The site decides which certificate you need, not your visa

Right now

1. 1First check whether what you are doing ends at HiKorea. Electronic applications such as a stay extension take an ID and a password, and the login screen has no certificate field.
2. 2If you have to use Government24 or Hometax, start with the financial certificate. You get it in a bank app, it renews itself for three years, and it installs nothing on your PC.
3. 3If the bank app blocks you, ask whether that bank runs the non-face-to-face check on your Alien Registration Card. Some banks can only do it at a branch.

What to have ready

• Alien Registration Card: Both certificate issuance and HiKorea login start here. Getting the card is covered in its own guide.
• Korean phone number: The cloud-linking step of the financial certificate matches your name, mobile number and date of birth.
• Korean bank account: Certificates are issued in a bank app or through internet banking. If you have not opened an account yet, that guide comes first.
• Your Alien Registration Card, checked at the bottom left: A mobile ID logo there means it is an IC card. Without one, every mobile ID step becomes a counter visit.
• 35,000 won in cash, only if you are swapping to an IC card: The Enforcement Rule of the Immigration Act allows this fee to be paid only in cash or with proof of a cash payment.

Phrases you can copy and paste

Step by step

1. 1

   The three differ by where the certificate lives

   There are three methods you will meet on Korean sites. The financial certificate is issued by the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute and kept on that institute's cloud server. No file is left on your computer or your phone, and you open it with a six-digit numeric PIN. It is valid for three years and renews itself. No PC security program is needed, because the institute built it from the start to work without plugins. For an individual there is no restriction on what you use it for and no fee. The joint certificate is the opposite. A single file is stored on your own device, on a PC, a phone or a USB stick. The password for a certificate saved to a hard disk has to be ten characters or more, mixing digits, letters and symbols. It is valid for one year and you renew it by hand. It also requires a PC security program to be installed. The issuers differ too. The financial certificate comes from one body, while joint certificates come from six designated bodies including the Korea Internet & Security Agency and the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute. For an individual, a joint certificate for banking, credit cards and insurance is free. The general-purpose version costs 4,400 won a year, but it is now renewal only and no new ones are issued. The third method is simple authentication. It is not a certificate you carry but a prompt or a biometric check inside an app you already use. The National Tax Service defines it as needing nothing stored on a storage device and no advance registration with the site. Hometax alone accepts twelve of them for individuals: KakaoTalk, Naver, Toss, the mobile carriers' PASS, Samsung Pass, KB Kookmin Bank, Banksalad, Hana Bank, NH Nonghyup Bank, Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank and KakaoBank.

2. 2

   What it actually means that the accredited certificate is gone

   The full rewrite of the Digital Signature Act, promulgated on 9 June 2020, took effect six months later on 10 December 2020 under Article 1 of its addenda. That is the day the accredited certificate lost its legal monopoly. Article 3 of the Act as it stands now says only that an electronic signature cannot be denied effect as a signature or a seal merely because it is in electronic form. No provision says one certificate counts for more than another. That did not cancel the certificates people were holding. Article 2 of the addenda says the old rules continue to apply to accredited certificates that were valid when the Act took effect, so each one ran on until its own expiry date. The name 공동인증서, the joint certificate, also comes from that amendment. As the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute explains it, the word 공인 could no longer be used under the amended Act, so only the name changed. The old accredited certificate and today's joint certificate are the same thing. One provision was a year behind the rest. Article 6(2) took effect on 10 June 2021. It bars the state from restricting users to one particular electronic signature method, except where a statute, a National Assembly rule, a Supreme Court rule, a Constitutional Court rule, a National Election Commission rule, a presidential decree or a Board of Audit rule names that method. That is why login screens on public sites carry several buttons. On the same day the Act took effect, 10 December 2020, the institute launched its financial certificate service as the replacement for the abolished accredited certificate system.

