Do you know how much a sign-language interpreter is actually paid in your town?
When a deaf person visits a hospital, a school, or a city office in Japan, an interpreter often goes with them. How much does that interpreter earn for a two-hour assignment? I checked every one of Japan's roughly 1,700-plus municipalities, one at a time, using each local government's own published rules — its yōkō (program regulations) and ordinances. The result was more "invisible" than I expected.
1. What the nationwide survey showed: "13% transparency"
By "pay" here I mean the money the interpreter personally receives. I keep it separate from the "delegation fee" a local government pays to an outside organization, and from the "requester's fee" a user pays. What I looked for is the amount that actually reaches the interpreter.
A per-assignment amount for a two-hour dispatch could be confirmed in a primary source for just 235 municipalities nationwide — only 13.4%.
The rest breaks down like this. For 619 (35.4%), the dispatch program's rules could be located, but the interpreter's own pay was not disclosed — hidden behind phrases like "to be set separately" or behind a delegation-fee-only listing. For 896 (51.2%), the relevant rules could not be reached at all, or their existence could not be confirmed.
In other words, for a majority of municipalities, it is impossible for an outsider to know how much the sign-language interpreter is paid.
2. From ¥2,000 to ¥10,000 for the same two hours
Even among the 227 municipalities where an amount could be confirmed, the spread was wide. For a two-hour dispatch, amounts ran from a low around ¥2,000 to a high of ¥10,000 — a fivefold gap. The median is ¥4,000 and the mean about ¥4,105, with most clustered in the ¥3,000–¥5,000 range.
For readers outside Japan: at roughly ¥162 to US$1 (mid-market rate, July 2026), that range is about US$12 to US$62 for two hours, with a median near US$25. Yen amounts are used throughout this article; the exchange rate moves, so treat the dollar figures as a rough guide.
The highest is Misawa City (Aomori) at ¥10,000 — ¥5,000 per hour × 2, paid directly to the interpreter by the city itself. At the low end, around ¥2,000, sit places like Hirakawa and Sai — in the very same prefecture. A fivefold gap within one prefecture; where it comes from is the subject of the sections below.
This article is not written to blame low-paying municipalities. Behind an amount lie institutional design and finances, but also how much the service is actually used locally, and the simple fact that dispatch capacity is limited. You cannot judge good or bad by the size of the figure alone.
3. A clear regional gap in disclosure
Looking at the share of municipalities that disclose a confirmed amount (the "A" rate) by prefecture, the regional gap is sharp. Tochigi 52%, Gunma 49%, Shimane 42% — around half in some prefectures. At the other end, six prefectures sit at 0%: Ibaraki, Nara, Tokushima, Kagawa, Kōchi, and Saga (listed in prefecture-code order, not as a ranking).
But reading that "0%" as "wages are low" or "nobody checked" would be a mistake. The reality differs by prefecture.
Nara, for example, has located program rules for 38 of its 39 municipalities. It is still at 0% because most use a delegation model or "to be set separately" — that is, the interpreter's own pay is deliberately not published. Ibaraki is similar: rules were found, but delegation keeps the personal amount out of view. These are prefectures where the answer is "we looked exhaustively, and still can't see it."
Tokushima is different again: even checking the ordinance database by hand (searching "communication," "interpretation," "sign language"), no dispatch program rule could be found at all. Same 0%, entirely different meaning.
4. Why it's invisible — "delegation" and "to be set separately"
What the invisible municipalities share is a structural feature.
Many local governments delegate interpreter dispatch to bodies such as councils of social welfare. In that case, what the government publishes is the "delegation fee" paid to the organization — not how much of it reaches the interpreter. Others simply write "compensation to be set separately" in the rules, and that "separate standard" is usually not public.
