Japan's 70.3% Settlement Rate for Rural Revitalisation Volunteers Is Not the Share Who Stayed Where They Were Hired — That Figure Is 57.5%

On 24 April 2026, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications published the FY2025 activity figures for the Community-Reactivating Cooperator Squad, together with a survey of where former members went after their terms ended.

Membership stood at 8,196, up 286 on the previous year[1]. The number of participating authorities was 1,187, about 81% of the 1,461 eligible to host[1].

The settlement survey covers the 8,762 members[2] whose terms ended between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2025. Of these, 6,163, or 70.3%, "settled in the same area"[2].

What that 70.3% refers to changes once the breakdown is opened.

5,038, or 57.5%, settled in the same municipality where they served, and 1,125, or 12.8%, in a neighbouring municipality[2]. "Same area" is the sum of those two.

The honorarium and activity costs are paid by the local authority that took the member on. Where that authority is a municipality, the 12.8% moved out to the municipality next door.

The remainder consists of 2,013 (23.0%) who moved elsewhere, 511 (5.8%) whose whereabouts are unknown, and 75 (0.9%) recorded as other[2]. Of the 2,013 who moved away, 228 are recorded as engaged in community support work connected to the area where they served.

What the 5,038 who stayed are doing

The same document breaks down the 5,038 who stayed in the municipality where they served.

2,296 (45.6%) started a business, 1,753 (34.8%) took employment, 583 (11.6%) went into farming or forestry, and 70 (1.4%) took over an existing business[2]. The rest are 155 unknown (3.1%) and 181 other (3.6%).

Business startups account for nearly half. The startup and succession columns, however, carry a note: "includes those still preparing." A running business and a business being prepared sit in the same figure. Anyone asking how many businesses were actually created cannot use the 2,296 as it stands.

The startups cluster in food, craft and lodging

The 2,296 startups are published by sector. 308 are in food service (converted farmhouse cafes, farm restaurants and the like), 217 are artists, craftspeople, designers, photographers or filmmakers, 181 are in lodging (guesthouses, farm stays), and 174 in retail (bakeries, mobile pizza vans, mail-order produce)[2]. Then come 130 in tourism (guided tours, cultural experiences), 101 in sixth-sector processing (boar and deer meat), 80 in publishing and advertising, and 80 in community development support[2].

Those eight sectors account for 1,271 people, 55% of all startups. Food, making things, lodging, retail. People who arrived from outside are starting businesses that meet customers face to face inside the area. Sectors requiring capital equipment, such as manufacturing or construction, do not appear near the top.

One in four of those in employment works for the public sector

The 1,753 in employment have a different shape. 480 work in the public sector (municipal staff, elected members, village support officers), the largest category, followed by 176 in tourism, 138 in agriculture, forestry and fisheries organisations, 99 in community development support, 78 in education, 72 in healthcare and welfare, 58 in manufacturing and 53 in retail[2].

The 480 in the public sector are 27.4% of those in employment. Staying involved in an official capacity accounts for one in four. Squad members are commissioned by the local authority as part-time appointees, so municipal staff and village support officer sit on the same line. The scheme returns people into the scheme.

Among the 583 in farming and forestry, 477 went into agriculture, 54 into forestry, 20 into livestock and 12 into fisheries[2]; agriculture alone is 81.8%.

Alumni now outnumber those serving

Cumulative former members reached 15,045 as of 31 March 2025[3], up 2,363 on the previous survey. Against 8,196 currently serving, those who have finished outnumber those in post. The scheme began in FY2009 and is now seventeen years old, with roughly two thousand people finishing their terms each year.

The entrance is widening too

While more people leave, more are also trying the scheme out. Participants in the trial scheme numbered 1,149 in FY2024 and 1,450 in FY2025, while internships ran 106 in FY2021, 315 in FY2022, 393 in FY2023, 1,047 in FY2024 and 1,414 in FY2025[4].

Internships grew 13.3 times in four years. In FY2025, trials and internships together brought 2,864 people into host areas for short stays. Alongside the 8,196 serving members sits a further group equal to a third of that number, coming to try. How many of them became members, and how many settled, is not published.

