Korea C-3-1 Dependent Visa: Families of E-7-4R and F-2-R Holders

This route is called a dependent visa, and it is worth being clear about what that does and does not mean before you plan a family move around it.

If your spouse holds E-7-4R or F-2-R, their family applies on a C-3-1, and a C-3-1 is capped at ninety days.

Compare that with the family of an E-7 holder, who apply on F-3-17 or F-3-74 — a long-stay residence status with no fixed ninety-day ceiling. Same word, "dependent". Very different outcome.

The document lists for the two routes are almost identical. They differ by exactly two items, and those two items tell you which world you are in:

	C-3-1 (E-7-4R / F-2-R family)	F-3 (E-7 family)
Length of stay	Up to 90 days	More than 90 days
Two-way flight booking, departure ≥15 business days out	Required	Not listed
Tuberculosis report from a designated hospital	Not listed	Required, age 6 and above

A ninety-day stay has to show you are leaving, so it requires a return flight. A move has to show you are healthy enough to stay, so it requires a TB test. Everything else on the two lists is the same.

The practical consequence is the thing to absorb: on this route you are a visitor, with a visitor's ninety days and a visitor's prohibition on employment, even though the paperwork asks for your spouse's lease, their two years of income and six months of their Korean bank statements. Plan accordingly rather than discovering it after you have given up a job in Nepal.

For the requirements shared across all twelve routes — the Class A bank rule, validity windows, translation and notarisation — see Korean visa documents from Nepal.

First, confirm the code — this is not optional advice

The requirements for this route carry an instruction that appears nowhere else in the twelve lists, and it is there because the mistake is common:

Confirm the exact visa code your spouse holds — E-7-4, E-7-4R, F-2-R or F-2-99 — as recorded in their official Korean immigration status.

Not as they remember it. Not as the recruiter described it. As it appears in their immigration record.

Four codes, two of which differ by a single letter, leading to two different applications with two different lengths of stay. An E-7-4 holder's family applies on F-3 for a long stay. An E-7-4R holder's family applies here, for ninety days. If your spouse tells you they are "on E-7-4R" and they are actually on E-7-4, you have prepared the wrong application — and you have also mis-planned the whole relocation.

Ask them to read it off their residence card, and if there is any ambiguity, to confirm at their immigration office. The E-7-4R and F-2-R categories relate to the skilled-worker reclassification route, so this comes up most often with workers who changed status after a period in Korea rather than arriving on E-7 directly.

Which route is yours

• Spouse holds E-7-4R or F-2-R → this route, C-3-1, ninety days
• Spouse holds E-7 → the F-3 dependent route, long stay
• Spouse holds F-5 permanent residence → the F-2-3 residence route, which is far more demanding and leads to settlement
• Spouse holds F-6 as a marriage migrant and you are their parent coming to help with a child → the F-1-5 childcare route
• A relative is inviting you for an ordinary visit → the family visit route, C-3-9
• Spouse is on an EPS employment permit → dependants are generally not provided for on that track. Check before planning anything; see EPS: applying from Nepal

Background on this family of visas in family and dependant visas, and on the sponsor's side in employer-sponsored work visas.

What the sponsor in Korea provides

Most of the file, and the slow half, because it depends on their employer, bank and landlord. Start here.

• Invitation letter and guarantee letter, on the specific forms published for download by the embassy — from the embassy's own site, not a copy circulating in a group
• Certificate of foreign resident registration
• A copy of their residence card, front and back. The expiry must be more than six months after your application date. If it is nearer than that, their renewal comes first — see getting your Alien Registration Card in Korea
• Certificate of seal
• Employment certificate or employment contract
• Business registration certificate
• Confirmation of residence or accommodation, or a lease contract
• Certificate of income for the recent two years
• A photocopy of their passport
• Korean bank balance certificate
• Korean bank statement for the recent six months, issued showing deposit records only

Note on the statement: "deposits only" is an instruction about how the document is generated, not something you edit afterwards. Ask them to request it that way. And the one-month window that governs bank statements applies here too in practice, so it is the last thing they should obtain, not the first.

What you provide from Nepal

• Visa application form, with your original signature on page 5 matching your passport signature
• Passport photograph, 35 × 45 mm, recent
• Family relationship certificate, original and photocopy
• Marriage certificate, original and photocopy
• Birth certificate, original and photocopy — for a minor applicant
• Visa cover letter — purpose, tentative itinerary, who covers expenses
• Two-way flight booking, departure at least fifteen business days after your application date
• Your original passport and a photocopy

All Nepali-language documents translated into English and notarised by an authorised notary public. Validity: Nepali ward documents six months, general documents three months, bank statements one month. Arrange the file in the order the list gives.

Your half is short. On this route the applicant is close to a passenger in their own application — your documents establish who you are and how you are related, and the sponsor's documents establish everything else. Useful to know, because it tells you that delays will not originate with you.

The ninety-day problem, and how people get it wrong

Because the list looks like a relocation file, families treat it as one. Then they discover the stay is ninety days and no employment is permitted.

Three honest observations.

Do not resign a job in Nepal on the strength of this visa. Ninety days is a visit. It is long enough to settle a spouse in, see a school, and decide whether a longer-term arrangement is worth pursuing — not long enough to be a move.