Conversely, the high-disclosure prefectures like Tochigi and Gunma — and top-paying Misawa — share a design where the city runs dispatch directly and pays the interpreter directly. Put the per-hour amount in the rules and pay the person directly, and the figure naturally becomes visible. Whether pay is "visible" or not is shaped, before the size of the number, by this difference in institutional design.
One more thing. Even on the websites of the regional information centers and associations for deaf people that carry out the delegated dispatch, what is published is almost always the "dispatch fee the requester pays" — not how much reaches the interpreter (for instance, the Osaka Deaf Association's fee schedule, and the Kanagawa Deaf Welfare Center's dispatch charges). With delegation, the personal amount stays invisible from both sides — the city's and the operating body's. This was something I ran into again and again.
5. Can anyone live on dispatch fees alone?
So far this has been about "pay per dispatch." But however "visible" that unit price becomes, almost no interpreter can make a living on it alone. Dispatch requests are not infinite; volume is limited. To sustain interpreting as a profession rather than one-off honoraria, transparency of the unit price is not enough.
That is why it is worth looking at municipalities that place (station) an interpreter at the government office as a regular or fiscal-year-appointed staff member. In this survey too, wards and cities such as Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Setagaya (Tokyo), Utsunomiya, Maebashi, Chiba, Akita, Ichinomiya, Himeji, and cities in Shizuoka like Fuji and Atami were confirmed, on their official sites, to station an interpreter at the disability-services desk. With an interpreter physically present, a deaf person can consult or handle paperwork on the spot, without booking a dispatch in advance.
Behind this is another fact: there simply are not enough interpreters. Holders of the "Certified Sign Language Interpreter" credential (a public qualification certified by Japan's Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare — not a business-monopoly license) numbered about 4,378 nationwide as of April 2026 (published by the Center for Sensory Impairment). Add the prefecture-registered "sign language interpreters" and the pool is still thin. Meanwhile, about 379,000 people hold a physical-disability certificate for a hearing or speech disability (2022, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare). Roughly speaking, that is on the order of one certified interpreter for every 80–90 people with such a certificate — nowhere near enough. Stationing an interpreter is one answer to the question of how to deliver a limited pool to the people who need it.
6. A note from the author — how the U.S. does it
I believe sign-language interpreting should be work you can build a living on — a properly established profession supported by stable employment, not a thin honorarium paid only when you happen to be called. If we care about sustainability, hiring interpreters into secure roles with a dependable income is the shape this should take. An interpreter being present at the government office should be the standard, not the exception.
For contrast, the United States supports interpreting as a profession through law, credentials, and employment together. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title II, obliges state and local governments to provide the auxiliary aids needed for "effective communication," and U.S. federal regulation defines a "qualified interpreter" explicitly. Nationally, the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) maintains certifications such as the NIC, and video relay/remote interpreting give the profession additional footing. It is not a utopia — the U.S. also has an interpreter shortage — but the combination of a legal duty, a national credential system, and employment channels is a meaningful point of comparison for Japan.
For a fuller picture of the U.S. system — the modalities, credentials, law, and how it has changed — see the companion article, "How Sign-Language Interpreting Works in the U.S." (English version coming as part of this series).
7. Method and limits
This survey checked each municipality's ordinance database and official site for primary sources. For efficiency, some steps used automated tools, so it is possible that access restrictions caused some municipalities to be missed. Where a source could not be reached mechanically, rules were checked by hand as far as possible.
Even so, a first-pass survey can contain omissions and errors. As corrections and additions come in, the data and this article will be updated and expanded. If you have information or corrections about your municipality, please send them via the contact form.
Conclusion
For a majority of Japan's municipalities, sign-language interpreter pay is "invisible." Behind that lies, before the size of the figure, a difference in institutional design: delegation versus direct operation, and whether the interpreter is paid directly.
And beyond making the unit price transparent, we need to ask how to build a form of employment on which an interpreter can make a living — that far, too.
What about your town?
You can check each municipality from the interactive map (Japanese interface for now).
Open the Interpreter Pay Map →