Effective April 2025, South Korea’s immigration authority has begun enforcing stricter procedural and documentary requirements for the F-3 visa, the standard long-term dependent visa for family members of corporate visa holders (e.g., D-7, D-8, E-7). The most significant change is that Korean immigration no longer accepts in-country F-3 Dependent Family visa applications, except in limited humanitarian circumstances such as illness, pregnancy, or childbirth. This new restriction applies regardless of whether the F-3 application is submitted concurrently with or separately from the principal applicant’s long-term work visa (such as the D-8 Corporate Investment visa).
This is a developing situation and additional changes to the F-3 visa process may be introduced. Due to the abrupt implementation of these new rules, pending applications may be affected, and processing times for new applications may increase. It remains unclear whether exceptions to the new policy will be introduced. We are closely monitoring developments and gathering insights from immigration offices across South Korea to better understand the impact of these changes.
This alert is written in collaboration with Fragomen’s co-counsel for South Korea, Kim Chang Lee. This is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions, please contact the global immigration professional with whom you work at Fragomen or send an email to [email protected].
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