% of companies in Japan lack a successor to take over operations, which is a 0.45 percentage point increase over the previous year. The results were based on the situation at approximately 170,000 companies in the survey firm’s database. The rate of companies without a successor has continued to rise year on year since the time the survey was first carried out in 2019. At present, 6 out of the 10 industry categories showed a rate that exceeds 60%.

A breakdown by age shows that more than 80% of company heads in their forties or younger lack a successor. Their lack of urgency to designate the subsequent leader seems related to the fact that they themselves either founded or took over their own company relatively recently. However, even among company representatives in their sixties, during which time salaried workers normally retire, 49% lack a successor. Companies run by executives in their seventies and eighties also lack successors at the rate of 32% and 25%, respectively. A Tokyo Shōkō Research representative noted that “since several years are required to hand over a company smoothly to a successor, businesses end up having to close down when an elderly company representative has no available successor.”

Among companies that do have a successor, 64% plan to pass on the business to a son, daughter, or other family member, which suggests that making an external appointment or handing over a firm to an employee remains difficult.

Data Sources

• Survey of successor shortage in 2025 (Japanese) by Tokyo Shōkō Research.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo © Pixta.)