3. 3

   What stops a foreigner is not the law but the resident registration number

   Even after the law stopped favouring one certificate, one obstacle remains. Article 12(2)3 of the Enforcement Decree of the Electronic Government Act lists, as the information agencies use to recognise a person as the same person, the user's resident registration number and information an identity verification agency generates in connection with that number. The foreigner registration number is not on that list. You can see the result on the Government24 login screen. It offers five routes. The joint certificate signs you in with a certificate kept on your own computer or a USB stick. The financial certificate signs you in with the certificate issued in a bank app or through internet banking. Simple authentication uses an electronic signature from Naver, Kakao, a financial institution and others, and the mobile ID route uses the mobile ID on your phone. Below those, the guest login is described as signing in without joining, using a name and a resident registration number. The one route advertised as needing neither an account nor a certificate is the one route closed to someone holding a foreigner registration number. The four above it are yours. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety's unified sign-in, Any-ID, bundles five kinds: mobile ID, simple authentication, the joint certificate, the financial certificate and private IDs such as Naver, Kakao and Toss. As of November 2025 it was running on about 60 digital government services, including the successor to Government24 and the Supreme Court's family relations system. Tax has the same roots. Hometax previously accepted only individual certificates based on a resident registration number, and simple authentication for businesses, based on the business registration number, was added in April 2026. Whether a joint certificate issued to a foreigner is bound to the number the way a Korean's is, and whether that binding is what fails on particular sites, is not stated in any official document. What is confirmed is only that the decree names the resident registration number and information linked to it.

4. 4

   Issuance either opens or closes at the bank

   Creating a certificate is a short procedure in itself. For a financial certificate, you verify your identity in a bank app or internet banking using a resident registration number, an account number or a security card, then enter your name, mobile number and date of birth to register and link a cloud account. The reason a foreigner can do this without going to a branch is that the Ministry of Justice runs an authenticity check system for the Alien Registration Card. When a financial company sends the personal and photo data on the card through the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute, the result of the comparison against the ministry's own records comes back the same way. A bank without that connection cannot issue remotely. In the notice the ministry published when the service started on 18 September 2023, the banks that could handle it without a branch visit, through a mobile app or the web, were Hana Bank, Toss Bank and Jeonbuk Bank. The banks that could handle it only in person at a branch were Gwangju Bank, KB Kookmin Bank, Daegu Bank and Shinhan Bank. The same notice said more financial companies would keep being added, so read those seven names as a starting point and not as the current list. No government page states which banks now issue a certificate to a foreigner online alone. The institute itself only says the detailed procedure can differ slightly from bank to bank and that you should check with your bank. So the place to ask is the bank where you opened your account, not the certificate information page. The financial certificate carries a one-per-person rule: if you have a new one issued at a different financial company, the existing one is revoked and a new one is created. The joint certificate carries a renewal rule: once issued it lasts a year, you can renew from one month before the expiry date, and if you miss that period you have to be issued a new one. For a foreigner, being issued a new one means going through the bank's identity check again.

5. 5

   HiKorea does not ask for a certificate

   Most things to do with your stay are finished without a certificate. The HiKorea member login screen says only to enter your own ID and password, and there is no place to choose a certificate at all. A stay extension for a registered foreigner is on the list of applications HiKorea says you can file electronically. The thing foreigners do most often needs no certificate whatsoever. Before you buy a certificate or make a trip to a branch, check whether what you are doing ends at HiKorea. What each status of stay requires, and by when, is covered in the guide on visas and stay. This guide checked as far as the login screen. Whether HiKorea asks for separate authentication at the point of submitting a particular application was not checked.

6. 6

   The mobile Alien Registration Card is not a certificate, but it stands in the ID slot

   The Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Ministry of Justice began issuing mobile Alien Registration Cards on 10 January 2025. Article 12-2 of the Enforcement Decree of the Electronic Government Act, in force since 28 August 2026, names the foreigner registration card and the permanent residence card under the Immigration Act as types of mobile ID. The service ran first and the decree caught up with it. Which route you take depends on whether your physical card has an IC chip. If it does, you issue the mobile version yourself by tapping the card to your phone. If it does not, you have to visit the immigration office for your area of residence and be issued it by photographing a QR code, and when you later change phones you have to book a visit through HiKorea and go back to the office for a reissue. You can tell which card you hold by looking for the mobile ID logo at the bottom left of the card. To swap to an IC card you need one photograph 3.5 cm by 4.5 cm taken within the last six months, your passport, and proof of your address such as a lease, a confirmation of accommodation provided to you or a utility bill, plus a fee of 35,000 won. The counter does not set that amount. Article 72(10) of the Enforcement Rule of the Immigration Act fixes it as the fee for issuing or reissuing a foreigner registration card. There is a ceiling on what goes onto the phone. Article 12-3(1) of the same decree sets the validity of the electronic information at three years or less and allows issuance to only one mobile device registered in your own name. The Government24 login screen has a mobile ID button and the decree names the foreigner registration card as a mobile ID. Even so, no official page states outright that you can sign in to Government24 with a mobile Alien Registration Card today.

