Last verified: 2026-08-27 07:35 KST
Residence registration, phone service and banking can depend on one another, but the order is not fixed for every newcomer. Ask the carrier and bank what they accept for your status and whether their branch process differs from online sign-up.
What follows is the chain, with the rule behind each link taken from the body that publishes it.
The chain, in one paragraph
A phone line registered in your own name can support phone-based identity verification. That does not mean every app or every branch bank-account application uses the same check. A residence card, phone service and banking remain useful milestones; confirm the actual prerequisites with each provider. Seoul’s official banking guidance describes applying at a branch with identification documents. Scope checked 6 October 2026.
The deadlines that matter in week one
Registration requirements depend on your status. The commonly quoted rule about stays beyond 90 days covers many people but is not a substitute for the rule attached to your own visa. It is also not the only statutory deadline. Once you are registered, a change of address must be reported within 15 days of moving in under Article 36(1) of the Immigration Act, and failing to do so is punishable by a fine of up to 1,000,000 KRW under Article 98(2). Checked 2026-09-04.
What is not status-specific is what happens if you are late, and how the booking system interacts with it. From HiKorea’s own reservation notice:
- A visit reservation is a booking of a date, not the receipt of an application. A confirmed slot after your deadline protects nothing.
- Attending after your period of stay expires, or after a statutory reporting deadline, can result in a penalty or administrative fine.
- If no bookable date exists before your deadline, the published instruction is to attend your competent office in person before it passes.
Checked 2026-08-27. Work from the date the system holds, not the one you remember — HiKorea publishes a period of stay expiry lookup. Jurisdiction follows your registered address, and there is a lookup for that too.
Note also that first registration is one of the services HiKorea marks visit-only. It cannot be filed online. Details in our residence card guide.
Your name, decided once
Do this before you fill in a single Korean form.
Korean identity verification matches your name against the record immigration holds and the record your carrier holds. Passport spelling, same order, everywhere — because the immigration record is upstream of the bank, the carrier and every app, and a mismatch created in week one surfaces in week six at a counter that cannot fix it.
The repair sequence is in our name verification guide. The short version: correct immigration first, then the carrier, then retry.
The phone, and the trap inside it
Prepaid and postpaid differ by which document they accept, not by how you pay. Per KT’s published subscriber terms, a postpaid line can be opened on a passport for E-7, E-9, D-2 and D-4 holders through authorised dealers — contrary to the usual advice that a residence card is mandatory.
And then the condition that follows it. A passport-opened postpaid line must be re-registered under your residence card within three months, or the line is suspended and terminated. Checked 2026-08-27.
Losing that number is not a phone problem. It is the identity credential behind your banking app and your account recovery. If your employer or school arranges the line, ask which document it was opened on and set a week-ten reminder.
Two more constraints from the same terms: within a 180-day window across all carriers combined, foreign nationals are capped at two lines, and one where the document presented was a passport — with in-person application at a carrier-designated direct store the stated exception. Do not burn that slot on a tourist product. See our SIM and eSIM guide.
Money
Open the account in a branch rather than an app for your first one. A person at a counter can look at an employment contract and make a judgement; an app can only pass or fail your carrier verification, and in your first weeks that verification is at its least reliable.
Bring the reason you are in Korea in document form — contract, certificate of enrolment, business registration. Anti-fraud screening is asking why this person needs a Korean account, and a document answers it faster than explanation. New accounts commonly open under transaction limits that ease with history or further evidence; that is normal and applies to Korean nationals too. See our bank account guide.
Two obligations will draw from this account, so it needs to exist before they arrive. Mobile postpaid autopay must come from a domestic card or account in your own name per the carriers’ standard terms. And health insurance premiums follow enrolment, which is not optional.
Health insurance is not something you sign up for
NHIS guidance for foreigners distinguishes workplace coverage, self-employed coverage and dependent eligibility. Its six-month description concerns self-employed enrollment and is subject to eligible residence status and other conditions; do not use it as a waiting period for everyone. Ask NHIS or your employer to confirm your own coverage start date. Source checked 6 October 2026.
The 2026 employee contribution rate is 7.19% of monthly wage, shared with the employer — so roughly 3.6% leaves your salary. Self-employed households are assessed on a contribution score multiplied by 211.5 KRW per point, built from income, property and vehicles.
One window worth knowing in week one: if your employer provides equivalent medical coverage, an Employee Health Insurance Withdrawal Application filed within 14 days of the reported acquisition date makes the acquisition date the loss date. File later and you owe premiums. Checked 2026-08-27. See our health insurance guide.
Do not let arrears run. The Korea Immigration Service operates a health insurance arrears confirmation system, and unpaid premiums surface during extensions.
Getting around before any of this works
A transit card needs nothing — no ID, no account, no phone contract. Buy one at a convenience store with cash and you can move on day one.
Two things to know rather than discover. The card price is not refundable, and a balance refund costs a 500 KRW fee — so top up in amounts you will spend rather than loading heavily. And the subsidy schemes that make commuting cheap require registration on the K-Pass site with a Korean refund account, which puts them behind the bank account. See our T-money guide and transit passes guide.
Driving, if you need it
An international permit covers a while, then you exchange. Two conditions from the Korea Road Traffic Authority decide whether the trip works: only a valid full licence can be exchanged — temporary, learner, provisional and probationary licences cannot — and the embassy confirmation or Apostille must have been issued within one year of your application. Proxy applications are not accepted.
Applications must be received by 17:00, and before 16:00 if a written test is required. See our licence exchange guide.
Sending money home
Set this up before you need it, not on the day. The reduced-documentation route runs through a designated foreign exchange bank, registered once, with evidence of how your funds were acquired.
Note that the widely reported 100,000 USD annual allowance is published by the Korea Federation of Banks under a heading that excludes foreign residents. The foreign-resident regime is a 50,000 USD annual figure, and it counts remittances, foreign-currency deposits and overseas card spending together. See our remittance guide.
The order, condensed
- Confirm your real registration deadline and your competent office.
- Decide your name spelling; use it identically everywhere.
- Data-only eSIM as a bridge — do not spend your line slot on it.
- Book the registration appointment, or attend in person if no date fits.
- Residence card. If your line was opened on a passport, re-register it now.
- Bank account, in a branch.
- Postpaid line and autopay from that account.
- Health insurance: confirm enrolment, or file the withdrawal application inside 14 days.
- Transit subsidy registration, remittance bank designation, licence exchange — in whatever order your life needs.
Verification note. On September 24, 2026 an AI-assisted check compared the 2026 employee contribution rate of 7.19% and the 211.5 KRW per point against the NHIS (except HiKorea and KT, 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
- HiKorea — visit reservation notice: booking is not filing, deadline and penalty rules
- HiKorea — electronic civil petition service table by channel
- NHIS — guidance for foreigners: six-month mandatory subscription, 14-day withdrawal window
- NHIS — 2026 contribution rate and point value
- KT — 5G subscriber terms: documents by category, three-month re-registration, line caps, autopay rule (Korean)
- Second source for the three-month rule — reporting on the three carriers’ 5G standard terms submitted to the Korea Communications and Media Commission, confirming the same re-registration and forced-termination provision applies beyond a single carrier (14 August 2026)
- KoROAD — foreign licence exchange requirements (Korean)
- Korea Federation of Banks — non-documented remittance for residents excluding foreign residents (Korean)
Last verified: 2026-08-27 07:35 KST. Rules differ by status and change without English-language announcement. Each linked source is the authority for its own item; where your case does not match, 1345 is.