THE VISA STATUS OF A FOREIGN INVESTOR

July 5, 2024

At first contact, our foreign clients often ask us if their visa statuses are relevant to their ability to incorporate a company in Korea, or run the company as a representative director.

The answer is “not really, unless you already are or plan to stay in Korea". There are no residency or visa requirements for incorporating or operating a domestic company. Visa status is only relevant if you plan to visit and stay in Korea.

For instance, the D-8-1 visa allows its holder to reside in Korea for up to 5 years for each case of issuance for the purpose of working at a foreign-invested enterprise in the capacity of a required professional (executive officers, upper-level managers, experts, etc.). But this does not mean that a foreign person cannot work as a required professional at a foreign-invested enterprise without a D-8-1 visa. The person may well incorporate and run a foreign-invested enterprise in Korea from overseas without any visa.* Should the person need to visit Korea for general commercial purposes, such as business consultations, execution of contracts, business contacts, etc., the person may well do so under any of the applicable short-term visas, instead of a D-8-1 visa. 

The short-term visas that could be utilized in the above case could be a B-1(visa exempted), a C-3-4(business visitor), or another category, as the case may be. Finding the right kind of the visa and the application therefor is a topic that merits a separate discussion.

For the purposes of this article, it can be said that the incorporation and operation of a domestic business or company here in Korea itself does not require its foreigner-investor to hold any visa as a prerequisite. But of course, if the foreigner-investor is already staying in Korea under a certain type of visa, the foreigner-client should ensure that the contemplated business activities are permitted under the visa. 

* In Korea, the law does not require executive officers in a foreign-invested enterprise, such as directors and auditors, to register for a retirement pension plan. The four major public insurance program in Korea, including the national pension insurance, are mandatory only for employees, not for executive directors. This is noteworthy because, in other parts of the world, an employment relationship sometimes mandates that all officers and employees be registered for mandatory pension or insurance programs, which generally require that the person holds certain residency or visa status. But again, this is not the case in Korea. The foregoing also has implications regarding the payment of wages to the foreign executive officers who reside overseas without a Korean visa.

Ends.