7. 7

   What Government24 gives back, and which door is shut right now

   Having one working login method pays you back. Government24 lists the fee for a foreigner registration certificate as 2,000 won when you apply in person and free when you apply online. The counter costs you the journey and the fee both, so the effort of setting up a login method returns here. How to write your address on the form is in the guide on Korean addresses. One door at Government24 is shut at the moment. The dedicated foreigner site, foreigner.gov.kr, has shown nothing but a service suspension notice since a maintenance window that began at 22:00 on 17 August 2026, and it still did on 7 September 2026. The Korean-language main site works. Do not read a foreigner site that will not open as your login being blocked; switch the language on the main site instead. The address is moving as well. Government24 has moved to plus.gov.kr, which the ministry now calls the whole-of-government single window. The old www.gov.kr address still resolves, so a bookmark that lands on a differently branded page is not a phishing site.

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.

• 

  금융인증서 공동인증서 차이점 이제 업무 볼 때마다 속이 시원합니다

  Channel: 투자쥬 Invest-ju, Korean, no English subtitles. The value is the screen

  Puts the financial certificate and the joint certificate side by side, which is the distinction this guide turns on and the one most explanations skip.

  Open on YouTube

• 

  인터넷 뱅킹은 금융인증서가 편합니다. | 금융인증서 발급 방법

  Channel: 소소행, Korean, with auto-generated English subtitles

  Issues a financial certificate on screen from start to finish, so you can see how long it takes and where the bank app asks you to confirm.

  Open on YouTube

The Korean words

금융인증서geumyung injeungseo, financial certificate

Kept in the issuer's cloud. Three years with automatic renewal, a six-digit PIN, no security program.

공동인증서gongdong injeungseo, joint certificate

A file stored on your own device. Renewed by hand every year and requires a PC security program.

공인인증서gongin injeungseo, the former accredited certificate

The old name for the same thing as today's joint certificate. The word 공인 became unusable under the amended Act.

간편인증ganpyeon injeung, simple authentication

Finished with a prompt or a biometric check in an app you already use. Nothing to store, nothing to register in advance.

보안 프로그램boan peurogeuraem, security program

The software the joint certificate route asks you to install on a PC. The other two routes do not ask for it.

주민등록번호jumin deungnok beonho, resident registration number

The number the e-government identity chain is built on. A foreigner registration number has the same shape but is a different number.

비회원 로그인bihoewon rogeuin, guest login

The Government24 route that needs no account. It asks for a name and a resident registration number.

모바일 신분증mobail sinbunjeung, mobile ID

An ID held on your phone. The decree names the foreigner registration card and the permanent residence card as types.

갱신gaengsin, renewal

A joint certificate renews only from one month before expiry. A financial certificate renews by itself every three years.

금융결제원geumyung gyeoljewon, Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute

Issues the financial certificate. The Alien Registration Card authenticity check also passes through it between banks and the Ministry of Justice.

