Booking an immigration slot is not the same as applying

Right now

1. 1Decide first whether you need the counter at all. Extension, status change, re-entry permit, address change and passport change reports are all filed online through 전자민원.
2. 2Booking needs no HiKorea account. You pass identity verification with your ARC number plus the issue date printed on the card, or your passport number plus nationality and date of birth.
3. 3If no slot exists before your deadline, do not book a later date. Go to the office before the deadline passes. That is what HiKorea's own booking guidance tells you to do.

What to have ready

• Your Alien Registration Card and the issue date printed on it: The booking screen asks for both together. Older cards have no Korean label for the issue date, and the date to enter is the one printed at the top of the card.
• Passport: If you have no card yet, verification runs on passport number plus nationality plus date of birth. Passport verification does not work while you are outside Korea.
• Proof of your residence address: A lease contract, an accommodation confirmation letter, a utility bill receipt or a dormitory fee receipt. The same kinds of document work for an extension and for an address change.
• Cash: The Enforcement Rules allow the alien registration card issue and reissue fee to be paid only in cash or with proof of a cash deposit. Other fees accept electronic payment. This one does not.
• One colour photo, 3.5cm × 4.5cm: Required for alien registration and for a card reissue. The card itself takes about two to three weeks to arrive.

Phrases you can copy and paste

Step by step

1. 1

   Work out first whether this needs a counter

   The list of things you can file through HiKorea 전자민원 is wider than most people expect. Extension of stay for registered foreigners, status change, multiple re-entry permit, residence address change, passport change report, the student part-time work permit and employer change for D-2 and D-4-1, E-9 workplace change, H-2 work commencement report, F-4 residence transfer report, employment information changes and school enrolment changes are all completed online. HiKorea states on its own information page that a permit obtained online has the same legal effect as one obtained by visiting an office. The counter-only list is just as clear. First alien registration, alien registration card reissue, the general permit for activity outside status, status grant, the certificate for visa issuance, and nationality acquisition, restoration and related reports have no online option at all. Those are the applications the people competing for slots are usually holding. The opening hours differ too. The online system runs on weekdays from 07:00 to 22:00 and is closed at weekends and on public holidays, while the booking system runs all year round, so there are hours when you can book a visit but cannot file anything. There is one case that runs the other way. Status change to skilled worker E-7-4 under the K-point scheme and to regionally specialised E-7-4R can only be filed online, so booking an appointment for those wastes a slot.

2. 2

   For an extension, your status decides whether the online route is open

   The online extension route is open to a named list of statuses: D-1, D-2, D-4, D-5, D-6, D-7, D-9, D-10, E-1 through E-6, E-9, E-10, F-1, F-3, H-1 and H-2. The list of statuses left out is D-3 industrial training, D-8 corporate investment, E-7 specific activity, F-2 residence, F-2-4 refugee, F-4 overseas Korean, F-5 permanent residence, F-6 marriage immigration and G-1 other. E-7 is the main skilled work visa and F-6 is the marriage visa, so two of the largest groups stay in the counter queue. The online window opens four months before your expiry date and closes one working day before it. The fee is 50,000 won including the payment processor fee, and it is not refunded once the application has been accepted and processed. You have to be physically inside Korea to file, the application is not possible while you are abroad, and leaving before the decision is made can get it rejected. Processing takes 10 days for a routine case and up to 2 months if investigation is needed. The common documents are the application form (form 34), your passport or entry permit, your alien registration card and proof of your residence address, with more depending on your status. Status change carries one extra condition: anyone who has received a criminal penalty in Korea is not eligible for the online route and has to go to a counter. What your own status allows you to do is covered in the guide on understanding your visa and stay.

