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Arrival & first week
Korea's automated entry gates: register in the arrival hall on your first trip
Citizens of 42 countries and regions, including Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia and 32 European countries, can register for automated immigration clearance in the arrival immigration hall at Incheon or Jeju Airport when entering Korea without a visa. They can then use an automated entry gate immediately. You must be 17 or older. Registration is complete after a passport scan, fingerprint registration and facial registration. The Ministry of Justice expanded eligibility to 42 countries and regions on March 16, 2026. On October 1, it announced that 1,419,960 citizens of these countries and regions had registered between November 2025 and August 2026. Registration is valid for 5 years, or until your passport expires if that comes first. When leaving Korea, short-term visitors aged 17 or older can use automated departure gates even without registration. The United States is not among the 42 countries and regions.
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Daily life
What to know on the day you go to a KBO game
Tickets are sold by the home club, not by the KBO. There are three different vendors and each has its own sign-up hurdle, so start by checking who the home team is for the game you want. You can bring your own food in, but glass bottles, cans and plastic bottles over 1 liter are turned away at most gates. The 2026 regular season has been extended to 7 October, with the postseason following after that.
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Getting around
KTX tickets go on sale at 7:00, two months ahead
KTX and other train tickets go on sale at 7:00 on the same date two months before departure. The window grew from one month to two on 1 October 2026. If you cannot use a Naver or Kakao identity check, buy on KORAIL's site for foreign visitors, and use the email address and password you entered there to find your ticket again. Non-member booking in the KORAIL+ app and on the Korean website only lets you pay after that identity check. If your plans change, the cancellation fee depends on the day your train leaves. For a Monday to Thursday departure, cancelling is free until 3 hours before the train goes.
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Admin & paperwork
Booking an immigration slot is not the same as applying
Since April 2021 no immigration office in Korea accepts an application from someone who arrives without an appointment. But a lot of what people queue for never needs the counter. Extension of stay, status change, re-entry permit, address change and passport change reports are all filed through HiKorea online, and a permit granted that way has the same legal effect as one granted over a counter. The online extension route is closed to E-7, F-6, F-2, F-4, F-5, D-8, D-3 and G-1 holders, and first alien registration and card reissue are counter only.
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Sights
A Saturday in Yeongdo, the day Yeongdo Bridge lifts
Yeongdo Bridge lifts only at 14:00 on Saturdays. Kkangkkangi Art Village tours run only on weekends, and the Taejongdae shuttle bus is off on Mondays and Tuesdays. To see all four of Yeongdo's sights in one day, go on a Saturday. You cannot board the Kkangkkangi boat without a physical ID, so foreign travelers need to bring their passport. Two official websites give different Taejongdae timetables, so follow the Busan Tourism Organization, which runs the service. Huinnyeoul Culture Village is a set of lanes where people live, so do not go there late in the evening.
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Admin & paperwork
The site decides which certificate you need, not your visa
A financial certificate sits in a cloud run by the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute, renews itself every three years and needs no PC security software. A joint certificate is a file on your own device, expires after one year and needs a security program installed. Simple authentication is not a certificate you hold at all but a prompt inside an app you already use. Which of the three you need is decided by the site in front of you, not by your visa.
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Daily life
What actually gets cheaper in Korea
Korea is not a country where everything is cheap. The prices that genuinely drop are cosmetics, Daiso household goods, Korean food like gim and ramyeon, market socks, and eyeglasses made in about an hour. Fruit and bread cost more here, not less. Sort your list into the two columns before you shop and the same budget carries further.
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Daily life
How Korean convenience stores work
A convenience store here is less a shop than a counter where you send parcels, top up your transit card and buy medicine at midnight. A few rules come attached. Bags cost money, alcohol and tobacco are only sold against a physical ID, and in stores that run unstaffed overnight you cannot buy either at all.
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Phone & internet
Emergency alert texts: three kinds, and the one you cannot turn off
The alert that goes off on every phone around you at once is a government broadcast to your area, and its last line tells you what to do. There are three kinds. Safety guidance texts arrive with your ordinary message sound, emergency texts ring at the phone's full volume, and the top tier is kept for large-scale disasters that everyone has to receive. Only that top tier cannot be refused. The texts are written in Korean, and the government's Emergency Ready App shows them in 22 languages.
