Korean Visa Documents from Nepal: Every Checklist, Decoded

A Korean visa application from Nepal can fail for two very different reasons. Either you were not eligible for the visa you asked for, or a document was the wrong shape: a bank statement from a bank that is not Class A, a ward paper that expired eleven days ago, a flight booking dated too soon, a signature on page 5 that does not match the one in the passport.

The first kind of failure is a matter of your circumstances. The second is a matter of paperwork, and it is entirely avoidable — the rules behind these lists are consistent, written down, and knowable before you spend a rupee.

This guide covers the document requirements for twelve Korean visa routes that Nepali applicants use most, from a ninety-day tourist visa to a residence visa for the spouse of a permanent resident. It is organised the way the requirements actually work rather than as twelve separate lists, because once you understand what the embassy is testing, you stop memorising checklists and start assembling a file that answers the questions before they are asked.

Every checklist is asking the same four questions

Lay the twelve lists side by side and the overlap is striking. Roughly seventy per cent of the items repeat. That is not redundancy — it is because each list is built from the same four proofs, weighted differently depending on what you are going to Korea to do.

Who you are. The application form, the photograph, the passport, and — where relatives are involved — your family relationship certificate and marriage certificate. These establish identity and, just as importantly, the relationships you are claiming.

Why you are going. The cover letter, the itinerary, and whatever substantiates your stated purpose: an invitation letter, a standard admission certificate, a treatment plan, a performance contract, a business MOU. The more unusual your purpose, the heavier this section becomes.

Who is paying, and whether they can. The bank balance certificate and six-month statement, the income certificate, tax clearance, a scholarship letter, a professor's financial affidavit. This is where most applications are actually decided.

Why you will leave — or why you are entitled to stay. For short visits: your employment certificate, business registration, return flight and the ties that pull you home. For long stays: the legal status in Korea of the person sponsoring you.

Read any item on any list and you can place it in one of those four. When you cannot, that is usually a sign you have misunderstood what the document is for — and a misunderstood document tends to be a weak one.

Step one: identify your route

Two questions settle which list applies to you. Is your stay ninety days or less? And is somebody in Korea inviting you?

Visa	Code	Who it is for
Tourist	C-3-9	Travel only, no other purpose
Family visit	C-3-9	Invited by a relative living in Korea
Business	C-3-4	Invited by a business partner, or travelling for trade
Short-term general	C-3-1	Relatives, events, meetings, training, lessons, religious ceremonies, academic document collection, non-official sport
Dependent of E-7-4R / F-2-R holder	C-3-1	Invited by an E-7-4R or F-2-R visa holder
Medical tourism	C-3-3	Treatment arranged through a registered medical tourism agency
Artist / entertainment	C-4-5	Performers and artists on short engagements
Marriage migrant childcare support	F-1-5	Parents or family of an F-6 marriage migrant, providing childcare
Undergraduate study	D-2	Bachelor's degree study, more than ninety days
Study, re-applying after leave of absence	D-2	Returning to a Korean university after approved leave
Dependent of E-7 holder	F-3-17 / F-3-74	Invited by an E-7 visa holder, more than ninety days
Residence	F-2-3	Spouse and children of an F-5 permanent resident

A few of these are easy to confuse, and choosing wrong costs you the whole application.

The two C-3-9 routes share a code but not a list. The tourist version is for people travelling and nothing else; the moment a relative in Korea is inviting you, you are on the family visit list, which adds the inviter's documents and Korean bank records.

Medical treatment splits in two. Treatment arranged through an agency registered with the Ministry of Health and Welfare is C-3-3. General medical treatment that does not go through such an agency is a C-3-1 short-term general application instead. The source list is explicit about this, and it is an easy trap.

Dependent visas split on the sponsor's exact code. An E-7 holder's dependants apply for F-3-17 or F-3-74. An E-7-4R or F-2-R holder's dependants apply on a C-3-1. These are different lists with different lengths of stay. The requirements note tells applicants to confirm the precise code their spouse holds — E-7-4, E-7-4R, F-2-R or F-2-99 — as recorded in their Korean immigration status, not as remembered. Take this seriously; the codes look nearly identical and the consequence of guessing is a rejected file.