3. 3

   The booking screen identifies you in one of three ways

   You do not need a HiKorea account. The Ministry of Justice states that booking works without signing up, and HiKorea has separate pages for non-member booking and non-member booking status. Verification runs three ways: registration or residence card number plus the issue date of that card, passport number plus nationality plus date of birth, or visa number plus name plus date of birth. The issue date is where people get stuck. Older cards carry no Korean label for it, and the date to enter is the one printed at the top of the card, so entering the expiry date instead leaves you unable to get past the first screen. Passport verification does not work while you are outside Korea, so booking from abroad before you arrive is not possible on that route. The earliest date you can be seen is tomorrow. The Ministry sets the bookable date at a minimum of one day before the intended visit, so same-day appointments do not exist. Book under your own details. HiKorea's booking guidance warns that using another foreigner's passport number or alien registration number to take a slot can bring up to 5 years imprisonment or a fine of up to 50 million won under the Personal Information Protection Act and the Criminal Act. The same page says it inspects booking IP addresses and refers squatted bookings that are not voluntarily cancelled to investigators. The person who turns up at the counter holding a bought booking is the person holding the evidence.

4. 4

   Your registered address decides your office, and Seoul splits three ways

   You book at the office with jurisdiction over you, and jurisdiction follows your registered residence address. HiKorea has a lookup where you enter the address. Seoul is the confusing one. Seoul Immigration Office is not in central Seoul despite the name. It sits at 151 Mokdongdong-ro in Yangcheon-gu, and it covers Gwanak, Gwangjin, Gangnam, Gangdong, Dongjak, Songpa, Seongdong, Seocho and Yongsan in Seoul, plus Gwacheon, Seongnam and Hanam in Gyeonggi. If you live in Pangyo or Bundang, your office is in Mokdong, not Suwon. Seoul Southern Immigration Office is in Gangseo-gu and covers Gangseo, Guro, Geumcheon, Mapo, Seodaemun, Yeongdeungpo and Yangcheon. The Sejongno branch, inside the Seoul Global Center in Jongno-gu, covers Eunpyeong, Jongno, Jung, Dongdaemun, Seongbuk, Gangbuk, Dobong, Nowon and Jungnang. Reading and writing a Korean address correctly is covered in its own guide. Turning up at the wrong office burns the slot entirely, and your deadline can pass while you look for another one, so check jurisdiction before you press the booking button.

5. 5

   A booking reserves a date, and your deadline keeps running

   HiKorea's booking guidance says it plainly: a booking request is only the reservation of a date to visit the office and is not the intake of an application. Holding a booking feels like having submitted something, but nothing has been submitted, and your expiry date moves on regardless. The same notice then gives an instruction. Booking a date after your permitted stay has expired or after a statutory reporting period has passed can bring a notification penalty or an administrative fine, and if there is no available date inside your deadline at all, you should visit the office with jurisdiction before the reporting period runs out. When there are no slots, the official answer is not to book next month. It is to go. That sentence sits inside the agreement checkbox on the first booking screen, which is why most people click past it. The arithmetic is tight as well. For an extension, both the online route and the booking close one working day before expiry and there is no same-day appointment, so the last genuinely safe moment is about two working days out, not the expiry date itself.

6. 6

   The fees are in the law, and HiKorea's own pages carry old figures

   Article 72 of the Enforcement Rules of the Immigration Act sets the fees. Issuing or reissuing an alien registration card is 35,000 won. Extension of stay is 60,000 won, or 30,000 won for F-6 marriage immigration. Status change is 100,000 won, or 200,000 won for F-5 permanent residence. Status grant is 80,000 won, or 40,000 won for F-6. Workplace change is 120,000 won. The permit for activity outside status is 120,000 won, and 20,000 won for D-2 and D-4 part-time work. A single re-entry permit is 30,000 won and a multiple re-entry permit is 50,000 won. The 20 percent online discount does not apply across the board. Article 74(2) limits it to four applications: workplace change or addition, status change, extension of stay and re-entry permit. Everything else online is charged the full fee. The figures you actually see on the payment screen are 50,000 won for an online extension including the payment processor fee, 41,300 won for an online multiple re-entry permit, and 119,000 won for an online status change including the card fee and the processor fee, or 36,000 won where the status change fee is waived, as it is for government-invited scholarship students and overseas Koreans. There is a trap in how you pay. Article 73 requires the alien registration card issue and reissue fee, and only that fee, to be paid in cash or with proof of a cash deposit. Other fees can be paid with revenue stamps or electronically, so bring cash for anything involving the card. HiKorea's own service guide pages for alien registration and card reissue still say 30,000 won. The Enforcement Rules as amended on 24 December 2024 say 35,000 won, so budget the higher figure. The student part-time work permit is a second split of the same kind: HiKorea lists the fee as waived while the Enforcement Rules set 20,000 won for part-time work by D-2 and D-4 holders. We could not find the instrument that reconciles them, so check the payment screen.

