Shiga Technical Intern Guide 2026: Life After You're Placed

If you have just been assigned to a factory in Konan, Koka, Nagahama, or Higashiomi — or you are still in Vietnam, Indonesia, or Myanmar waiting 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 get to choose your city: your accepting company and the supervising organisation (監理団体) decide it, and they normally arrange your first dormitory or apartment. So your real question is not "which town should I pick?" but "I have been placed in Shiga — how do I live well, protect my pay, and plan my next move?"

Shiga is one of Japan's most factory-dependent prefectures for foreign labour, and it holds two very different foreign communities that rarely overlap: long-settled Nikkei Brazilian families, and newer arrivals from Vietnam, Indonesia, and Myanmar who come mainly to work. This guide covers who lives here and where, 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.

Shiga by the numbers: who lives here and where they work

Shiga wraps around Lake Biwa between Kyoto and Nagoya, and ranks 19th nationwide, with 44,345 foreign residents as of 30 June 2025. On the prefecture's own residents' register the count is slightly higher and more current: 44,735 people, or 3.19% of the population — about 1 in 31 residents, and a record high for the fourth year running (end of 2025).

Two working visas dominate the newer population. As of 30 June 2025 Shiga had 6,570 technical interns and 3,799 specified skilled workers, alongside 11,370 permanent and 4,792 long-term residents; technical intern is the prefecture's second-largest single residence status after permanent residence.

The nationalities tell two stories at once. The largest groups are Vietnamese (12,030, 26.9%), Brazilian (8,782, 19.6%), Chinese (4,692), Filipino (3,543), Indonesian (3,492), and Myanmar (1,759) at the end of 2025. The Brazilian community is overwhelmingly settled — about nine in ten Brazilians in Shiga hold permanent (56.2%) or long-term (33.9%) resident status, mostly Nikkei families rooted here for years or decades. The intern and skilled-worker world looks entirely different: 59.7% of Indonesians in Shiga are technical interns and another 29.4% are specified skilled workers, and Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Myanmar arrivals are driving almost all of the recent growth.

Where people live follows the factories. The highest foreign-resident shares are Konan City at 8.07%, Aisho Town at 6.17%, and Koka City at 5.71%, while the largest counts sit in the capital Otsu (6,195) and the industrial city of Higashiomi (5,200) at the end of 2025; Nagahama and Hikone in the north-east round out the main industrial belts. This is no coincidence. Shiga ranks first in Japan for the share of foreign workers employed through dispatch and subcontracting firms (45.3%) and second for workers on status-based visas (53.3%, MHLW, October 2022), and nationally 48.9% of technical interns work in manufacturing. In plain terms, Shiga's plants run on foreign hands — and most of those hands are in Konan, Koka, Nagahama, Hikone, and Higashiomi.

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

In the technical-intern and specified-skilled-worker systems, housing is arranged for you. Your supervising organisation or employer — for skilled workers, often a registered support organisation (登録支援機関) — usually signs the lease and puts you in a company dormitory or a shared apartment near the plant, sometimes with other workers from your country. That removes the biggest obstacle most foreigners hit in Japan: no guarantor, no key money, no being turned away by an agent. The trade-off is that you should read carefully what you are agreeing to, because your rent is normally deducted straight from your pay.

In your first weeks you (often with your organisation's help) 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 both the Japanese and, if possible, your-language version of every document you sign — the employment conditions notice, the housing agreement, and the list of what is deducted from your pay — and keep copies of all of them. Note where your residence card, health-insurance card, and My Number are stored, because you will need them constantly.

One thing you are entitled to check: a housing deduction has to reflect a reasonable, actual cost — an employer cannot inflate your dorm fee to quietly claw back wages. If your deduction looks high for a shared room in a rural part of Shiga, that is a fair question to raise, and the Shiga Foreign Residents Information Center (below) can help you review it for free.

Your pay slip: wages, deductions, and dorm fees

You are entitled to at least the Shiga regional minimum wage, and the principle of equal pay for equal work means your base pay should be in line with a Japanese worker doing the same job — you are not a cheaper category of employee. Every month you will get a pay slip (給与明細) showing 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; anything vague — broker fees, unexplained "management" charges, or a deposit you never agreed to — is a red flag. Second, confirm that health insurance and pension are actually being deducted, because those are exactly the protections that make the deductions worth it. If the numbers do not add up, do not assume it is normal. Our guide to wages, deductions, and equal pay breaks down which items should appear on your slip and what an employer is not allowed to take.

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

Being placed by a company does not shrink your 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. If you are injured on the job — a genuine risk on a manufacturing line — workers' accident compensation insurance (労災, rosai) covers your treatment and lost income regardless of your visa or how the accident happened.

When something is wrong — unpaid overtime, an unsafe line, illegal deductions, or pressure not to quit — you have free places to turn, and you cannot be lawfully punished or deported simply for raising a complaint. The Labour Standards Inspection Office (労働基準監督署) handles wage and safety violations, and technical interns can also call the native-language consultation line run by OTIT, the national body that oversees the programme. Before you sign anything, quit, or accept a change your employer proposes, it helps to get a second opinion — on LO-PAL you can ask a local resident for a gut check in plain language.

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

The 2027 switch to Ikusei Shuro

The Technical Intern Training programme 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. Because the system is still being finalised, treat the specifics with care and always confirm the latest rules with official sources. Our Ikusei Shuro 2027 guide tracks the plan and what it means if you are already an intern.

The coming right to change employers

The biggest practical change is mobility. Under the current intern programme you generally cannot switch employers, which is one of its hardest features. 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 — a major shift for anyone stuck in a bad workplace. The exact rules are still being decided, so do not count on a specific figure yet; our guide to job-transfer rights under Ikusei Shuro follows the details as they are confirmed.

