Foreign Families in Gunma: Schools, Benefits & Putting Down Roots

Whether your family has lived in Gunma for two generations or you have just arrived to join a spouse working the factory floor, you have landed in the prefecture that, more than almost any other in Japan, was built around foreign families who came to stay. In eastern Gunma — the belt of Oizumi, Ota and Isesaki — Portuguese is a normal sight on shop signs, and second- and third-generation Nikkei Brazilian and Peruvian families have raised children here for decades. The everyday questions are the same in every language: which school to choose, how to get your children's medical bills covered, whether your long-term-resident status can become permanent, and where to find someone who speaks your language when the paperwork gets hard.

This guide walks through all of it — where families live and what rent costs, daycare and the Japanese-versus-Brazilian school choice, child benefits and Gunma's free children's healthcare, health insurance, the visa road from long-term resident (定住者) to permanent residence, spouse and dependent visas, and where to get help in Portuguese — using Gunma's own published numbers and its own consultation desks. It is written for families who plan to put down roots, and it is just as useful after you arrive as before you choose.

Gunma at a glance: a community that put down roots

Gunma had 87,299 foreign residents as of 30 June 2025 (MOJ immigration statistics), the 12th-largest foreign population of any prefecture. On the prefecture's own municipal-registry count the number is higher and still climbing: 87,544 residents, 4.6% of Gunma's population, up 6,148 (+7.6%) in a single year to a record high (municipal registry, 31 Dec 2025). But the headline number is not what makes Gunma unusual for families — the composition is.

More than a third of Gunma's foreign residents are here for good. Permanent residents (21,840, the 10th-most of any prefecture) and long-term residents (11,170) together make up 33,010 people — 37.8% of the total (MOJ immigration statistics, 30 June 2025). That settled layer is overwhelmingly Nikkei South American. The single largest nationality is now Vietnamese, at 16,457 (30 June 2025), but the family character of the prefecture comes from its Brazilian, Peruvian and Bolivian communities: on the municipal registry, Brazil (13,382), Peru (4,728), Bolivia (636), Paraguay (242) and Argentina (160) together come to roughly 19,000 residents (31 Dec 2025). To see how the prefecture ranks against the rest of Japan, read our best prefectures for foreigners overview, and for the full prefecture picture see our Gunma prefecture guide.

The roots of this community are well known. After Japan's 1990 revision of the Immigration Control Act opened a long-term-resident status to people of Japanese descent, manufacturers in eastern Gunma — the region around Subaru's Ota plants and the surrounding auto-parts and food factories — drew Nikkei Brazilian and Peruvian workers, who then raised families and stayed across generations. Nationally, Brazil is a relatively small community, about 210,014 people in all of Japan at the end of 2025, which makes Gunma's concentration — and Oizumi's in particular — remarkable.

Where foreign families live, and what rent costs

Almost the entire foreign-family population sits in the eastern Gunma industrial belt. On the municipal registry for 31 December 2025, Isesaki had the most foreign residents in the prefecture (17,320, or 8.2% of the city), followed by Ota (16,695, 7.5%), the prefectural capital Maebashi (11,686, 3.6%), Takasaki (8,176, 2.2%) and the small town of Oizumi (9,011) — where foreign residents are 21.8% of everyone, the highest share in Gunma. Oizumi is the core: Brazilians alone make up about 52% of its foreign residents (town registry, 31 May 2026), which is why it is often called Japan's Brazilian town.

Families cluster here for a practical reason: this is where the work is. Across Gunma, 38.2% of foreign workers hold a status based on personal or family ties — permanent resident, long-term resident or spouse (21,767 people, MHLW employment survey, end-October 2024), more than the shares on technical-intern or specialist visas. In plain terms, the settled Nikkei population is the backbone of the local factory workforce, much of it through staffing agencies serving the auto and food plants. Those plants sit in car-dependent towns with sparse rail service, so a household car is close to essential for the school run and the commute.

