In the companion article, I showed that for a majority of Japan's municipalities, sign-language interpreter pay is “invisible.” This piece is the flip side. Among the municipalities that do disclose an amount, I look at where pay is highest.
Let me say up front: this is not a “higher is better” story. Behind each figure lie institutional and local circumstances, and I have no intention of judging lower-paying municipalities. Even so, looking at the top of the list, a shared design common to municipalities where pay is “visible” comes into view.
“Pay” in this article means the money the interpreter personally receives (their own amount) — distinct from the “delegation fee” a municipality pays a contracted organization, or the “requester fee” a service user pays.
1. First, the big picture — from ¥2,000 to ¥10,000
Lining up the 227 municipalities where an amount could be confirmed, two-hour pay ran from a low around ¥2,000 to a high of ¥10,000 — a fivefold spread. The median is ¥4,000 and the mean about ¥4,105, with most clustered in the ¥3,000–¥4,000 range. The municipalities we'll look at next jump well above this “middle.”
For readers outside Japan: at roughly ¥162 to US$1 (mid-market rate, July 2026), ¥2,000 ≈ US$12, the ¥4,000 median ≈ US$25, and the ¥10,000 top ≈ US$62. Yen amounts are used throughout; the exchange rate moves, so treat the dollar figures as a rough guide.
2. The top 12, highest first
The national top is Misawa (Aomori) at ¥10,000 (≈ US$62) — ¥5,000 per hour × 2, run directly by the city and paid directly to the interpreter. Next come Hekinan (Aichi) at ¥7,000, Yokohama (Kanagawa) at ¥6,856, and Nakanoto (Ishikawa) at ¥6,690.
Shizuoka stands out. Six municipalities — Shimada, Yaizu, Kikugawa, Shimizu, Oyama, and Kawazu — line up at ¥6,360, a high level across the prefecture. And at exactly ¥6,000 sit 24 municipalities, including many in Gunma and Naha in Okinawa.
3. Why the top is “visible”
What the top municipalities share is, more than the size of the figure itself, the design of the system. Rather than delegating dispatch to an organization, the city runs it directly and pays the interpreter directly, with an hourly or unit rate written into the rules. Once the person's rate is in the regulations, the amount becomes knowable just by reading them.
Put the other way, what pushes a municipality up this ranking is not only “high pay.” It is also “being set up to publish the amount in the first place.” A delegation-model municipality — even if its actual amount is similar — cannot appear in a ranking like this at all, because that amount never surfaces in the rules. Whether pay is “visible or invisible” is decided, before the size of the number, by how the system is built. The faces at the top quietly show this.
The point: “delegation vs. direct operation,” and “whether the interpreter is paid directly.” This design difference largely governs whether pay is visible. The institutional story behind the amounts is covered in detail in the companion article.
4. It differs this much by region
Viewing the amounts prefecture by prefecture, you see not mere scatter but regional clustering.
Clearest is Gunma. The 18 municipalities with a confirmed amount all matched at exactly ¥6,000. That degree of alignment is not chance; it suggests a shared level is widely used across the prefecture (Gunma is known for a structure in which the prefectural association of the deaf is involved in dispatch). Shizuoka is high too, with six municipalities lined up at ¥6,360 among the confirmed amounts. The prefecture states that “all municipalities in the prefecture provide dispatch to individuals,” giving the impression of a region-wide level.
Put the other way, whether pay is “visible,” and whether the level is high, depends not on a single municipality's judgment alone but also on prefecture-level efforts. Rather than looking at one town and calling it “high” or “low,” looking at the prefecture-wide structure behind it is, I think, closer to the reality.
5. The same “interpreting,” but the credential changes the amount
Another thing that moves the amount is the credential. Sign-language interpreting has tiers — the “Certified Sign Language Interpreter” (shuwa tsūyakushi) certified by the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare, the prefecture-certified “sign language interpreter” (shuwa tsūyakusha), and, before those, the “sign-language volunteer aide” (shuwa hōshiin) — and some municipalities set different unit rates by tier.
The “Certified Sign Language Interpreter” differs in nature from a business-monopoly national license like a lawyer's. It is a public qualification certified by the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare (begun in 1989, administered by the Center for Sensory Impairment), and interpreting can be done without it. However, only holders may use the title “Certified Sign Language Interpreter” (title protection) — a commonly misunderstood point.
| Municipality | Certified Sign Language Interpreter | Sign Language Interpreter | Sign-Language Aide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motobu (Okinawa) | ¥4,800 | ¥2,800 | ¥2,000 |
| Gujō (Gifu) | ¥5,400 | ¥4,200 | ¥3,000 |
| Hida (Gifu) | ¥4,440 | ¥4,200 | ¥2,840 |
All figures are per two hours. In Motobu, the amount received differs by as much as 2.4× depending on the credential. Higher pay for a higher credential looks natural, but flip it around: even the same “interpreter who showed up at the counter” receives a very different amount depending on the credential they hold. The map's color (= the two-hour amount) is aligned to the “sign language interpreter” figure for every municipality, but inside that sits this credential-based difference.
6. With delegation, it's invisible from the organization's side too
Everyone who appeared in the “highest” list ran dispatch directly and paid the interpreter directly. So what about municipalities that delegate dispatch to an organization? I checked the websites of the regional information centers and associations for deaf people that carry out the delegated dispatch, too.
The result: still invisible. What these organizations publish is the “dispatch fee the requester pays,” not how much of it reaches the interpreter (the Osaka Deaf Association's fee schedule is a “dispatch fee,” too, and the Kanagawa Deaf Welfare Center lists only dispatch charges). So with delegation, the personal amount stays doubly invisible — from the city's side and from the operating organization's side. That is exactly why municipalities that operate directly and pay the person end up lining the top of the ranking.
7. On the low side — why I don't rank it
We've looked at the “highest.” But in this article I do not make a “worst” ranking of the lowest.
Lining up low-paying municipalities as “bad examples” is not my intent. Behind a low figure lie things a number alone cannot measure: the delegation model keeping the personal amount out of the rules, how much the service is actually used locally, the limit on how many dispatches are possible, and financial circumstances. What matters is not ranking, but gradually turning “invisible” pay into something “visible” — and, beyond the unit price, how to build a form of employment on which an interpreter can make a living as a profession.
Why that “invisible” structure arises, and how much is invisible nationwide, is gathered in the companion article, “Only 13% Is Visible.” I'd be glad if you read them together.
Conclusion
Sign-language interpreter pay, even for the same two hours, ranged from ¥2,000 to ¥10,000. Those at the top were municipalities that run dispatch directly and pay the interpreter directly. Pay being “visible” and “paying the person directly under direct operation” are deeply linked.
Not judging municipalities by high or low pay, but letting the “visible” structure spread — that is what I wanted to convey across these two articles.
What about your town?
You can check each municipality's pay from the map (Japanese interface for now).
Open the Interpreter Pay Map →