If your route is employment through the Employment Permit System, you are on a different track entirely and this guide is not it — see EPS: applying from Nepal and the full walkthrough in EPS Korea: the complete process for Nepali workers.

The common core

These items appear on almost every list. Getting them right solves most of the problem.

The application form, and the signature that fails people

A visa application form, completed. The detail worth repeating because it is missed so often: you must sign page 5 by hand, in original ink, and that signature must match the one in your passport. Not a similar signature. Not a tidier version. The one in the passport.

People whose signature has drifted over the years — and that is most people who got their passport as a teenager — should practise the old one before filling the form. A mismatch here is a documentary defect, and the counter staff are looking for it.

The photograph

A recent passport-size photograph, 35 × 45 mm, taken within the last six months. Some lists write this as 3.5 × 4.5 cm, which is the same measurement. "Recent" is a requirement, not a courtesy: a photo that obviously predates your passport invites questions you do not want.

The passport

Your original passport and a photocopy. Both. The photocopy is not a substitute for the original and the original is not a substitute for the photocopy.

The money pair

Two documents, almost always together, and the pair with the most conditions attached to it:

• A bank balance certificate, original, showing deposits only.
• A bank statement covering the last six months, original.

The statement carries three conditions that disqualify a great many submissions:

1. It must come from a Class A bank in Nepal. Statements from other institutions are not accepted. If your salary goes into an account at a bank outside that category, you need a Class A account with genuine history, and that takes months to build — which makes this the first thing to check, not the last.
2. Deposits only. Issue the statement so that it shows deposit records. The lists say this repeatedly and in several places.
3. Issued within one month of your visa application. This is the tightest clock in the entire process and it governs your whole timeline. More on that below.

A balance certificate showing a large sum that arrived last week, in an account with no history, reads as a borrowed balance. Six months of consistent deposits reads as a real financial life. The second one is what the statement is for.

For the dependent and residence routes the money documents come from the sponsor's Korean bank instead — a Korean bank balance certificate and six months of Korean statements, again showing deposit records only. If your sponsor's salary is paid into a Korean account, this is straightforward; ask them to start early anyway, because the one-month issuance window applies just the same.

Proof of what you do

An employment certificate or ID card if you are employed — and the lists are explicit that students and monks count as employed for this purpose, so submit the relevant certificate or card rather than leaving the section empty.

If you are a business owner or self-employed, the set is heavier:

• Certificate of incorporation or business registration certificate, original and photocopy, with an original notarised translation
• PAN registration certificate or taxpayer registration certificate, with an original notarised translation
• Certificate of tax clearance for the recent two years
• Where available, Revenue Management Information System records and your share registration book

Two years of tax clearance is a real requirement and a slow one to fix. If your filings are behind, that is a problem to solve before you book anything.

Family relationship and marriage certificates

Original and photocopy of each, on most lists. The family relationship certificate — the ward-issued nata pramanit — is doing specific work: it proves the relationship you are claiming to the person inviting you or to the dependants travelling with you. For the F-1-5 childcare route the requirement is explicitly broader: a document that verifies all immediate family members and siblings of the Nepali spouse.

These are ward documents, which matters for their validity window.

The cover letter

Described in the lists as a visa cover letter in which the applicant sets out the purpose of the visit, a tentative itinerary, and who will cover expenses during the stay.

It is tempting to treat this as a formality. Do not. It is the only document in the file where you speak in your own voice, and it is where a reviewer looks to see whether the rest of the file hangs together. A good one is short, specific and consistent with every other paper in the folder: the dates match the flight booking, the itinerary matches the hotel voucher, the stated payer matches whose bank statements are enclosed. A reviewer who finds the cover letter contradicting the attachments now has a reason to doubt all of it.

Write it last, after the rest of the file exists, so you are describing what is actually in front of you.