7. 7

   What needs no booking, and who is exempt from booking

   Some counter services were never part of the appointment system. The Ministry of Justice press release of 8 March 2021 excludes diplomatic and official stay matters, collecting your alien registration card, issuance of certificates such as the entry and exit record certificate, departure deadline extension, refugee applications, and voluntary reporting by undocumented residents, as work that unavoidably has to be taken in person. People do sit on the booking screen trying to reserve a slot to collect a finished card, and that is not a bookable service in the first place. Treat this list with some care: it was written for pandemic-era operations and no newer consolidated version is published, so confirm anything beyond card collection and certificate issuance by calling 1345 first. There is also an exemption for people rather than services. Article 34-2 of the Enforcement Decree makes online booking mandatory for six applications, namely activity outside status, workplace change or addition, status grant, status change, extension of stay and alien registration, and then adds that pregnant women and persons with disabilities under art. 2(1) of the Act on Welfare of Persons with Disabilities, along with other foreigners designated by the Minister of Justice, may attend without booking. Nothing on the booking screen mentions this, which is why almost nobody uses it. How you invoke the exemption at the counter, and whether the office asks for documentary proof, is not published anywhere we could find, so call 1345 before you rely on it. The address change report has its own separate counters. Article 36 of the Immigration Act lets you file it with the city, county, ward, town, township or neighbourhood office of your new address, and Government24 says that route is free, needs no appointment and is handled on the spot within about three working hours, while the online route takes three to five days. If you file online, the new address is not written on the back of your alien registration card. One last thing worth knowing: art. 88-2(2) of the Immigration Act says alien registration and the residence change report take the place of resident registration and the Korean move-in report, so there is no separate 전입신고 for you to file.

Watch it happen

Videos other people made, picked because they show a part of this guide that words cannot. They are not our sources: the rules and figures above come from the official pages listed at the end.

• 

  hi korea immigration reservation 방문예약 using hikorea website|Alien card expiry date check | hi korea

  Channel: Nep Dynamic Creation, Subtitles in English and eight other languages

  The HiKorea booking screens are recorded end to end, including the step where you pick an office and the calendar that shows which days are already gone.

  Open on YouTube

• 

  하이코리아 출입국 방문예약 하는 법 쉽게 따라하기

  Channel: 이민행정사 유진킴, Korean, no English subtitles. The value is the screen

  Made by a licensed immigration administrative agent, so the walkthrough stops at the places where bookings actually fail rather than only showing the happy path.

  Open on YouTube

The Korean words

방문예약bangmun yeyak, visit booking

The appointment you have to hold before using an immigration counter. What it books is a date, not a place in the application queue.

전자민원jeonja minwon, online application

Filing through HiKorea without visiting an office. A permit granted this way has the same legal effect as one granted at a counter.

신원확인sinwon hwagin, identity check

The first booking screen. You pass it with card number plus issue date, passport number plus nationality and date of birth, or visa number.

발급일자balgeup ilja, issue date

The issue date printed on your alien registration card. Not the expiry date. Older cards print it at the top with no label.

관할 관서gwanhal gwanseo, office with jurisdiction

The office your registered address assigns you to. Another office will not take your application.

체류기간 연장허가cheryu gigan yeonjang heoga, extension of stay

The permit you need before your current period of stay ends. Whether it can be filed online depends on your status.

체류자격외활동허가cheryu jagyeok oe hwaldong heoga, permit for activity outside status

Advance permission for an activity your status does not cover. Counter only, and the activity cannot start before it is granted.