The payoff is housing that costs a fraction of the big cities. As of 10 July 2026, SUUMO's prefectural averages put a family-sized 3LDK/4K at roughly ¥60,000 a month in Isesaki, ¥64,000 in Ota and ¥69,000 in Maebashi, with the Ora district around Oizumi cheaper still, about ¥51,000 for a mid-sized 3DK, and a single-room 1K from about ¥35,000 — roughly half what a comparable family flat costs in the Tokyo commuter belt. Renting as a foreign family still means the usual hurdles: a guarantor company, key money and Japanese-only screening, which our guides to rental contracts, guarantors and fees and the five reasons foreigners get rejected walk through, along with the first-year settling-in checklist. Because so many eastern-Gunma landlords already rent to foreign families, screening tends to be easier here than in central Tokyo — but a local gut check still helps, and on LO-PAL you can ask a Japanese resident whether a specific building or agency is used to foreign tenants before you sign anything.

Daycare: a prefecture with zero waiting list

If both parents work — the norm in most manufacturing households — licensed daycare (hoikuen) is usually the first system you deal with, and Gunma is unusually well placed here. The prefecture reported zero children on daycare waiting lists across the whole of Gunma as of 1 April 2025, down from 12 a year earlier, against licensed capacity of 50,154 places. That statewide zero includes the family-heavy cities of Ota, Isesaki, Maebashi and Oizumi. It does not guarantee your first-choice center, but it means the structural shortage that plagues Tokyo and Osaka is largely absent here.

Places are still allocated by a municipal points system that favors households where both parents work full-time — not first-come, first-served — and the application runs through your city hall, mostly in Japanese. Start with our daycare guide for foreign parents and the step-by-step hoikuen application walkthrough. From 2026 a new national scheme also lets families use a set number of hours without the usual work requirement, so a stay-at-home parent can still get a child into care part-time — we cover it in our kodomo-daremo-tsuen guide. Ask your city's childcare desk whether Portuguese help is available; in the eastern-Gunma cities, it often is.

School: Japanese public school or a Brazilian school?

This is the decision that defines many Nikkei families in Gunma, and the prefecture genuinely offers both paths.

Japanese public school is effectively free, close to home, and the fastest route to full bilingualism and integration. To support children who arrive with little Japanese, the prefectural board of education runs "Harmony," a learning-support site for children with foreign roots that provides a multi-layered support model, translated school notices and teaching materials, and the prefecture's education center publishes a "Gungun Guide" so that any school in Gunma can handle admissions, Japanese-language teaching and school-life adjustment for foreign pupils. In Ota, which has one of the prefecture's longest track records with foreign pupils, the city runs bilingual education support, including pre-enrolment guidance and orientation for foreign families (Ota City Board of Education) — Portuguese-centred, reflecting the Nikkei community. Our guides to Japanese public school for foreign parents and the school-supplies checklist explain enrolment and the surprising list of items you must buy.

Brazilian schools are the other path, and because Oizumi, Ota and Isesaki hold Japan's densest Nikkei Brazilian population, several of them cluster in this eastern-Gunma area. They teach the Brazilian curriculum in Portuguese, keep a child's first language strong, and issue a Brazilian diploma — which matters if the family might return to Brazil. The trade-offs are real, though: these are private schools that charge tuition, their accreditation status varies (which can affect a later transfer into the Japanese system and eligibility for some subsidies), and schools open and close over the years. Confirm any individual school's current status, fees and accreditation directly before you count on it, and weigh it against the free, integration-first public route above.

Babies, child allowance, and free children's healthcare

If you are having a baby in Gunma, you register the birth at your city hall within 14 days, add the child to your health insurance and My Number records, and claim the childbirth lump sum through your insurer; our guide to having a baby in Japan as a foreigner lays out the paperwork, and the 2026 changes making childbirth cheaper cover the newest support. Once the child is here, the national child allowance (児童手当) helps with monthly costs — our child allowance guide explains who qualifies and how to claim.

Where Gunma really stands out is children's medical costs, and here the benefit is unusually generous and, crucially, identical everywhere in the prefecture. Gunma subsidises both inpatient and outpatient care up to high-school age — until the first 31 March after a child turns 18 — with no income limit, no cost at the counter, and payment made in kind (現物給付) so you do not front the money and claim it back. Gunma unified this to the same high-school-age standard across all of its municipalities from 1 October 2023, so Ota, Isesaki, Oizumi, Maebashi and Takasaki all offer the same deal. In a country where many prefectures stop at junior-high or add a co-payment, free healthcare to 18 with no income test is a genuine reason families choose to raise children here. Benefits are revised from time to time, so confirm the current terms with your city hall, and keep receipts if a child is treated outside Gunma, where you claim the cost back afterwards.