The return flight, and the fifteen-business-day rule

A two-way flight booking whose departure date is at least fifteen business days after the application date.

Business days, not calendar days. Fifteen business days is three working weeks, and Nepal's public holidays extend that in practice. A booking that departs too soon is a defect, and a booking you make without reading this rule is the single most common reason an otherwise complete file gets handed back.

Note that this is a booking requirement. Nothing in these lists asks you to buy a non-refundable ticket.

Hotel booking and itinerary

A hotel booking and a detailed travel schedule appear on the tourist, business, short-term general, medical and artist lists. They are there to corroborate the cover letter. Make them agree.

If someone in Korea is inviting you

Seven of the twelve routes involve an inviter, and their half of the file is often the slower half because it depends on somebody else's diary. Start it first.

Depending on the route, the inviter supplies some combination of:

• Invitation letter and guarantee letter, on the specific forms the embassy publishes for download. For F-1-5 there is also a pledge to prevent illegal stay and employment, again on a specific form.
• Certificate of foreign resident registration, and a copy of the residence card, front and back. The card's expiry must be more than six months after your application date — if their ARC is running out, renewal comes before your application, not after. See getting your Alien Registration Card in Korea for how that document works.
• Certificate of seal, and for corporate inviters the original corporate seal certificate.
• Business registration certificate, and for some routes the inviter's resident registration card.
• Employment certificate or contract, certificate of income for the recent two years, and confirmation of residence or a lease contract.
• A photocopy of the inviter's passport.
• Korean bank balance certificate and six months of Korean bank statements, deposits only.

For medical tourism the inviter is an institution rather than a relative, and the burden shifts accordingly: the invitation and guarantee letters must come from a medical tourism promotion agency bearing a registered corporate or official seal, or else be notarised, accompanied by the agency's business registration certificate, a copy of its Ministry of Health and Welfare medical tourism attraction institution registration certificate, and a hospital appointment confirmation.

For undergraduate study the inviter is the university: a standard admission certificate in original and photocopy, a photocopy of the university's business registration certificate, and where applicable a scholarship certificate, a professor's financial affidavit and the professor's job certificate if a professor is funding your tuition or living costs.

One rule that catches people: for the student routes, documents originating in South Korea must be originals. A scan your university emailed you is not the document.

The validity clock

This is the rule that creates the most wasted effort, and almost nobody plans around it.

Your documents expire at three different speeds:

Document type	Valid from date of issue
Nepali ward documents	6 months
Verified educational documents	6 months
General documents	3 months
Bank statements	1 month

There is an inconsistency worth knowing about: some of the lists state a flat three months for everything, while others give the six / three / one month breakdown. Where two rules could apply, assume the shorter one. A document fresher than required costs you nothing; one that is a week stale can cost you the application.

Now notice what this does to your scheduling. Suppose you collect everything at once, starting with the bank statement. By the time the slower pieces arrive — the notarised translations, the two years of tax clearance, the embassy verification of your academic papers — your bank statement has expired, and you are back at the bank for a new one.

So work backwards instead:

1. Months out. Open or consolidate a Class A bank account if you do not have one with history. Clear outstanding tax filings. Begin embassy verification of educational documents if you are on a student route. These are the items you cannot accelerate.
2. Six to eight weeks out. Collect ward documents: family relationship certificate, marriage certificate, birth certificates. They have a six-month window, so they can be collected early and safely.
3. Four to six weeks out. Commission notarised English translations of every Nepali-language document. Request the inviter's documents from Korea; this is where other people's timelines bite.
4. Three to four weeks out. Obtain employment certificates, business registration copies, tax clearance certificates — the three-month general documents.
5. Two to three weeks out. Make the flight booking, respecting the fifteen-business-day rule, and the hotel booking.
6. Last two weeks, and not before. Request the bank balance certificate and the six-month statement. These are the one-month documents. Everything else should already be in the folder when you ask for them.
7. Finally. Write the cover letter against the assembled file, sign page 5, and arrange the documents in the order the list gives.

