A foreign company that wants coverage in Japan often starts by asking for a list of Japanese journalists. Public relations in Japan mostly runs through a different channel. Announcements reach Japanese media as Japanese-language press releases sent out by domestic wire services, above all PR TIMES, and coverage often means a Japanese web outlet turning the release into an article, which may then appear on a portal such as Yahoo!ニュース (Yahoo! News Japan). In our view, kisha clubs matter less than their reputation suggests.
This article explains how that chain works, what it costs and what a Japanese release needs. It includes two pieces of our own work. On October 9, 2026, we read the 20 most recent PR TIMES releases from companies headquartered outside Japan: 16 linked to a Japanese page on their own site, 11 gave their company or brand name in katakana or kanji, every release that quoted a price did so in yen, and none had tagged the links to its own site so that visits could be measured. And from October 2025 to October 2026 we wrote and distributed press releases for a Japanese B2B company and judged each one by the traffic it sent to the client’s Japanese pages.
The short answer
Write the release in Japanese, distribute it through a Japanese wire service, and give editors what they need: a Japanese form of your name, a Japanese page, yen prices and a contact who answers in Japanese. PR TIMES charges 30,000 yen before tax for one release and accepts companies based outside Japan, but only for releases in Japanese and only for distribution to Japanese media.
Distribution is not coverage. Partner sites reprint a release automatically; no editor has chosen to write about you, and the PR TIMES partner list does not include Yahoo!ニュース. Kisha clubs matter if you are listed in Tokyo or announcing with a public body; for most foreign product companies they do not.
Decide before you distribute how you will measure the release, and judge it by what it sends to your Japanese pages, not by how many sites carried it. If you have no news, we would not issue a release.
Public relations in Japan usually starts with a wire service
PR TIMES publishes its own figures. By the end of May 2026, 129,233 companies had used it, including 65.8% of companies listed in Japan. It sends releases to a media list of 11,075 outlets, has 29,853 registered media users, and has 270 partner sites that reprint releases. One release costs 30,000 yen before tax; the monthly plan costs 80,000 yen for up to 30 releases.
Companies outside Japan can register and are screened like Japanese ones. The release must be in Japanese; English may appear alongside it, but foreign-language-only releases are not accepted. Overseas media are not on the distribution list, and scheduled releases are set in Japan time. Coverage abroad needs a separate wire.
The other established services publish their prices too. For a single release they sit in a similar range, except 共同通信PRワイヤー (Kyodo News PR Wire), which costs more and can also send releases abroad.
| Service | One release | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| PR TIMES | 30,000 yen | Monthly plan 80,000 yen for up to 30 releases |
| @Press (アットプレス) | 25,000 yen (SHOT plan) | Plans with staff support from 39,800 yen |
| ValuePress (バリュープレス) | 30,000 yen (Economy plan) | For single releases |
| 共同通信PRワイヤー | 78,000 yen (spot) | 31,375 to 38,000 yen for members, by annual volume; overseas distribution through AsiaNet and PR Newswire |
How a release reaches Yahoo!ニュース
Most of what Yahoo!ニュース publishes is supplied by partner media. According to its 2025 annual report, 470 media companies with 720 outlets supplied about 8,500 articles a day as of April 2025.
The PR TIMES partner list, dated August 2026, includes SmartNews, livedoor News, Google News, jiji.com and NewsPicks, but not Yahoo!ニュース. A release becomes a Yahoo!ニュース story when one of Yahoo’s partner outlets, such as a specialist web outlet, writes an article from it.
Since July 1, 2026, there has also been a paid route. LINE Yahoo sells ニュースPR (News PR), which publishes a company’s release on Yahoo!ニュース for 30,000 yen before tax per placement, under the outlet name “Yahoo!ニュース［PR］” and with no [PR] mark in the title.
For earned coverage, find out which outlets wrote up your competitors’ recent launches, and send those editors the release in Japanese with something they can use: data, images, a person to interview.
Kisha clubs and who they matter for
記者クラブ (kisha kurabu, “press clubs”) are what foreign guides tend to mention most. The Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association (日本新聞協会) defines them as voluntary organizations of journalists who cover public institutions continuously, made up of reporters from its member companies and comparable media. Its official view (2002, revised 2006) says the clubs are open to foreign media and that press conferences should not be limited to members.
They matter when an announcement comes from a public body or is made jointly with one. They also matter to companies listed in Tokyo. At the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s club, 兜倶楽部 (Kabuto Club), a listed company can hold a press conference, customarily booked about 30 minutes ahead, or leave materials for the club, but only after disclosing the information through TDnet, the exchange’s disclosure system. A foreign company launching a product rarely needs any of this.
What a Japanese press release needs that an English one lacks
A Japanese editor usually needs a Japanese form of your name, a Japanese page to point readers to, prices in yen, a contact who answers in Japanese, and a date that fits the Japanese calendar. We checked how often foreign companies supply the first four.
How we checked 20 releases
We fixed the criteria before opening any release. On October 9, 2026, we went back through the PR TIMES feed of new releases, 2,245 from 07:00 to 20:50 Japan time. We skipped issuers whose names contain a Japanese legal form such as 株式会社 (kabushiki kaisha, “joint-stock company”), read the PR TIMES profile of every other issuer, and kept the 20 most recent companies whose profile or release gave a head office outside Japan, one release each. A non-profit and an industry body were left out. The 20 were published between 10:10 and 18:45 by companies based in China, the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Germany, Israel, Belgium and Turkey.
| What we looked for | Releases (of 20) |
|---|---|
| Linked to a Japanese-language page on the company’s own site | 16 |
| Gave the company or brand name in katakana or kanji | 11 |
| Quoted a price | 6, all in yen |
| Showed a press contact in the public text | 3 |
| Tagged the links to its own site for measurement | 0 |
A Japanese page to point readers to
Sixteen linked to a Japanese page on their own site. The other four linked only to Amazon, Rakuten or Qoo10 listings, or to a partner’s site. An editor needs a page where readers can check the facts, and in our view a marketplace listing is not that page. What it should contain is in our guide to the Japanese company profile page.
A name Japanese editors can write
Eleven gave their company or brand name in katakana or kanji; nine used Latin letters only. Without one, each editor picks a form, and outlets may differ. Pick one form, such as アクメ for a company called Acme, and use it everywhere.
Prices in yen, including tax
All six releases that quoted a price did so in yen, and none used another currency. For consumer products, prices shown to consumers in Japan must include consumption tax, the rule the National Tax Agency calls 総額表示 (sōgaku hyōji, “total price display”).
A contact who answers in Japanese
Only three showed a press contact in the public text. That probably understates the real figure, because PR TIMES recommends putting media contacts in a field only registered media users can see. Three more gave a phone number or email address in Japan for customers and showed no press contact. Whoever is listed for the press should answer in Japanese, during Japanese business hours.
A date that fits the Japanese calendar
PR TIMES schedules in Japan time only; a launch at 9:00 in New York falls at 22:00 or 23:00 in Tokyo. Schedule for the Japanese working day, and avoid the New Year break, Golden Week (April 29 and May 3 to 5 in 2027) and Obon in mid-August. Our Japanese content calendar covers these windows and the April fiscal year.
Measure a release by what it sends to your Japanese pages
From October 2025 to October 2026 we wrote and distributed press releases for a Japanese B2B company through the client’s own PR TIMES account. Every link from a release to the client’s site carried UTM campaign tags naming that release. Each month we read the resulting visits in GA4 and used what we saw to change the next release.
The lesson we took is to decide how a release will be measured before it goes out. Pickup counts are easy to collect and say little, because partner sites reprint as part of distribution, not because an editor chose the story. What a release sends to your Japanese pages, and what those visitors do there, tells you whether the next one should be different.
None of the 20 releases in our check tagged the links to their own site. Without tags, visits from a release are scattered across referrals from PR TIMES and every site that reprinted it. A release with no Japanese page to link to cannot be measured this way at all.
PR agencies in Japan and what they charge
We found no published benchmark for PR agency fees in Japan; even the industry survey by the Public Relations Society of Japan (日本パブリックリレーションズ協会) does not report them. Its 2025 edition estimates that specialist PR firms earned 139.1 billion yen in fiscal 2024, 6.0% less than in the previous survey; 26% of responding companies had annual sales of 50 million yen or less. More than 70% offered consulting on retainer.
The practical choice, as we see it, is between a firm that can run your PR in other countries too and a Japanese firm that knows your category’s outlets. When comparing quotes, note that distribution costs 25,000 to 78,000 yen per release, so most of a quote probably pays for writing, follow-up with editors and reporting. Ask who writes the Japanese (a writer working from your facts, or a translator working from your English release), which outlets they will contact, and how they will report results. We would treat a list of reprints as the wrong answer to the last.
Earned coverage, paid features and the advertising label
Japanese media also sell space. 記事広告 (kiji kōkoku, “article advertising”) and タイアップ (taiappu, “tie-up”) are the usual names for paid articles produced for an advertiser, and LINE Yahoo now sells placement on Yahoo!ニュース itself. Paid features are a legitimate tool, but they are not coverage: no editor chose you, and readers have to be told so.
Since October 1, 2023, hiding the fact that something is advertising has breached Japan’s Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations (景品表示法, Keihin Hyōji Hō). The Consumer Affairs Agency says the rule applies to the advertiser, the business that supplies the product, and covers television, newspapers, radio and magazines as well as social media. So check the label on any paid feature yourself.
When you have no real news
PR TIMES reviews every release by eye; from January to October 2025 it contacted the issuers of 3,414 of 382,296 releases (0.9%). The most common reasons were superlatives without evidence (31.2%) and a lack of anything new (19.2%), which had been the top reason in 2024.
For a foreign company, news in Japan is usually a short list: entering the market, a partnership with a Japanese company, a change made for Japan, or original data about Japan. It is the same list we give under press releases with actual news in our guide to link building in Japan. A global announcement translated into Japanese is rarely news here unless part of it is specific to Japan.
Without news, we would not issue a release. Build the Japanese pages first; a release with nowhere to send readers wastes the main thing it can do. If what you need is a Japanese article explaining your product rather than news, we think a paid article labeled as PR is the honest format, and it is what our sponsored features are.
Common questions
These come up before a first Japanese release.
Can we use PR TIMES without a Japanese company?
Yes. PR TIMES accepts companies outside Japan and screens them like Japanese ones. The release must be in Japanese, with English alongside if you want; it goes only to Japanese media, and the schedule is set in Japan time. Make sure someone can answer journalists in Japanese before you send it.
Will a PR TIMES release appear on Yahoo!ニュース?
Not by itself. The PR TIMES partner list does not include Yahoo!ニュース. A release appears there when one of Yahoo’s partner outlets writes an article from it, or when you pay for LINE Yahoo’s ニュースPR, which runs under the outlet name “Yahoo!ニュース［PR］”.
Can we translate our English press release?
You can, but write it as a Japanese release rather than a translated English one. Lead with what is new for Japan and add the Japanese name, page, yen prices and contact described above. Our article on translation versus localization shows how often a correct translation misses the words Japanese users type.
Working on Japan?
Nihongo Search is published by Amanaut, Inc., a small Japanese SEO and content company in Tokyo working with companies entering the Japanese market. For the pages a release should point to, see the Japanese company profile page and content marketing in Japan. More about how we work.
Sources
The check of 20 PR TIMES releases and the account of our press release work are our own. Everything else comes from the sources below, which are in Japanese unless marked English.
- Nihongo Search, check of 20 PR TIMES releases by foreign-headquartered companies, October 9, 2026
- PR TIMES, first-quarter results release, fiscal 2026, July 14, 2026, and price plans, checked October 9, 2026
- PR TIMES Help on overseas companies, English releases (both April 24, 2026), overseas media (September 26, 2025) and scheduling (January 10, 2025)
- PR TIMES, partner media list (PDF), August 2026
- PR TIMES, review report 2025, December 10, 2025, and PR TIMES MAGAZINE, contact details in releases, updated August 31, 2026
- @Press, new plans and prices, September 8, 2025; ValuePress, price list; Kyodo News PR Wire, prices, FAQ and overseas distribution; all checked October 9, 2026
- Yahoo!ニュース, annual report 2025, figures as of April 2025, and operating policy, updated October 1, 2026
- LINE Yahoo, launch of ニュースPR, July 1, 2026, and service page
- Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association, view on kisha clubs, January 17, 2002, revised March 9, 2006 (English)
- Japan Exchange Group, disclosure FAQ on the Kabuto Club; Consumer Affairs Agency, stealth marketing from October 1, 2023
- Public Relations Society of Japan, 2025 PR industry survey (PDF), April 2025
- National Tax Agency, Tax Answer No. 6902, law as of April 1, 2026; Cabinet Office, national holidays
Last reviewed: October 2026.