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Sights
Visiting the DMZ
There is a hard line between what a foreign visitor can and cannot do right now. The Paju DMZ peace tour takes you inside the Civilian Control Line on a same day ticket if you bring your passport, while the Panmunjom tour and the DMZ Peace Trail accept applications from Korean nationals only. Imjingak and the two unification observatories need no clearance at all.
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Daily life
The sign says emart, but which one
The yellow emart sign belongs to five different shops: the big-box E-mart, warehouse-style Traders, neighbourhood supermarket Everyday, own-brand specialist No Brand, and the convenience store emart24. The first four have two closing days a month and mostly stay shut before 10am. The 24 in emart24 is not a promise about opening hours. The word after the sign tells you the shop type, and reading it keeps you from standing at a locked door.
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Arrival & first week
A place for your first few nights
You do not have to rush a long-term place. Get somewhere to stay for a few days first, and decide after you have felt out the city and the neighborhood.
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Health & medical
Free flu shots in Korea start on different days by age
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) runs the 2026-2027 National Immunization Program for influenza from September 21, 2026 to April 30, 2027. The free shot covers children aged 6 months and older who were born between January 1, 2012 and August 31, 2026, pregnant women, and people aged 65 and over who were born on or before December 31, 1961. Each group starts on a different day. Children who need two doses and pregnant women start on September 21, children who need one dose on September 28, and people aged 75 and over on October 12. You can get the shot at any nearby designated clinic or public health center, whatever your registered address. If you are not in a covered group, you pay at a clinic. The influenza advisory was already issued on September 11, before the shots begin.
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Money & banking
When your foreign card is declined
Work out where it failed before you switch cards, because a shop terminal, a delivery app and a shopping site each have a different fix. Most Korean shops take Visa, Mastercard and Amex, and two delivery apps now register overseas cards, so the card is often not the problem. A Korean debit card from your own bank account is the longer-term route.
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Getting around
From the airport to where you are staying
Even with heavy bags, tired, and late at night, the ways from the airport to your place come down to a few. If your address is right, the rest is not hard.
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Visa & stay
Getting your Alien Registration Card
Register within 90 days of entry, and book a visit date no later than the day before your 90th day, because a booking only reserves a date. Bring your passport, a 3.5 cm by 4.5 cm colour photo, proof of where you live and 35,000 won in cash. The card fee rose from 30,000 won on 1 January 2025, HiKorea's own service pages still show the old figure, and the rules take this fee in cash only.
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Phone & internet
Getting a Korean phone number
A tourist SIM gets you online today, but do not count on it for the identity check that banks and government sites ask for. LG U+ states plainly that its tourist SIM does not support it. A monthly plan in your own name is the route, and it starts with your Alien Registration Card.
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Admin & paperwork
The certificate that stands in for a Korean ID
When a landlord or a bank asks a foreigner for a document, the document they mean is almost always 외국인등록 사실증명, the Certificate of Foreign Resident Registration. The Immigration Act puts it in the place of a Korean's resident registration card and residence extract. There are two ways to get it, not three. Online at Government24 it is free but needs a certificate login, and at a counter it costs 2,000 won per copy. The unmanned kiosk cannot issue it at all.
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Sights
Walk between Gyeongju's filming locations and take the bus only to Bulguksa
Filming locations from "In Your Radiant Season" and "The Journey to Gyeong-ju" are within walking distance of each other in central Gyeongju. Only Cheonmachong and Donggung Palace and Wolji Pond require tickets. The other sites have no gates. Bulguksa has been free to visit since May 4, 2023. City buses 10 and 11 run there from downtown.
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Sights
Climbing Haebangchon hill in the right order
Haebangchon is a neighborhood where people live on the slope below Namsan, so every approach is uphill. Ride the neighborhood bus up to the five-way junction, then take the market alley, the 108 Stairs and the Sowol-ro viewing deck in turn, and half a day is gone. The elevator beside the stairs is a mobility aid for residents, not a tourist ride, so find out whether it is running before you go.
