Korean Job Discussion Forums

vincentsaid · Joined: 19 Sep 2010

I think I found a job in Korea and my boyfriend wants to come as well. He doesn't plan on doing any teaching. He is taking a year off from his business in the states and doing some traveling. My question is:

Since he'll be coming on a tourist visa and will have to do 3 visa runs over the course of a year ... what can he do to help his chances of getting back into the country? He'll be staying with me and will have plenty of money.

Does immigration look for anything specifically when allowing someone another tourist visa? Is a year too much to ask?

Thanks!

warren pease · Joined: 12 May 2008

I'm fairly certain that as long as he doesn't break any laws while he's here, he'll have no trouble getting another tourist visa when he returns.

NilesQ · Joined: 27 Nov 2006

I lived and taught privates in Korea for 3 years on tourist visas. I'm Canadian so I only had to leave every 6 months.

Im pretty sure that Korea has a working holiday visa for people under 25 or 30. I'd look into that if I were you. It's a lot more expensive to fly now then when I was doing it.

He could register for korean classes and then get a student visa which is renewable within the country. However, he'd be looking at tuition of about W1,000,000 every 3 monthe. But this experience would be much better for him than sitting around waiting for you to finish work! He would be speaking korean by the end of the year.

northway · Joined: 05 Jul 2010

Having copies of financial records on hand to prove he has funds should make him very, very safe.

vincentsaid · Joined: 19 Sep 2010

This is all really helpful information! Thank you!

warren pease · Joined: 12 May 2008

Dave's ESL - Where helpful lives

zhanknight · Joined: 24 Mar 2010 Location: Yangsan

We're in the exact same situation right now. I'm the boyfriend.

In fact, I'm flying to Fukuoka in the next week or so for my first tourist visa renewal run. I had no trouble getting in the first time, hopefully won't the second time.

Tourist visa is 90 days for Americans, on arrival. Like others said, he can enroll at a university's Korean language program here and get sponsored for a 6 month visa, which also confers some extra privileges. Tuition at all of them runs a little over 1000$ per 10 week term. If you guys like Korea a lot, this would probably be really cool for him.

Good luck, hope you make it! My first three months have been freakin' awesome.