Do not plan on converting it from inside Korea. Changing status after arrival is not something to build a family plan around. If the goal is for the family to live in Korea, the question to ask is whether the sponsor can move to a status whose dependants get a long stay, which is a question for their employer and their immigration office, not for a visa counter. See extending your stay in Korea.

Do not work, in any form. Visitor status prohibits employment, paid or unpaid, and on a dependent route the consequences land on the sponsor's status as well as yours. Immigration offices and overstay sets out what follows from getting this wrong.

What the reviewer is weighing

Is the sponsor's status what they say it is, and is it stable? The exact code, the residence card validity, two years of income and six months of Korean bank statements.

Can the household support the visitors? Income over two years, Korean balance and statements, the guarantee letter — assessed against the number of people joining. A salary that supports one comfortably is being asked to support several.

Is there somewhere to stay? The confirmation of residence or lease contract.

Are the relationships exactly documented? Family relationship certificate, marriage certificate, birth certificates for minors. Names must agree across your passport, your ward documents and your sponsor's Korean records. Transliteration differences between a Nepali ward certificate and a passport are routine and entirely avoidable — have the translator work from the originals so spellings stay consistent across the whole file.

Will you leave at ninety days? The return flight booking carries this, and so does whatever you are going back to. The sponsor cannot answer this one for you.

Sequencing

1. First, before anything. Confirm the sponsor's exact code from their immigration record, and check their residence card is valid more than six months past your application date.
2. Immediately after. Ask them to start their set — invitation and guarantee letters on the downloaded forms, foreign resident registration, seal certificate, employment and income certificates, lease or residence confirmation. Employer-issued documents in Korea take as long as the employer takes.
3. Early and safely. Ward documents: family relationship certificate, marriage certificate, birth certificates for minors. Six-month window, so these can wait in the folder.
4. Four to six weeks out. Notarised English translations of every Nepali-language document, worked from the originals.
5. Two to three weeks out. Flight booking, respecting the fifteen-business-day rule.
6. Last two weeks only. The sponsor's Korean bank balance certificate and six-month statement. One-month items.
7. Finally. Cover letter against the assembled file, page 5 signature, documents in the published order.

Full reasoning in the validity clock section of the main guide.

Where these applications come apart

The sponsor's code was assumed rather than checked. E-7-4 against E-7-4R. The most expensive error on this route, and the only one the requirements warn about explicitly.

The family planned a relocation around a ninety-day visa.

The sponsor's residence card expires within six months, discovered too late to renew first.

A TB test booked unnecessarily, because the applicant worked from the F-3 list. Not required here — and if you thought it was, check you are on the right list.

No return flight booking, for the same reason in reverse. It is required here.

Korean bank statements as a full transaction history rather than deposits only.

No birth certificate for a minor applicant.

Names transliterated inconsistently across ward documents, passports and Korean records.

Forms downloaded from a community group rather than the embassy site.

Making ninety days useful

If the point of the visit is to work out whether the family could live in Korea, these are worth reading before you go rather than after:

• Jeonse, wolse and key money: Korean housing explained — what family housing actually costs and how deposits work
• National Health Insurance in Korea — how household coverage works
• The Nepali community in Korea — the associations and district support centres most families never find
• Sending money from Korea to Nepal
• Cultural exchange and differences and learning Korean

If there are school-age children, use the ninety days to speak to the local education office in person. Enrolment procedure and language support vary by district, and it is much easier to establish face to face.

Questions people actually ask

My husband says he is on E-7. Which route is ours? Ask him for the sub-code. E-7 leads to F-3 and a long stay; E-7-4R leads here and ninety days. The requirements tell applicants to confirm it in the immigration record precisely because the two are so easily confused.

Why do we only get ninety days when my husband lives there? Because the stay is set by the route, and the dependent route attached to E-7-4R and F-2-R is a C-3-1. It is not a reflection of his standing; it is the category.

Do our children need a TB test? Not on this list. That requirement belongs to the F-3 route, for applicants aged six and above. If you are preparing TB tests for a C-3-1 application, check which list you are on.

Can I work for ninety days? No. Visitor status prohibits employment in any form, and the consequences reach your sponsor's status too.

Can we apply again when the ninety days end? Nothing in the list addresses repeat applications, so this page will not guess at how they are treated. Raise it with the embassy, and treat a plan built on consecutive visits with caution — it is not what a visitor visa is designed for.

Can I switch to a long-stay dependent visa once I am in Korea? Do not plan on it. The durable answer usually lies with the sponsor's own status rather than with yours.

Do I need my own bank documents? Not listed for you — the financial evidence comes from the sponsor's Korean accounts. Note this differs from the family visit route, where the exemption is explicit and limited to immediate family.

Sources and accuracy

Requirements above are drawn from the trilingual visa document lists published by DAGACHI and World DAGACHI at worlddagachi.com, working from the English versions.

The Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Nepal sets and changes these requirements without notice. Download the invitation and guarantee letter forms from the embassy's own website, and check the date on this page. Which dependent category applies to your sponsor is a determination for the embassy and their immigration office, not something this page can settle — confirm it before spending anything. Nothing here is legal or immigration advice.

If something here is out of date, tell us.