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Getting around
Riding a bike along the Han River
One Ttareungi pass covers almost the whole Han River bike path. As a visitor you buy a foreigner pass with a card issued outside Korea, and the part that trips people up is not the price but the way the clock works. Electric scooters follow completely different rules, so as long as you stay on the bicycle side of that line, this is simple.
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Arrival & first week
Some trips mean a health declaration when you enter Korea, even with no symptoms
If you stayed in or passed through a priority quarantine control area, you must declare your health to a quarantine officer when you enter Korea, even if you have no symptoms. If you visited a quarantine control area, you declare when you have suspected symptoms such as a fever or cough. On September 21, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) announced the fourth-quarter designations that apply from October 1, 2026. There are 32 countries on the priority list and 177 on the quarantine control list, and Japan and Hong Kong have been newly added to the quarantine control list. You declare through Q-CODE, which you can fill in from 7 days before arrival, or on a paper health questionnaire. Not declaring, or declaring falsely, can bring a fine of up to 10 million won.
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Sights
Playing it weird in Hongdae
A one-minute caricature booth, a convenience store with 200-plus ramen flavors on the wall, a workshop where you blend your own perfume, a free art park, and a Harry Potter-themed cafe. Five very different moods, all within walking distance of Hongik University Station.
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Sights
In Incheon's old town, two Goblin filming locations close on Mondays
The parks and streets are always open, but Incheon Art Platform and Jemulpo Club close every Monday. Hanmi Bookstore in Baedari closes on the second and fourth Fridays, and photography is not allowed inside. Between Incheon Station and Dongincheon Station, hizine has collected 8 drama filming locations within walking distance in the old town. Four are filming locations for "Guardian: The Lonely and Great God".
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Getting around
Getting a train or bus out of Seoul for Chuseok
Holiday train booking ran through one Korean-language page, for KORAIL members only, on a day fixed by each line, and all of it closed on 11 September. Since 15:00 on the 11th, whatever is left has been on open sale to anyone in the app, on the website and at station counters, membership or not. If the train you want is sold out, join the waiting list. Express buses have been on sale since 25 August and keep selling until an hour before departure, and cancelling one two days ahead costs nothing.
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Sights
One express bus, the 101, to the drama shores of eastern Jeju
The three drama shores on Jeju's east side can be strung together on a single route, the 101 express bus. They are Seongsan Ilchulbong from "When Life Gives You Tangerines", Gwangchigi Beach from "Welcome to Samdal-ri", and the sea at Gimnyeong, where three productions filmed. Seongsan Ilchulbong closes on the first Monday of every month, and the green rocks at Gwangchigi Beach only appear when the tide is out. If you pay the express bus in cash, you pay the maximum fare of 3,000 won from the start, so bring a transit card.
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Sights
Jeonju Hanok Village does not sell tickets
There is no wall around the village and no ticket booth. Of the twelve cultural sites inside it, only Gyeonggijeon charges admission, and that is 3,000 won for an adult. The story that wearing hanbok gets you in free is widely repeated, but no such rule exists.
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Markets & food
In Jeonju, makgeolli comes by the kettle, not the bottle
Order one kettle and a full spread of side dishes arrives with it, and every extra kettle brings a fresh set of dishes. The spread is included in the price of the drink, so what reaches your table that day depends on how many kettles you empty. Samcheon-dong is the original alley, and Jeonju City also lists Gyeongwon-dong, Seosin-dong, Inhu and Ua-dong.
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Daily life
How jjimjilbang and bathhouses work
Buy only the bath at the counter and you get no clothes. The jjimjilbang is the floor you use in those clothes, shared by men and women, so the outfit is effectively the ticket. The bathing side is naked and separated by sex, and it is priced apart from the start.
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Visa & stay
Understanding your visa and stay
Your visa type sets what you can do and the deadlines you have to keep. Knowing exactly what your visa allows prevents most problems before they start.
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Daily life
How Korean cafes work
You order and pay at the counter first, then take a buzzer. The cup you get depends on whether you are staying or leaving, and some cafes welcome you for hours while others do not. Knowing that the price of an americano varies by two or three times between chains makes the day easier on its own.