Easy to miss

• ·Have a financial certificate issued at a second bank and the one you already had is revoked on the spot. You do not end up with two, you end up with one, and any automatic login you set up elsewhere quietly stops working.
• ·Government24's guest login asks for a name and a resident registration number. A foreigner registration number has the same thirteen digits but is a different number, so the one route advertised as needing neither an account nor a certificate is the one closed to you. The four certificate routes above it are yours.
• ·Joint certificate renewal only opens one month before the expiry date. One day past it, renewal is gone and nothing explains why. From there it is a new issuance, which puts you back through the bank's identity check from the start.
• ·A joint certificate is a file with no cloud copy. If the laptop dies or you replace the phone, it goes with them and the bank has to issue a new one. A financial certificate was never on the device, so neither event touches it.
• ·Advice telling you to get a general-purpose individual joint certificate is out of date. The issuer renews them for existing customers only and issues no new ones. You can extend one you already have; you cannot buy one.
• ·Do not buy a certificate in order to use HiKorea. Stay extensions and the other electronic applications are entered with an ID and a password, and the login screen has no certificate field at all.
• ·If a security program installer keeps appearing, you are on the joint certificate route. The financial certificate and simple authentication buttons beside it skip the installation entirely.
• ·If your Alien Registration Card has no IC chip, every mobile ID step is a counter visit. The first issue is, and so is every phone change. Check the bottom left of the card for the logo before you plan around it.
• ·The 35,000 won swap to an IC card is payable in cash or with proof of a cash payment, by rule. Turning up with only a card is a wasted trip.
• ·The cloud-linking step of the financial certificate matches your name, mobile number and date of birth against what the bank holds. If the bank recorded your name differently from elsewhere, the step fails at the cloud rather than at the bank, so the error message points you at the wrong counter.
• ·A foreigner site that will not open is not the same thing as your login method failing. foreigner.gov.kr has been suspended since the maintenance window of 17 August 2026, while the Korean-language main site keeps running.

You can skip this if

• If all you plan to do is extend your stay or report a change of address, both of which end at HiKorea, none of the certificate material applies. An ID and a password are enough.
• If you do not have an Alien Registration Card yet, none of these routes opens. Getting the card has its own guide, and being blocked at sign-up because a name and a number do not match is covered in the guide on identity verification.
• The 4,400 won and 110,000 won figures here are business fees. For an individual using a certificate for banking, cards and insurance, neither the financial nor the joint certificate costs anything.
• If you only need to get into one site once, you may not need a certificate at all. Check first whether that site accepts simple authentication.

Where this comes from

• Digital Signature Act (전자서명법), in force 20 October 2022, Act No. 18479 (National Law Information Center, 국가법령정보센터, Ministry of Government Legislation, 법제처)
• Financial certificate and joint certificate compared, 4 December 2024 (Government Civil Service Guidance Call Centre 110, 국민콜110 정부민원안내)
• Financial certificate service (Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute, 금융결제원, Open API portal)
• Financial certificate (금융인증서) page (Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute, 금융결제원, YESKEY certificate portal)
• Joint certificate (공동인증서) page (Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute, 금융결제원, YESKEY certificate portal)
• Government24 login screen (정부24, Ministry of the Interior and Safety, 행정안전부)
• Reference material on Hometax simple authentication, 22 April 2026 (National Tax Service, 국세청)
• Government unified sign-in, Any-ID (정부 통합인증, Ministry of the Interior and Safety, 행정안전부)
• HiKorea member login (하이코리아, Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부 출입국, 외국인정책본부)
• HiKorea list of electronic applications (하이코리아, Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부)
• Enforcement Decree of the Electronic Government Act (전자정부법 시행령), in force 28 August 2026, Presidential Decree No. 36605 (National Law Information Center, 국가법령정보센터, Ministry of Government Legislation, 법제처)
• Mobile foreigner registration cards start on 10 January, policy news of 9 January 2025 (Ministry of the Interior and Safety, 행정안전부, published on Government24, 정부24)
• Mobile foreigner registration card guidance (하이코리아 HiKorea, Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부)
• What to bring for an IC foreigner registration card (Mobile ID, 모바일 신분증, Ministry of the Interior and Safety, 행정안전부)
• Enforcement Rule of the Immigration Act (출입국관리법 시행규칙), in force 23 January 2026, Ministry of Justice Rule No. 1106 (National Law Information Center, 국가법령정보센터, Ministry of Government Legislation, 법제처)
• Foreigner registration card authenticity check system (외국인등록증 진위확인 시스템, Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부)
• Notice on the launch of the authenticity check service, 21 September 2023 (Korea Immigration Service, Ministry of Justice, 법무부)
• Foreigner registration certificate (외국인등록사실증명) issuance guide (Government24, 정부24, Ministry of the Interior and Safety, 행정안전부)