Gunma Technical Intern Guide 2026: Pay, Rights & SUBARU Towns

If you have just been assigned to a factory in Ota, Isesaki, or Oizumi — or to a cabbage farm up in the Tsumagoi highlands — or you are still waiting in Vietnam, Indonesia, or the Philippines for your placement, this guide is written for you. As a technical intern (技能実習) or specified skilled worker (特定技能), you usually do not choose your town: your employer and the supervising organisation (監理団体), or for skilled workers a registered support organisation (登録支援機関), pick it and typically arrange your first dormitory or apartment. So your real question is not 'which city should I choose?' but 'I have been placed in Gunma — how do I live well, protect my pay, and plan my next step?'

Gunma sits just north of the Tokyo plain and runs on manufacturing and farming. Its foreign workforce is led by Vietnamese interns and skilled workers on the factory floors of the Toen (東毛) industrial belt in the prefecture's south-east, next to one of Japan's oldest and largest settled Japanese-Brazilian communities. This guide walks through who lives here and where they work, what your dorm and pay slip should look like, the rights you keep even when your company arranged everything, the big 2027 change to the training system, and the daily-life basics — driving, sending money home, health insurance, and the pension refund — that every new arrival asks about.

Gunma by the numbers: the Toen factory belt and highland farms

Gunma ranks twelfth among all prefectures, with 87,299 foreign residents (2.21% of Japan's total) as of 30 June 2025 (residence statistics), equal to about 4.6% of the prefecture's population on the separate residence-registry count of 87,544 as of 31 December 2025. On the two working statuses this guide covers it counted 11,762 technical interns and 10,385 specified skilled workers (residence statistics, 30 June 2025), out of national totals of 449,432 interns and 336,196 specified skilled workers. Gunma is not a headcount leader for interns, but it is a dense, mature manufacturing and farming region — which shapes where and how you will live.

Where you work decides where you live, and in Gunma the jobs sit in the Toen belt in the south-east. Foreign residents concentrate there: Isesaki (17,320 residents, 8.2% — the most of any Gunma city), Ota (16,695, 7.5%), and Oizumi town (9,011, 21.8% — about one in five residents, among the highest ratios in Japan) (residence-registry count, 31 December 2025), while the capital, Maebashi, and the shinkansen hub, Takasaki, have lower foreign shares. Ota is the company town of SUBARU, whose headquarters and car plants anchor the local economy, and manufacturing is by far the biggest employer of foreign workers in the prefecture: 20,632 (36.24%) of Gunma's 56,938 foreign workers (labour survey, 31 October 2024), with dispatch and subcontract 'services' adding another 18,167 (31.91%) — so roughly two in three are in factories or placed into them through staffing agencies.

Farming is the other half of the story, concentrated in the northwestern highlands. Tsumagoi village, famous nationwide for its cabbage, had 393 foreign residents (4.4%) and the highland village of Showa 721 (10.5%) (residence-registry count, 31 December 2025). Among specified skilled workers in employment, the most common fields in Gunma were food and beverage manufacturing (2,029), industrial-product manufacturing (1,262), and agriculture (814) (labour survey, 31 October 2024). If you are placed on a farm rather than a factory line, the rest of this guide still applies.

Gunma has two overlapping foreign communities, and it helps to know which one you are joining. The older layer is the settled Japanese-Brazilian (nikkei) community that has staffed the plants since the early 1990s and largely put down roots: Brazilian is still the prefecture's second-largest nationality (14,127) (residence statistics, 30 June 2025), and in Oizumi Brazilians alone are 4,791 people, 51.97% of the town's foreign residents (town figures, 31 May 2026) — many now holding permanent or long-term status. The newer layer is the intern and skilled-worker workforce from Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines: Vietnamese (16,457) is now the largest nationality, ahead of Filipino (9,697) and Indonesian (7,389) (residence statistics, 30 June 2025). Both sit side by side in the Toen towns. Isesaki, the most foreign city, mixes Vietnamese interns and skilled workers with the older Brazilian community — the city publishes its nationality breakdown only as a graph, so we describe that mix qualitatively. If you are here with family or thinking long-term, our Gunma foreign family guide covers the settled side; you can see how Gunma ranks nationally in our best prefectures for foreigners comparison; and our living in Gunma guide covers the prefecture as a whole.

What 'being placed' really means: your dorm and first weeks

In the technical-intern and specified-skilled-worker systems, housing is usually arranged for you. Your supervising organisation or employer — for skilled workers, often a registered support organisation — typically signs the lease and puts you in a company dormitory or a shared apartment near the plant or farm, sometimes with other workers from your country. You rarely have to deal with a guarantor, key money, or a rental agency yourself at the start, which removes the single biggest barrier foreigners usually face when renting in Japan. It also means you should read carefully what you are agreeing to.

In your first weeks you (often with help from your organisation) will register your address at the city or town hall, receive your residence card, get a My Number, and open a bank account for your salary. Ask for the Japanese and, ideally, your-language version of every document you sign: the employment contract, the housing agreement, and the list of what is deducted from your pay. Keep copies of everything.

Housing in Gunma is cheap by big-city standards, which matters because your dorm fee should sit in a similar, reasonable range — not far above the local market. There is no single published figure for what interns pay in dorm deductions, so use the ordinary market rent in your town as your yardstick. As of 10 July 2026, SUUMO listed the following typical monthly rents:

Town	1K (single)	2LDK (family)
Ota (SUBARU)	¥5.1万 (¥51,000)	¥5.3万 (¥53,000)
Isesaki	¥3.5万 (¥35,000)	¥5.2万 (¥52,000)
Ora district (covers Oizumi)	¥3.5万 (¥35,000)	¥5.1万 (¥51,000)

Oizumi has no separate SUUMO listing, so the surrounding Ora district stands in for it. These are among the lowest rents of any industrial area within reach of Tokyo: a single 1K runs about ¥3.5万 in Isesaki and the Ora district and around ¥5.1万 in Ota, and even a family-size 2LDK stays near ¥5万. If your dorm deduction is much higher than a normal 1K in the same town, that is worth questioning — which brings us to your pay slip.

Your pay slip: wages, deductions, and dorm fees

You are entitled to at least the Gunma prefectural minimum wage, and by law you must be paid the same as a Japanese worker doing the same job — this 'equal pay' principle is built into both programs. Your monthly pay slip (給与明細) will show gross pay minus deductions: income tax, resident tax, health insurance, pension, employment insurance, and usually your dorm rent and utilities.

Two things deserve close attention. First, deductions for housing, food, or utilities must be reasonable and agreed in advance; an employer cannot quietly inflate your dorm fee to claw back wages. Second, check that your health insurance and pension are actually being paid — they should appear as deductions, and they protect you. If the numbers do not add up, do not assume it is normal. Our guide to wages, deductions, and equal pay breaks down exactly which items should appear on your slip and what an employer is not allowed to take, and our overview of reading a Japanese employment contract explains the terms before you sign.

Your rights at work — and what to do when something goes wrong

Being placed by a company does not shrink your labour rights. You are covered by the same Labour Standards Act as any worker in Japan: limits on working hours, overtime premiums, paid leave, and protection from having your passport or bank book held by an employer, which is illegal. Our plain-language guide to worker rights for foreigners is worth reading before you start. If you are injured on the job — a real risk on a manufacturing line or a farm — workers' accident compensation insurance (労災, rosai) covers your treatment and lost wages regardless of your visa; our guide on claiming rosai explains how to file.

When something is wrong — unpaid overtime, unsafe conditions, or pressure not to quit — you have places to turn that are free and often multilingual. The Labour Standards Inspection Office (労働基準監督署) handles wage and safety violations; see our step-by-step guide to filing a labour complaint and, if wages are simply not being paid, how to recover unpaid wages. Technical interns can also call the native-language consultation line run by OTIT, the national body that oversees the program. Before you sign anything, quit, or accept a change your employer proposes, it helps to get a second opinion first. On LO-PAL you can put your exact situation to a local resident and get a straight answer in plain language before you commit to anything.

Your visa future: Ikusei Shuro (2027) and moving to Specified Skilled Worker

The 2027 switch to Ikusei Shuro

The Technical Intern Training program is being replaced. A new status called Ikusei Shuro (育成就労, 'employment for skill development') is scheduled to begin in April 2027 and will phase out the current 技能実習 system, with the stated aim of developing workers toward Specified Skilled Worker status rather than treating them as short-term 'trainees.' The system is still being finalised, so always confirm the latest details with official sources. Our Ikusei Shuro 2027 guide tracks the plan, and if you are already an intern, what happens to existing interns after 2027 explains how the transition is expected to work.

The new right to change employers

The biggest practical change is mobility. Under the current intern program you generally cannot switch employers, which is what leaves some workers stuck in a bad workplace — a serious problem when your dorm, your job, and your visa are all tied to one company. Under Ikusei Shuro, workers are expected to be allowed to move to another employer in the same field after a set period, under certain conditions. The exact rules are still being decided; our guide to job-transfer rights under Ikusei Shuro keeps up with the details.

Stepping up to Specified Skilled Worker

Many interns move on to Specified Skilled Worker (特定技能), which allows longer stays, job changes within the same field, and — for the higher 'No. 2' tier — the possibility of bringing family and heading toward permanent residence. Passing a skills test and a Japanese-language test is the usual route, and time completed as an intern can count toward it. With 10,385 specified skilled workers already in Gunma as of 30 June 2025 (residence statistics), this is a well-worn path here, especially in food and machinery manufacturing and agriculture. Our Specified Skilled Worker guide walks through the requirements and the switch.

Daily life in Gunma: driving, money, health, and pension

You will almost certainly need a car — and a Japanese licence

Gunma is one of the most car-dependent prefectures in Japan. Outside central Maebashi and Takasaki the rail network is thin, and the Toen factory towns and the highland farms assume you drive to work, the supermarket, and city hall. If you already hold a licence from home, you can often convert it to a Japanese one (外免切替) rather than start from zero; our Gunma licence conversion guide covers the local testing-centre process and documents, and our national guide to converting a foreign licence explains which countries have to take a practical driving test. Whatever you drive, get properly insured — that is not optional in practice.

Sending money home

Most interns and skilled workers send a large share of their pay home. Banks are the most familiar option but often the most expensive; specialist transfer services usually beat them on both fees and exchange rate. Compare before you commit — our guide to the cheapest ways to send money from Japan lays out the real costs for Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and more.

Health insurance and seeing a doctor

If your employer enrols you correctly, you are on employees' health insurance (or otherwise National Health Insurance), which covers about 70% of most medical costs — do not skip it. See our overview of health insurance for foreigners. Language is the harder part at the clinic; Gunma's prefectural one-stop centre and Oizumi's town centre both offer multilingual medical consultation, including Vietnamese and Portuguese, covered in the help section below.

The pension refund when you leave

You pay into the Japanese pension system every month. If you leave Japan without qualifying for a pension, you can claim a lump-sum withdrawal payment (脱退一時金) for part of what you paid in, and there is a separate process to reclaim the tax withheld from that payment. Plan this before you fly home, and keep your pension documents. Our guides to the pension lump-sum and tax refund and to the pension system for foreigners explain who qualifies and how to file.

Getting help in your language: consultation desks and your community

Gunma runs a strong central desk. The Gunma Foreign Residents One-Stop Center sits on the first floor of the Showa Government Building at the prefectural office in Maebashi and can be reached on 027-289-8275, weekdays 9:00 to 17:00, with advisers for English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Nepali plus plain Japanese, and an electronic translator covering 83 languages. It also runs free legal consultations twice a month. For Vietnamese interns and Portuguese-speaking nikkei workers alike, this is the first number to call for visa, work, medical, or daily-life questions.

In Oizumi, the town's Multicultural Community Center (0276-62-6066) is a Portuguese-language hub — it publishes the Portuguese and English newsletter 'Garapa' and offers multilingual medical consultation — most useful for the Brazilian and Peruvian community. For visa paperwork, Gunma falls under the Takasaki Branch Office of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau (26-5 Takamatsu-cho, Takasaki; 027-328-1154), which covers Gunma, Tochigi, Saitama, Niigata, and Nagano.

Beyond the official desks, your own community is often the fastest help. Vietnamese is now the prefecture's largest foreign nationality, and Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Filipino networks run through Ota, Isesaki, and Oizumi; the long-established Brazilian community around Oizumi and Ota means daily life in Portuguese is realistic in parts of the Toen belt. Learning some Japanese still pays off fastest — see our list of free Japanese classes. For country-specific advice, see our guides for Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Filipino workers.

Whatever the question, you do not have to guess your way through it. On LO-PAL you can ask a Japanese resident your specific question and get a real-world answer in your language — a useful backstop when the official desks are busy or you simply want to know how something really works on the ground.

Frequently asked questions

Do technical interns in Gunma choose their own apartment?

Usually no. In the technical intern and specified skilled worker programs, your employer or supervising organisation typically arranges a company dormitory or shared apartment near the workplace and handles the lease, guarantor, and move-in. You should still read the housing agreement and confirm that the dorm fee and utility deductions are reasonable compared with the local market.

How much does an apartment cost in Gunma if I move out of the dorm?

Rents are very low. As of 10 July 2026, SUUMO listed about 3.5 to 5.1 man yen (roughly 35,000 to 51,000 yen) per month for a 1K single in Isesaki, Ota, and the Ora district near Oizumi, and around 5.1 to 5.3 man yen for a family-size 2LDK in the same areas. Renting on your own usually adds a deposit, key money, and a guarantor requirement.

Can I change employers as a technical intern in Gunma?

Under the current technical intern program you generally cannot. This is set to change: the new Ikusei Shuro status, scheduled to begin in April 2027, is expected to let workers move to another employer in the same field after a set period. The rules are still being finalised, so confirm the latest with official sources before you count on it.

What can I do if my employer in Gunma is not paying me correctly?

You have free options. The Labour Standards Inspection Office handles unpaid wages and overtime, workers' accident insurance (rosai) covers workplace injuries regardless of visa, and technical interns can call OTIT's native-language consultation line. The Gunma Foreign Residents One-Stop Center at 027-289-8275 can also point you to the right place in Vietnamese, Portuguese, and other languages.

Where can I get help in my own language in Gunma?

Call the Gunma Foreign Residents One-Stop Center at 027-289-8275, which handles consultation in English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Nepali plus plain Japanese, with an electronic translator for 83 languages. Oizumi's Multicultural Community Center at 0276-62-6066 focuses on Portuguese for the Brazilian community.

Can I get my pension contributions back when I leave Japan?

Partly. If you leave Japan without qualifying for a pension, you can apply for a lump-sum withdrawal payment for part of what you paid in, and separately reclaim the tax withheld from it. File before you leave and keep your pension documents; a pension guide for foreigners explains the steps and who qualifies.