Health insurance for the whole family

Health coverage is not optional in Japan, and it is what makes the children's medical subsidy usable in the first place. If your employer enrols you in company health insurance (健康保険), your spouse and children are normally added as dependents (扶養) at no extra premium; if you are self-employed, between jobs, or your workplace does not enrol you, the whole household joins National Health Insurance (国民健康保険) at your city hall. Either way, everyone should be covered from day one — the steps are in our health insurance guide for foreigners and the specifics of adding family members as dependents. Gunma is home to 6,561 residents on dependent (家族滞在) status, the 10th-most of any prefecture (MOJ immigration statistics, 30 June 2025), so joining a working relative's insurance is a well-trodden path here.

Language at the hospital is a common worry, and eastern Gunma has concrete answers. The Oizumi Town multicultural centre offers multilingual medical consultation and multilingual medical questionnaires, and publishes a Portuguese-language information magazine ("Garapa"), while the prefecture's one-stop consultation centre (below) fields medical, welfare and childcare questions in your own language. For how clinics, referrals and pharmacies actually work day to day, see our guide to Japan's medical system.

Your visa: from 定住者 to permanent residence

For Nikkei families, immigration status usually follows a path from long-term resident (定住者) — the status most people of Japanese descent hold, which you renew periodically and which lets you work in any field — toward permanent resident (永住者), which removes both the renewals and the work restrictions. Gunma's numbers show how many families complete that journey: 21,840 permanent residents, the 10th-most of any prefecture, alongside 11,170 long-term residents (MOJ immigration statistics, 30 June 2025). In Oizumi the settled share is starker still: the town's own figures put permanent residents at 35.4% and long-term residents at 30.5% — together with Japanese-spouse holders, about 72% of the town's foreign residents hold a settled status (Oizumi Town, 30 April 2025). This is not an itinerant workforce; it is a community measured in generations.

Permanent residence generally rewards years of continuous residence with a stable income and a clean tax and pension record, and because the exact requirements change, it is worth reading the current rules carefully; our permanent residence application guide and the PR income requirement explainer cover what to prepare. Families formed through marriage have their own routes: if you are married to a Japanese national or a permanent resident, see our spouse visa guide and the guide to permanent residence through marriage. Because these decisions shape your family's future, a second opinion helps — on LO-PAL you can ask a Japanese resident your specific question before you visit the immigration office.

Gunma residents file at the Takasaki branch of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Services Bureau, at 26-5 Takamatsu-cho, Takasaki, which covers Gunma, Tochigi, Saitama, Niigata and Nagano. Immigration rules can change, so always confirm the latest requirements with the branch or another official source before you apply.

Getting help in Portuguese (and 83 languages)

When something does not fit neatly into one office, Gunma has strong multilingual support. The prefecture's Gunma Foreign Residents One-Stop Support Centre, inside the prefectural government's Showa annex in Maebashi (027-289-8275), advises on immigration, work, medical care, welfare, childbirth, childcare and education in English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese and Nepali plus plain Japanese, and can reach 83 languages through a translation device, on weekdays from 9:00 to 17:00. In Oizumi, the town's multicultural centre (0276-62-6066) is a Portuguese-speaking hub in its own right, with the medical consultation and information magazine mentioned above.

If a member of your family is in Gunma as a technical intern or specified skilled worker rather than a settled resident, the practical picture — dormitories, transfers, wages and driving — is different, and our Gunma guide for technical interns and skilled workers covers it; Muslim families weighing where to settle can also read our guide to Muslim-friendly areas to live. Gunma rewards families who put down roots — low rents, daycare with no waiting list, free children's healthcare to 18, a deep Portuguese-speaking support system, and a well-worn road from long-term residence to permanent residence — but the specifics vary by city and change often, so treat this guide as your map and confirm the details with your own city hall.