Stepping up to Specified Skilled Worker

Many interns move on to Specified Skilled Worker (特定技能), which is a real step up: longer stays, the ability to change employers within your 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. With 3,799 specified skilled workers already in Shiga as of 30 June 2025 and the status growing fast, this is a well-worn path here. Our Specified Skilled Worker guide walks through the fields, tests, and the switch.

Daily life in a car prefecture: driving, money, health, and pension

You will probably need a car — and a Japanese licence

Shiga is not Osaka. Central Otsu and Kusatsu sit on the JR Biwako Line and are easy without a car, but the factory and dorm areas of Konan, Koka, Nagahama, Hikone, and Higashiomi are spread out and thinly served by trains. Many workers rely on a bicycle or scooter for daily errands, and a car becomes genuinely useful — sometimes necessary — for shopping and reaching early shifts. 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 Shiga licence conversion guide covers the driving-centre process, the documents you need, and which countries must take a practical test. Never drive on an expired permit or the wrong licence — the penalties are severe and can affect your visa.

Sending money home

Most interns and skilled workers send a large share of their pay home, and the method matters more than people expect. A same-day bank wire is familiar but usually the most expensive once you add the fixed fee and the exchange-rate margin; specialist transfer services and apps typically beat banks on both for the Vietnam, Indonesia, and Philippines corridors. The best choice depends on how much you send and how fast it must arrive — our guide to the cheapest ways to send money from Japan in 2026 lays out the real costs. Open a Japanese bank account early, because you will need it for both wages and most transfer services.

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 — never let it lapse. Our overview of health insurance for foreigners explains the difference and what each covers. Language is the harder barrier in a clinic than money, and Shiga has some real help: Koka Public Hospital in Koka City provides free medical interpretation in Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese for its patients — valuable because Koka is one of the main factory areas — and several core hospitals in the prefecture have worked together on multilingual medical support. For routine visits, a translation app plus the consultation centre below will usually get you to a clinic that can handle your language.

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 through a tax representative. There are deadlines and conditions, so understand it before you fly home rather than after, and keep your pension documents. Our guide to getting your pension and tax back walks through the paperwork.

Getting help in your language: consultation desks, community, and schools

Save one number before anything else. The Shiga Foreign Residents Information Center handles free consultations in six languages — Japanese, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese — by phone on 077-523-5646, weekdays 10:00–17:00, with other languages covered through a telephone interpreter. Run by the Shiga Intercultural Association for Globalization (SIA) inside Piazza Omi in Otsu, it is your first call for anything you cannot read — a letter, a contract, a hospital form. The prefecture also publishes a plain-language information paper, Mimi-Taro, in ten languages.

For immigration itself — extensions, changes of status, re-entry — Shiga is served by the Otsu Branch of the Osaka Regional Immigration Bureau, on the 6th floor of the Otsu Biwako Godo Chosha at 3-1-1 Kyomachi, Otsu (077-511-4231), so you do not have to travel to Osaka. Go early in the day and bring every document.

Beyond the official desks, your own community is often the fastest, most honest source of advice. Vietnamese and Indonesian networks — the two nationalities driving Shiga's growth — run across the factory towns, and our country guides cover the programme from your side, including brokers, costs, and what to watch for: the Vietnam ikusei shuro guide and the Indonesia ikusei shuro guide.

Shiga's other big foreign community — Nikkei Brazilian families — has built lasting institutions worth knowing if you have or bring children. Two long-running Brazilian schools operate here: Escola Latino (Nihon Latino Gakuin) in Higashiomi City, teaching around 200 students from nursery to high school, and Colegio Sant'Ana in Aisho Town, running since 1998. They are a reminder that Shiga has absorbed foreign families for a generation — and that help in your language usually exists if you know where to look. Whatever your question, on LO-PAL you can ask a Japanese resident directly and get a straight answer about how life in Shiga actually works.

Frequently asked questions

Do technical interns in Shiga choose their own apartment?

Usually no. In the technical intern and specified skilled worker programmes, your accepting company or supervising organisation typically arranges a company dormitory or shared apartment near the plant and handles the lease, guarantor, and move-in. You should still read the housing agreement and check that the dorm fee and utility deductions are reasonable for the local market, because a housing deduction cannot lawfully be inflated to claw back wages.

How many technical interns and skilled workers live in Shiga?

As of 30 June 2025, Shiga had 6,570 technical interns and 3,799 specified skilled workers, according to Immigration Services Agency statistics. Technical intern is the prefecture's second-largest single residence status after permanent residence. Most are concentrated in the manufacturing areas of Konan, Koka, Nagahama, Hikone, and Higashiomi.

Can I change employers as a technical intern in Shiga?

Under the current technical intern programme 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 under certain conditions. The rules are still being finalised, so confirm the latest with official sources before relying on them.

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

You have free options and cannot be lawfully punished for complaining. 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 Shiga Foreign Residents Information Center can also help in your language at 077-523-5646.

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

Call the Shiga Foreign Residents Information Center at 077-523-5646, weekdays 10:00 to 17:00. It gives free advice in six languages on site — Japanese, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese — with other languages via a telephone interpreter. It is run by the Shiga Intercultural Association for Globalization inside Piazza Omi in Otsu, and Shiga's immigration matters are handled at the Otsu Branch of the Osaka Regional Immigration Bureau.

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 (dattai ichijikin) for part of what you paid in, and separately reclaim the tax withheld from it through a tax representative. File before you leave and keep your pension documents, as there are deadlines and conditions.