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Daily life
What the chicken order screen is asking you to choose
Order chicken through an app and beer can come with it. But if the alcohol costs more than the food, that order is not a delivery the law allows. Bone-in or boneless, half and half, an extra tub of pickled radish: those are matters of taste, not price. The delivery fee and the minimum order are set by each shop, so the same chicken comes to a different total on each app.
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Daily life
The holiday week starts with dates people get wrong
Chuseok 2026 falls on Friday 25 September, and the public holidays run from the 24th to the 26th. None of them lands on a Sunday this year, so no substitute holiday is added. The break runs four days to Sunday the 27th, and Monday the 28th is a normal working day. Government offices, immigration counters and bank branches stop for those four days. Convenience stores, subways and emergency rooms keep going. The two things worth sorting out in advance are train tickets and medication.
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Health & medical
Going to a Korean medicine clinic
A hanuiwon is a medical institution like any other, and a doctor of Korean medicine holds a separate national licence. Acupuncture, moxibustion, cupping and chuna therapy are covered by national health insurance; herbal decoctions are covered only for six conditions, and only under a pilot scheme. Knowing where that line falls is what keeps the bill from surprising you.
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Daily life
Why there is a queue outside the rice cake shop
Tteok is closer to rice than to bread, which is why you eat it the day you buy it. The queues outside rice cake shops right now were made by pizza seolgi, a plain white steamed rice cake topped with tomato sauce, cheese and pepperoni, but convenience store rice cake sales had been roughly doubling every year before those queues appeared. This guide covers how to read the names on the shelf, how to eat tteok before it hardens, and how to get hold of pizza seolgi, as of 8 September 2026.
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Daily life
MUSINSA and MUSINSA Standard are different shops
MUSINSA is an online clothing platform, and the shops carrying that name split into two kinds. MUSINSA Store, which gathers many brands under one roof, often refuses cash outright, while MUSINSA Standard, which sells the house label, carries a tax refund notice. Which one you head for is decided by how you plan to pay rather than what you want to buy.
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Sights
Myeongdong by day and by night
Myeongdong is the first busy district most visitors run into in Seoul. Leaving after the main street of cosmetics shops and food carts would be a shame: the cathedral and the old theatre sit just off it, the cable car up Namsan is a short uphill walk, and after dark the same street turns into a different place.
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Health & medical
A health insurance bill comes even if you did not apply
A foreigner who does not work at a company becomes a self-employed insured without applying after living in Korea for six months. For study, general training, marriage-based immigration, permanent residence, and non-professional employment statuses, this starts from the day of entry. Premiums are calculated in the same way as for Koreans, but if the amount is lower than the overall average premium, the average premium is charged. In 2026, that amount is 158,630 won per month, and students pay half. The payment deadline is not the next month, but the 25th of the previous month. If you fall behind, insurance will not apply at the hospital, and visa extension is limited to 6 months or less.
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Money & banking
Getting your National Pension contributions back when you leave Korea
If you live and work in Korea, National Pension contributions come out of your pay. The lump-sum refund is how you get that money back when you leave. Not every foreign national qualifies, though. You need one of three things: a home country whose own law gives Korean nationals an equivalent benefit, a home country that has a social security agreement with Korea covering lump-sum refunds, or enrollment under the Training Employment (E-8), Non-professional Employment (E-9), or Working Visit (H-2) status. You can claim at any National Pension Service branch in the country, and the right disappears five years after it arises. There is also a way to collect it in foreign currency at Incheon Airport on the day you fly.
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Daily life
Noraebang and coin karaoke, from walking in to walking out
If the sign registers the place as a singing practice room, the law bans both alcohol and hostesses there, so nothing can be added to the bill beyond the room. A place that sells alcohol is not a noraebang but a bar, and its pricing is a different world. Once you know that one distinction, getting a room takes a few minutes whether you are alone or in a group.
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Daily life
Choosing what to buy at Olive Young
Olive Young sits somewhere between a pharmacy and a convenience store rather than being a cosmetics shop. Bring your passport and the tax comes off any single receipt over 15,000 won right at the till, and the 1+1 shelf tags cut prices in half. How you buy moves the total more than what you buy.