Whose viewpoint draws the line around the same area

From a member's side, living in a neighbouring municipality and commuting back counts as staying. From the prefecture's side, they are still within the prefecture. From the recruiting municipality's side, the residence registration has left. The same 1,125 people register as an achievement or a shortfall depending on where you stand.

If a rate is to serve as a policy target, that line has to be drawn first. As set out in designing outcome indicators（このサイトの記事）, chasing a figure without deciding what counts as an outcome leaves the interpretation to be fought over later. The ministry publishes the two categories separately, so they can be read separately. Quoted without that split, 57.5% becomes 70.3%.

Which side the 511 unaccounted-for cases sit on

Placed on the settled side, the rate reads 76.2%; placed on the departed side, 70.3%. The real rate lies between 70.3% and 76.2%. The published 70.3% is the floor, obtained by treating every unknown case as a departure.

That also limits year-on-year comparison. If the share of unknown cases moves between surveys, so does the rate.

Prefectural rates need their denominators read first

Prefectural rates are published, but the denominators differ by orders of magnitude. Kanagawa records 100.0% on three former members[2] and Osaka 60.0% on five[2]. Three out of three is 100%.

The large denominators are Hokkaido with 1,225 (78.3%), Nagano with 656 (78.0%), Shimane with 388 (60.3%), Kochi with 362 (73.8%), Niigata with 341 (66.0%) and Kumamoto with 325 (70.2%)[2].

Among prefectures with 100 or more, the spread is 24 points

Restricting to prefectures with at least 100 former members shows the range. At the top, Hiroshima 79.6% (108), Hokkaido 78.3% (1,225), Nagano 78.0% (656), Shizuoka 76.8% (125) and Hyogo 75.8% (198)[2]. At the bottom, Miyazaki 55.6% (223), Akita 55.9% (179), Shimane 60.3% (388), Nagasaki 60.9% (115) and Mie 61.3% (142)[2].

Top and bottom differ by 24.0 points. Same scheme, same term length, same honorarium, and a quarter difference in how many stay. What produces that gap is not in this document. Industry, housing, the capacity of the host authority. Before ranking prefectures, that question comes first.

Reaching 10,000 needs 6.3 times the current rate of increase

Membership carries a target. The Digital Garden City Nation Comprehensive Strategy sets 10,000 members by FY2026[5]. FY2024 stood at 7,910 and FY2025 at 8,196, an increase of 286 in a year. The remaining 1,804 is 6.3 times that increase.

Participating authorities number 1,187, about 81% of the 1,461 eligible to host[1]. Even if all 274 remaining authorities joined, each would need to place 6.6 new members to close the gap.

Raising the count and raising the share who stay are different designs

As seen in the earnings problem in migration policy（このサイトの記事）, without a view of income after the three-year term ends, staying is not a decision anyone can make. The 45.6% of the 5,038 stayers who started a business are the share who built that view themselves.

Read the other way, where those who could not build it went is the 2,013 who moved away. Of those, 228 are recorded as engaged in community support work connected to the area, so the tie is not severed. The residence registration, however, has moved.

The framing of relational population（このサイトの記事） lays out ways of being involved that do not assume settlement, offering another route before that fork.

The rate circulates while what it counts goes undecided

Is the aim to raise the settlement rate, or to increase the number of people involved with the area? On the first reading the record is 57.5%; on the second, 228 of the 2,013 who moved away also count.

Change what is counted and the remedy changes too. Raising settlement in the same municipality means building work and housing inside it. Increasing involvement counts commuting from next door, and involvement from outside the prefecture, as outcomes. What is happening now is that 70.3% circulates on its own, while which of the two is being counted goes undecided.

Further Reading

• 『関係人口の社会学―人口減少時代の地域再生』（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Terumi Tanaka, Osaka University Press). A study that follows cases in Shimane Prefecture to classify forms of involvement that are neither settlement nor tourism. Useful for thinking about the layers of involvement a single settlement rate cannot measure.

References

Activity Status of the Community-Reactivating Cooperator Squad in FY2025 — Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Regional Independence Support Division (2026). Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

FY2025 Membership of the Community-Reactivating Cooperator Squad — Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Regional Independence Support Division (2026). Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

Programmes of the Regional Independence Support Division — Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Regional Independence Support Division (2025). Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications