Korean Job Discussion Forums

[nicwr2002]

I thought I would post my story about how I finally received the F-6 visa to help others. I started the process in August of '13 and just now, at the end of January 2014, I will receive my new ARC card. The long amount of time is not entirely immigration's fault because I went back home for a visit during this time. I'm American by the way, so these experiences may be different for others.

First of all, be kind and very supportive of your wife/husband because he/she will have to do most of the leg work gathering the necessary documents and writing the story of how you met.

Second, when you go to the embassy to get the document signed for the eligibility of marriage, ask if you can have more than one copy. This paper will have the crease that immigration is looking for on documents. If they cannot give you an extra one, then they will give you this other paper stating that America recognizes the marriage, but cannot prove you are not officially married in the USA because America doesn't have a national registry like Korea. Take this document to the MOFAT building located near the Embassy in Seoul. They should be able to authenticate that document for you there.

The reason I say this is that the embassy and immigration have a misunderstanding about marriage documents. When I submitted my documents to the immigration officer, they questioned me about how could they be sure I wasn't married in America. They wouldn't accept the document I was given at the embassy, even though the embassy staff said this was all I needed. I called the immigration hotline and they said, I had to have some kind of Apostille type proof that I wasn't married in America. So, I called the embassy and they had no clue what I was talking about either and couldn't understand why immigration was being so stubborn. However, we went to a different officer the next day and had my wife do the complaining and the officer decided to go ahead and process it. I'm sure it was because he was new though.

Now, if you are not a picture person, you should start being one now. You need to have a lot of pictures of you and your fiancé on trips, hanging out, and with other family members. It also helps if you are friendly to the parents as they can really help you out also at immigration. My wife took her mom with her to immigration and the officer commented that it was a good thing that she did that. Plus, you will probably need the parents to help pad your fiancé’s bank account for a couple of days to prove to immigration that you have plenty of money saved up because that could be a factor.

You are going to need wedding pictures. You don't have to do an expensive wedding hall ceremony and all that, unless your fiancé wants that. We just got professional wedding photos done at a studio, but be prepared to pay out up to about $2000 for photos. It also helps you have pictures with your fiancé and your family back in your home country. So, even if you don't have a ceremony, you are going to be paying at least $6000 on wedding photos and trips back your country. It may or may not be crucial for you to have photos with your family as well to prove that your fiancé met your family.

After submitting the documents to immigration, it took them about 3 months to finally give me the visa. The long time may have be attributed to the fact that the immigration office moved into a different building during this time. My writing is pretty scattered, if you have any questions ask me.

Starting this year there is a new language requirement to pass in order to get the F-6. From what I heard before it's just a basic Level 1 Topik level score.

[PEIGUY]

[okok]

The TOPIK 1 requirement can also be waived if you've spent more than a year here.

[phatrick]

Sorry you had such a difficult time. It really depends on what officer you get a immigration and what mood they are in I believe. My F6 was painless, got the documents from my embassy, went to register our marriage at her dong office, went to immigration all in the same day. Immigration never asked about finances but maybe because we own our own villa, never asked to see pictures, she just had to write a quick story of how we met and had my F6 two weeks later.

[nicwr2002]

[chungbukdo]

Thanks a lot. This helped. We are going to do this soon and are not going to have the wedding until much after, if at all, and we don't consider the ceremony especially important (we think they're moreso to please family). Hopefully that won't be a barrier for us.

[nicwr2002]