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Money & banking
Opening a bank account
Call the bank's foreigner line before you go, because what you need depends on the bank and the branch. Woori Bank's line is 1599-2288 (press 1 for English), and KB Kookmin's Global Customer Center is 1599-4477. A mobile Alien Registration Card is accepted for account opening at six banks, but when the Financial Services Commission announced it, only one of them let you skip the branch.
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Daily life
Ordering food delivery in Korea
Signing up usually works. Where people get stuck is payment and the address. There are effectively three apps and all three support English, so this guide covers which one to pick and what to try, in order, when your card is refused.
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Sights
Where the palace ticket window trips you up
The age for free entry depends on which passport you hold, and the combined ticket does not cover the rear garden at Changdeokgung. That garden runs separate sessions with separate quotas for each language, and Jongmyo cannot be walked into on a weekday without a reservation. Even the closing days split between Monday and Tuesday.
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Admin & paperwork
Passing identity verification
Most Korean services stop you here. The keys are a Korean phone number and a foreigner registration number, and having even one of them often opens a path.
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Daily life
Korean pizza brands and menus
Half the menu is made up of things you have never seen at home. A rim stuffed with sweet potato mousse, bulgogi, potato and sweetcorn all sit in the standing lineup. A pie runs from under 10,000 won to the mid 30,000s depending on which tier of brand you pick, and for the same pizza, ordering delivery instead of collecting it yourself accounts for about thirty per cent of the price.
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Housing
Reading and writing a Korean address
Korea uses road-name addresses as the standard. Once you know the format, the same address works for delivery, parcels and paperwork.
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Housing
Renting a home: check the owner before you pay the deposit
A Korean lease asks for a large deposit up front, so the order matters: check the registry and the landlord first, pay second, and file your move-in report the day you move in. Most of the risk sits in that order, not in the rent itself. Seoul announced free lease counseling for international residents in seven languages in 2024, worth checking before you sign.
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Admin & paperwork
Fifteen days to report your new address
If you hold an alien registration card and you move, you have 15 days from the day you move in to report the new address. You do not have to go to immigration for it. The community service centre covering the new address takes the same report, and it is free by every route. Miss the deadline and it is not an administrative fine but a criminal one of up to 1,000,000 won, and the online form on HiKorea closes as soon as the 15 days are up.
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Getting around
Riding city buses in Seoul
The color tells you half of what you need. Blue and green stay in the city, red runs to Gyeonggi-do, N means night. You tap a card on and off just like the subway, and quite a few routes no longer take cash at all.
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Getting around
How to ride the Seoul subway
One card covers almost everything. Tap when you get on and tap again when you get off, and the rest is easy.
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Daily life
What to read first on a Korean barbecue menu
No law says how many grams make one portion. Some places serve around 150 grams, others 200. Any shop selling meat has to post a price per 100 grams, so when comparing prices, look at that number rather than the portion price.
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Health & medical
Seeing a doctor when you are sick
Unless it is serious, start at the nearest local clinic. Once you know where to go and whether you have health insurance, the rest is simpler than it looks.
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Money & banking
Compare transfers by what actually arrives
The place advertising the lowest fee does not always send the most money. Pick by the number that lands in the other person's account for the same amount sent. Holders of the Overseas Korean (F-4) and Working Visit (H-2) statuses, and the family living with them, get a preferential exchange rate on post office transfers from 1 September 2026.
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Sights
A walk through Seongsu-dong
Seongsu is a working factory district with cafes and showrooms laid over the top of it. Red brick alleys, shoemakers' workshops, a large park and the riverside all connect on foot, so half a day here needs no plan at all.
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Markets & food
Eating your way through Seoul's markets
Each market has its own character. Gwangjang for a food alley, Noryangjin for raw fish picked off the ice, Namdaemun to wander widely, Ikseon-dong for a café-alley mood.
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Sights
Choosing a theme park around Seoul
There are really only three worth the trip. Lotte World sits on a subway station and stays open late, Everland is much bigger but takes a whole day including travel, and Seoul Land is cheaper and less crowded. Which one suits you is decided less by taste than by how much daylight you have left and what the sky is doing.
