Business Japanese Manners: Meishi Etiquette, Keigo Basics & Emails That Don't Sound Like a Beginner

The meeting-room manners nobody explains before your first day.

You can be completely fluent in casual conversation and still freeze the first time someone hands you a business card in Japan. Business etiquette here runs on its own set of rules — some of them genuinely formal, most of them just unfamiliar — and getting them visibly wrong in a meeting reads very differently than fumbling an order at a restaurant.

This guide covers the three things that come up the fastest: exchanging business cards, using enough politeness to sound professional without needing a degree in grammar, and writing emails that don't give away that it's your first week.

🪪 Meishi (Business Card) Etiquette

The business card exchange (名刺交換, meishi kōkan) is treated as a small ceremony, not a formality to rush through.

• Use both hands to present and receive cards — one hand reads as careless.
• Face the card toward the other person as you hand it over, so they can read it right-side up without turning it.
• Receive with a slight bow and a brief pause to actually look at the card — glancing at it and immediately pocketing it is considered dismissive.
• Never write on someone's card in front of them, and don't put it in your back pocket (where you'd sit on it). During a meeting, cards are usually left on the table in front of you, arranged in the seating order of the people you received them from.
• If you're meeting several people, receive each card individually rather than sweeping them into a pile.

🗣️ Keigo Basics (Without the Full Grammar Course)

Keigo (敬語) — Japanese honorific speech — has layers that take even native speakers years to fully master. The good news: as a non-native speaker, you're not expected to have it perfect. What actually matters is consistency at one baseline level.

The practical takeaway: stick to です/ます form consistently, and layer in a handful of set phrases (like the email openers below) that native speakers use automatically. That combination reads as "professional and respectful" even without full command of sonkeigo and kenjōgo — trying to force advanced keigo and getting it wrong often sounds more awkward than staying consistently polite at the basic level.

📧 Email Phrases That Don't Sound Like a Beginner

Japanese business emails follow a predictable template — once you know the standard opening and closing lines, you can build almost any email around them.

A typical structure: open with "Osewa ni natte orimasu," state your name and company if it's a new contact, get to the point clearly, and close with "Yoroshiku onegai itashimasu." Japanese business emails tend to be shorter and more direct in the body than the formal-sounding opener and closer might suggest.

⚠️ 7 Mistakes That Stand Out in a Meeting

1. Receiving a business card with one hand — always both hands.
2. Immediately pocketing a card without looking at it — pause and actually read it first.
3. Writing notes on someone's business card in front of them — wait until after the meeting.
4. Dropping into casual speech — even if the conversation feels relaxed, stick to です/ます until someone senior explicitly invites you to speak casually.
5. Skipping "Osewa ni natte orimasu" in a business email — leaving it out (even with a new contact) can come across as abrupt.
6. Using someone's first name — last name + さん (san) is the default; first names are reserved for close relationships.
7. Exchanging cards while seated — stand up for the exchange whenever possible.

📋 Your Cheat-Sheet Recap

Keep this one open in a tab before your first meeting or email — these seven phrases cover a surprising amount of ground on their own.

New to Japanese? Start with the 20 essential survival phrases.