체류지 변경신고cheryuji byeongyeong singo, residence change report

Due within 15 days of moving. Ward offices and community service centres take it as well as immigration.

범칙금beomchikgeum, notification penalty

A set sum paid to settle an offence instead of going through the criminal courts. This is how overstaying is usually resolved.

과태료gwataeryo, administrative fine

A money penalty that is not a criminal punishment. It sounds close to a criminal fine in Korean but is a different thing.

Easy to miss

• ·Holding a booking feels like having filed something. HiKorea states that a booking is only the reservation of a visit date and is not the intake of an application, so your expiry date runs on while you wait.
• ·Booking a date after your deadline when nothing earlier is free is the thing HiKorea tells you not to do. Its guidance says to visit the office with jurisdiction before the reporting period passes.
• ·Buying or accepting a slot booked under someone else's ARC or passport number is not a grey area. It carries up to 5 years imprisonment or a fine of up to 50 million won, and HiKorea says it inspects booking IP addresses.
• ·The online extension route excludes E-7, F-6, F-2, F-4, F-5, D-8, D-3 and G-1. Nothing on the booking screen says so, so people in these groups lose days on the online route before joining the queue anyway.
• ·Entering the expiry date where the booking screen asks for the card issue date is a common way to get locked out. On older cards the issue date is the unlabelled date printed at the top.
• ·Seoul Immigration Office is not in central Seoul. It is in Mokdong in Yangcheon-gu and it also covers Gwacheon, Seongnam and Hanam. Going to the wrong office burns the slot entirely.
• ·Filing the address change online means the new address is never written on the back of your card. If you need the card endorsed, use the ward office or community service centre counter, which is walk-in and free.
• ·The alien registration card fee cannot be paid by card. Article 73 of the Enforcement Rules requires cash, or proof of a cash deposit, for that fee alone.
• ·HiKorea's own guide pages carry stale fees. The alien registration and card reissue pages still say 30,000 won while the Enforcement Rules amended on 24 December 2024 say 35,000 won.

You can skip this if

• Pregnant women and persons with disabilities under art. 2(1) of the Act on Welfare of Persons with Disabilities are exempt from the online booking requirement under the proviso to art. 34-2 of the Enforcement Decree and may attend without one. How to invoke that at the counter is not published, so call 1345 first.
• If you are going to collect a finished alien registration card or to have a certificate issued, you need no appointment. The Ministry lists both as counter work taken in person.
• If you have only moved house and only need the address change report, you need no immigration appointment. The community service centre or ward office of your new address handles it free and on the spot.
• Status change to skilled worker E-7-4 under K-point or to regionally specialised E-7-4R is filed online only. A booking for it will not be accepted.
• If your employer or school files on your behalf, follow their instructions. Article 34 of the Enforcement Rules allows a person designated by the Minister of Justice to file and collect for you.

Where this comes from

• Notice on the visit appointment system at immigration offices (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• Press release of 8 March 2021 on the appointment system (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• Enforcement Decree of the Immigration Act art. 34-2, online visit booking (Korean Law Information Center, Ministry of Government Legislation, 법제처 국가법령정보센터 open API)
• Immigration Act (Korean Law Information Center, Ministry of Government Legislation, 법제처 국가법령정보센터 open API)
• Enforcement Rules of the Immigration Act (Korean Law Information Center, Ministry of Government Legislation, 법제처 국가법령정보센터 open API)
• HiKorea booking guidance (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea booking identity verification (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea e-application information (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea service guide, extension of stay for registered foreigners (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea service guide, status change for registered foreigners (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea service guide, alien registration (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea service guide, alien registration card reissue (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea service guide, permit for activity outside status (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea service guide, multiple re-entry permit (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea service guide, passport change report (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea service guide, D-2 and D-4-1 part-time work permit (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea jurisdiction lookup for immigration offices (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• Foreigner residence change report service page (Government24, Ministry of the Interior and Safety, 행정안전부 정부24)