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Sights
Seoul's top sights
One palace, one viewing tower, two neighborhoods to walk. That covers most of what makes Seoul feel like Seoul, and all of it is reachable by subway in a day or two.
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Sights
Half a day in Songdo, starting from the Gangnam Style platform
International Business District Station, where the subway scene in "Gangnam Style" was filmed, and Songdo Central Park, the backdrop for two dramas, are one stop apart on Incheon Line 1. To get there by rail from Incheon Airport, take an AREX all-stop train and transfer to Incheon Line 1 at Gyeyang Station. The park's water taxi ticket office has no foreign-language service, so it is best to know the fares in advance. The observatory on the 33rd floor of G-Tower, at the northwest side of the park, is free, but it closes on Mondays and opens at 13:00 on weekends and public holidays.
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Work & study
Starting work or study
Before you start work or study, confirm two things: that your visa allows it, and that your contract and enrollment are in writing.
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Visa & stay
If you fled to a shelter, extend your stay at the immigration office for the shelter's area
Since August 24, 2026, foreign nationals who have suffered domestic violence, sexual violence, child abuse, or human trafficking can apply for a stay extension, or for the grant or change of a status of stay, at the Immigration Office that covers the area where their shelter or other protective facility is located. Before, the rule was to apply at the office covering your registered place of stay, so people who had moved into a shelter still had to go back to the office for their old address. It covers foreign nationals for whom a remedy procedure, such as a trial or an investigation, is under way because of this harm. For domestic violence, it only covers spouses of Korean nationals. The Minister of Justice may grant these people a stay extension until the procedure ends. Call 1345 to find the office for your shelter's area, and the Danuri Call Center at 1577-1366, open 24 hours, for emergency support and interpretation.
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Getting around
Changing trains on the Seoul subway
Find the color of the line you are changing to and follow it, and you are done. You almost never pass through the gates again, and even boarding in the wrong direction costs nothing if you fix it within 15 minutes.
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Getting around
Transit refunds only work if you register
Buying a card gives you nothing back. You need a Modu-ui Card, registered on the website, and at least fifteen trips a month before any refund starts. Seoul's unlimited 30-day pass ended on 1 October, and a single nationwide refund scheme now does its job.
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Daily life
Chicken bones and eggshells go in the official waste bag
In Korea, trash is sorted by type before it goes out. General waste that cannot be recycled goes in the official waste bag for where you live, and leftover food is drained and put in a food waste bag or collection bin. Chicken bones, clam shells, eggshells and peach pits are not food waste. They go in the official waste bag. Paper cartons such as milk and soy milk cartons go out on their own, not with newspapers or boxes. How waste is sorted and kept is set by local ordinance, and a household that breaks the rules is fined 100,000 won the first time.
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Work & study
The petition to file when your wages are not paid
If all or part of your wages did not arrive on payday, or you left a job and were not paid your wages and severance within 14 days, your pay counts as unpaid. File a petition with the regional employment and labor office that covers the workplace, or on the Labor Portal, and a labor inspector investigates. There is no fee. The rules on final settlement and wage payment apply to workplaces with four or fewer regular employees too. If the employer still does not pay, the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service pays a simplified substitute payment of up to 10 million won to people who have left the job. It covers people who filed the petition within one year from the day after they left.
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Daily life
Where to study or read in Seoul
Seoul has plenty of places where you can sit for hours without paying. The libraries that are famous in photographs are not the ones where you get work done, and each one differs on whether you can simply walk in or need to register first.
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Health & medical
119, 112 and the numbers that bring an interpreter onto the line
Call 119 for a fire, a rescue or an ambulance and 112 for the police, even if you speak no Korean, and say where you are before anything else. If you cannot talk, the fire agency also takes 119 reports by text message, photo, video call, its 119 app and a web form it set up for foreign residents who are not fluent in Korean. For interpretation, the volunteer line BBB (1588-5644) answers in 20 languages around the clock, while 1345, 1330 and 1339 each keep their own hours.
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Arrival & first week
Your first week in Korea
You do not need to finish everything in the first week. Get three things in order first, a place to sleep, a way to be reached, a way to pay, and the rest follows.
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