Japan · 日本
The law arrived. The signing did not.
Japan signs its news and has just passed a sign language act. Between those two facts sits everything else people watch, learn from and sign for. We have no partner in Japan yet. That is what this page is for.
This page in JSL
A Deaf creator from Japan signs this page, credited by name. Recording begins when we have a local creator — that is one of the things we are looking for.
Where Japan stands
Closer than it looks.
In plain words
Here is who lives here and what reaches them. Some of it already works. Where a number is missing, we say so instead of guessing.
Every figure carries its source and says what it measures — surveys that ask people and clinics that test people produce different numbers, and we will not blur them together. Send us a better source and we will use it.
- Deaf and hard of hearing
- 443,013 certificate holders SourceCertificate-based, so it counts people who applied and qualified. A broader household survey gives 379,000. Neither counts everyone with hearing loss.MHLW, FY2021, 2021
- Blind and low vision
- 322,310 certificate holders SourceOphthalmologists' estimates including uncertified low vision run to 1.6 million and above, so the certificate figure is a floor.MHLW, FY2021, 2021
- Functionally illiterate
- About 10% of adults SourceAmong the strongest results in the OECD. This measures proficiency for everyday tasks, not basic reading, which is close to universal in Japan.OECD PIAAC 2023, 2023
- Sign language
- Japanese Sign Language (JSL) · ISO 639-3: jsl
- People who sign it
- About 60,000 SourceA linguistic-community estimate, not a government count — Japan's certificate system measures hearing loss, not sign-language fluency.Japanese Association for Sign Language Studies, 2024
- Interpreters
- 3,932 certified SourceThe 手話通訳士 credential, awarded through a national examination run since 1989. The annual pass rate is about 14%, which keeps the credential rare. The registry publishes prefecture lists rather than a headline total; this is the most recent citable cumulative figure.Center for Deaf-Blind Information and Culture registry, 2022
Signed Japanese, which follows spoken Japanese word order, is a separate thing from JSL and is often what appears on screen. They are not interchangeable.
The gap, in one number
There are not enough interpreters. There were never going to be.
Interpreters are skilled professionals and there will never be enough of them to cover every film, lesson, clinic visit and news bulletin. That is not a criticism of interpreters — it is arithmetic.
Recorded sign language does not replace an interpreter in a hospital room. It covers the enormous amount of content no interpreter was ever going to be booked for — so the interpreters go where only a person will do.
1 : 113
One qualified interpreter for every 113 Deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
443,013 people holding a hearing or balance disability certificate ÷ 3,932 certified interpreters. We show the arithmetic because the two numbers come from different places.
Promised, and delivered
Compliant isn't the same as understood.
Japan has already written much of this into law. The distance between the promise and the ordinary day is where we work.
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And it works
It partly is. A daily signed news programme has run for decades — one of the oldest continuous signed news services anywhere.
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The law says
Private businesses must provide reasonable accommodation, mandatory since April 2024.
Act for Eliminating Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities, as revised
In practice
Two years on, progress is mixed. The duty is real, the enforcement is light, and almost none of it has produced signed content.
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The law says
Sign language acquisition and use must be promoted nationally, under the 2025 Act.
In practice
The law is new and sets direction rather than quotas. It creates demand for signed content without creating the supply.
An ordinary day
Today, and when this works.
Not emergencies. Ordinary days, in this country, as they are now — and as they are somewhere else already.
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The evening news
Today
A signed news programme has run daily for decades. It is one slot, on one channel, in a country with hundreds of them.
When this works
Signing beyond the news slot — the dramas, the lessons, the local government notices.
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School
Today
Deaf education is split between schools for the Deaf and mainstream classrooms, and what appears on screen is often signed Japanese rather than JSL.
When this works
Lessons in JSL, made by Deaf teachers, reusable in every prefecture instead of rebuilt in each one.
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Calling for help
Today
Emergency reporting for Deaf people runs through a text and image system, registered with the local fire department, municipality by municipality.
When this works
A live video call in JSL to a human interpreter, at any hour, without registering first.
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Getting an interpreter
Today
Interpreter dispatch is arranged prefecture by prefecture. Whether one is available depends on where you live, and nobody publishes a national total.
When this works
Recorded JSL covering what is the same everywhere — the forms, the rules, the programmes — so dispatch is saved for what only a person can do.
None of the right-hand column is hypothetical. Every part of it already works in some country — a signed news bulletin, an emergency line that answers without a voice, Deaf teachers in a Deaf school. Just not all of them in the same one.
An ordinary day, signed
This section matters most to people who do not read the written language, so it is first in the signing queue for this country.
What would change here, starting now
Months, not years.
Three things a local partner and a11y could put in front of people quickly — each one already built, just not here yet.
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Content people actually watch, in JSL
Deaf creators here sign films, lessons and public information, and are paid for it. The delivery layer already exists — what it needs is this country's sign language in it.
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One city, one service
A single public service — a clinic, a council channel, a cinema — made accessible end to end, with the receipts published. Elsewhere that has meant ordinances passing and budgets moving.
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A signed news digest
A regular summary in JSL, made by paid local Deaf creators. Small enough to start this year, and it is how a creator community starts earning.
These are descriptions of a first project, not work we have done here. We have no partner in Japan yet.
Who this gets built with
We would not be arriving to an empty room.
Deaf communities here have been organising, teaching and campaigning for decades. Anything we do belongs alongside them, not in front of them.
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Japanese Federation of the Deaf
Deaf-led
The national Deaf-led federation, founded 1947. It ran the campaign that produced the 2025 sign language act and certifies interpreters.
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The Nippon Foundation
A major funder of Deaf education and sign language work in Japan and across Asia. Listed for completeness — it is a funder, not a Deaf-led organisation.
These organisations are not a11y partners — they are the people already doing this work here. If we come to this country, it should be alongside them.
People signing in JSL today
We are still finding Deaf creators publishing in JSL. Tell us who we should be following.
Start something
Looking for a partner.
No local partner yet. We are looking for a Deaf-led organisation, a broadcaster or a prefecture to work with here.
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I sign JSL
Create.Get paid.Be seen.
Deaf creators come first here. If you sign, you are who we most want to hear from.
Go -
I know who you should talk to
Name them.Introduce us.
An association, a school, a broadcaster, a creator. A name and a reason is enough.
Go -
I work for a city or government
Mandate.Budget.Service.
You may already have the law and the money. What is missing is the service.
Go
Know your rights
What you are entitled to here.
In plain words
These are things the law already says you can ask for. If you have been refused any of them, that refusal was against the law — not a favour you were denied.
Written plainly, with the law behind each one linked as a receipt. This is the part of the page we would most like a local Deaf organisation to check and correct.
- Your language
Recognised by a national law of its own, passed in June 2025.
The Act on the Promotion of Measures Concerning Sign Language covers acquisition, use and the preservation of sign language culture. A majority of prefectures had already passed their own sign language ordinances before it.
- On television
Yes. The public broadcaster has carried a daily signed news programme for decades.
A long-running signed news slot on NHK's educational channel, separate from subtitling. It is one of the oldest continuous signed news services anywhere.
- In an emergency
Net119, a text and image emergency reporting system, is available through local fire departments.
Registration-based and run municipality by municipality rather than as one national video relay service in sign language.
What opens a full page
This page grows when three things are true.
- A local Deaf creator has recorded this page in Japanese Sign Language — named and paid.
- There is at least one real, local fact with a source behind it.
- Someone owns keeping it current.
Until then it stays honest about what it is: the situation, and an open invitation. All countries · See a full country page