Last verified: 2026-08-27 06:11 KST
You will be sent a link. Your employer sends one, your university sends another, a forum thread sends a third — and they are not the same website. Korea runs its entry and immigration services across separate portals that look official, sound similar, and share nothing with each other, not even your login.
This page sorts out which site does what, which numbers are real, and why the official sites themselves warn you about the copies.
The rule that sorts all of it
Ask one question: have I landed yet?
For visa questions, start with visa.go.kr; for visa-free travel authorisation, use k-eta.go.kr. HiKorea handles many residence services and visit reservations. Choose by the service you need, not simply whether you have landed: an arrival declaration is a separate process.
visa.go.kr — the Korea Visa Portal
Run by the Ministry of Justice, this is where visa applications, status checks and issuance live. Its menu covers visa guidance, application and status lookup, investment immigration, visa application centres, and seasonal worker programmes.
The feature worth knowing about is the visa recommendation tool, which sorts by nationality across Asia, the Americas, Europe, Oceania and Africa. If you do not know which visa category fits your situation, that is a better starting point than a forum thread — the answer depends on your nationality in ways general advice cannot capture.
The portal offers Korean and English. Depth of English coverage varies by section.
k-eta.go.kr — the one you may not need
K-ETA is electronic travel authorisation for nationals who can enter Korea without a visa. If you need a visa, K-ETA is not your route — you are on visa.go.kr.
Once you have entered visa-free, our 90-day stay calculator works out a safe exit date from your entry date.
| Item | Official figure |
|---|---|
| Who applies | Nationals able to enter Korea without a visa |
| Fee | 10,000 KRW, roughly 7–8 USD |
| Processing time | Generally within 72 hours |
| Where you can apply | Only at www.k-eta.go.kr or the official K-ETA mobile app |
Two operational details from the site. Applying as a non-member and as a registered member gets you the same fee, the same processing time and the same validity period — registering only adds the ability to check results and update travel information without email verification, and to see all your applications together. And 72 hours is not a guarantee; it is the general case, which is an argument against applying the night before a flight.
There is also a temporary exemption arrangement in force for some nationalities, and the portal’s notice board carries an announcement about its extension dated 20 March 2026. Whether it currently applies to your nationality and travel dates is exactly the kind of question that changes, so read the notice board rather than a guide — including ours.
The fake-site problem, in the government’s own words
This is not a rumour that circulates among travellers. It is printed on the official portal.
The K-ETA site states that applications are possible only through www.k-eta.go.kr or the official mobile app, and warns travellers about lookalike agency and phishing sites that take large fees under the pretext of offering K-ETA application or expedited services. Checked 2026-08-27.
The economics of that scam are simple: the real fee is 10,000 KRW. Any site charging substantially more is either an agent adding a markup for a form you can complete yourself, or it is taking your money and your passport details.
Three checks before you enter anything:
- The domain ends in .go.kr. That suffix is restricted to Korean government bodies. A .com or .org address offering the same service is not the government.
- The fee matches. 10,000 KRW for K-ETA, roughly 7–8 USD.
- You reached it by typing the address, not by clicking a search result or an emailed link.
The same logic applies to visa.go.kr and hikorea.go.kr. There is no legitimate expediting service that a private site can offer for a Korean government application.
hikorea.go.kr — everything after you land
HiKorea handles extensions, status changes, address reports, and appointment booking for the things that require attendance. Its service table marks each item as available for electronic filing, for visit reservation, or both — and the split contains the surprises.
Visit-only: foreign resident registration, overseas Korean residence report, residence card reissue, activity outside status permit, grant of status, change of status for short-term stayers, and certificate for visa issuance.
Available online: extension of stay, change of status for registered foreign nationals, change of residence report, registered particulars change after a passport renewal, multiple re-entry permit, part-time work permits for D-2 and D-4-1, and workplace change for E-9. Checked 2026-08-27.
HiKorea states that a petition granted online has the same effect as one granted by visiting an office, so where the online route exists there is no reason to prefer a counter. Account creation and the non-member route are covered in our HiKorea sign-up guide; booking mechanics in our appointment guide.
The arrival card
The official e-Arrival Card guide says the declaration is free and can be filed starting three days before arrival in Korean Standard Time. It is separate from K-ETA. Guide checked 6 October 2026.
Check the declaration eligibility guide before filing: Residence Card holders and valid K-ETA holders are among the exempt groups. A K-ETA exemption does not by itself exempt you from the arrival declaration.
Which site do I need?
- Do I need a visa to enter Korea? If yes → visa.go.kr. If no → continue.
- Am I entering visa-free? → k-eta.go.kr, unless a current exemption covers your nationality. Check the notice board.
- Have I already arrived and registered? → hikorea.go.kr.
- Am I trying to get my first residence card? → hikorea.go.kr for the appointment, but the application itself is a counter visit. See our residence card guide.
When none of them will accept your name
Korean government sites verify a foreign national against records held by immigration and by your mobile carrier. If your name is spelled or ordered differently across those records, every portal rejects you and none explains why.
The fix is upstream: correct the immigration record first, then the carrier record, then retry. Retrying against an uncorrected record just fails again, and repeated failures can lock an account. Our name verification guide covers the sequence.
The number behind all of them
The Immigration Contact Center is 1345 from inside Korea, +82-2-1345 or +82-2-6908-1345 from abroad, with a fax civil petition line on 1577-1346. It operates in twenty languages by day, but after 18:00 only Korean, English and Chinese are staffed — the detail that catches evening callers is in our Korean help lines guide.
It also provides three-way interpretation into other public agencies, which is the mechanism for getting a different Korean office to handle your case in your language.
Verification note. On September 24, 2026 an AI-assisted check compared the 10,000 KRW K-ETA fee and the K-ETA processing time (generally within 72 hours) against the official K-ETA portal (except HiKorea, which cannot be checked automatically), and confirmed the official sources linked in this guide still resolve to the same pages. I publish this guide under my own name and am responsible for what it says. Rules and fees in Korea change often; if you spot something out of date, email hello@90dayskorea.com and it will be re-checked and corrected.
Sources
- K-ETA — official portal: fee, processing time, application channels, phishing warning
- K-ETA — guidance and notices, including the temporary exemption extension notice
- Korea Visa Portal — visa guidance and recommendation by nationality
- HiKorea — electronic civil petition service table by channel
- Korea Immigration Service — Ministry of Justice
Last verified: 2026-08-27 06:11 KST. Entry rules, exemptions and fees change, sometimes at short notice. The portals linked above are the authority; where this page and a .go.kr page disagree, the .go.kr page is correct.