That sequence is not in any of the source lists. It falls out of the validity windows once you take them seriously, and following it is the difference between one trip to the bank and three.

Translation and notarisation

Every document in Nepali must be translated into English and notarised by an authorised notary public. Where the lists mention translation for business and tax papers, they specify an original notarised translation — not a photocopy of one.

Two practical notes. Translation is a three-month general document in its own right for planning purposes, so do not commission translations so early that they age out before submission. And have the translator work from the original document, not from a photocopy, so that names and dates match character for character. A transliterated name that differs between your ward certificate and your passport is the kind of discrepancy that generates questions.

The tuberculosis test, and the four hospitals

Several long-stay routes require a medical report on tuberculosis, and it is accepted only from one of four hospitals designated by the embassy:

• Patan Hospital, Patan
• Civil Service Hospital, New Baneshwor
• Korea Nepal Friendship Hospital — also known as Korea Thimi Hospital — Bhaktapur
• Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital, Teku

A report from any other hospital, however reputable, is not accepted. This applies to the D-2 student routes and, on the F-3 dependent route, to applicants aged six and above. The F-2-3 residence route goes further and requires reports on syphilis, HIV, mental disorder and tuberculosis, again from the designated hospitals only.

Book this early. It is a fixed-capacity bottleneck shared by every applicant in the country on these routes.

Short-stay routes: ninety days or less

With the common core understood, each route can be described by what it adds.

Tourist (C-3-9)

The common core, plus a detailed travel schedule and hotel booking. Eligibility is narrow by design: a person visiting for the sole purpose of travel. If there is another purpose — a relative, a meeting, a course — you are on a different list, and presenting a tourist application with a non-tourist purpose visible in the paperwork is a contradiction a reviewer will find. Background on the route in travel between Nepal and Korea.

Full checklist, the two items only tourists are asked for, and a worked cover letter: Korea tourist visa from Nepal (C-3-9).

Family visit (C-3-9)

Same code, different file. Adds the inviter's full set — foreign resident registration, residence card copy valid more than six months out, certificate of seal, employment certificate or contract, business registration, confirmation of residence or lease, two years of income certificate, invitation and guarantee letters, passport photocopy — plus Korean bank balance and six-month Korean statements. Your own bank documents are not required if you are an immediate family member, which is one of the few places these lists reduce the burden rather than adding to it. More context in family and dependant visas.

Full checklist, the inviter's half and the immediate-family exemption: Korea family visit visa from Nepal (C-3-9).

Business (C-3-4)

Adds invitation and guarantee letters, business activity materials — business description, contracts, MOU documents — and the inviter's business registration certificate and resident registration card. The self-employed documentation set carries full weight here: incorporation certificate, PAN, two years of tax clearance, and notarised translations of each. See doing business across both markets and Nepal–Korea trade.

Full checklist and what business activity materials must actually show: Korea business visa from Nepal (C-3-4).

Short-term general (C-3-1)

The widest eligibility of any route: visiting relatives, investing in public business, non-official sport, events and meetings, cultural performance, training, lessons, religious ceremonies, collecting documents for academic research, and equivalent activities. Adds invitation and guarantee letters, event-related posters, pamphlets or photographs limited to three pages, and the inviter's business registration and resident registration. Because the eligibility is broad, the purpose evidence does the heavy lifting — this is the route where a vague cover letter does the most damage.

Full checklist, how to evidence a purpose the list does not name, and the medical treatment mix-up: Korea short-term general visa (C-3-1) from Nepal.

Dependent of an E-7-4R or F-2-R holder (C-3-1)

The inviter's dependent set, plus a birth certificate in original and photocopy for a minor, and Korean bank documents. Confirm the sponsor's exact visa code first.

Full checklist, and what the ninety-day cap means for a family move: Korea C-3-1 dependent visa for E-7-4R and F-2-R families.

Medical tourism (C-3-3)

Adds, from you: a treatment plan setting out the medical schedule in detail, a medical report issued by a hospital in Nepal, and job-related documents — job certificate, firm registration, résumé, in original and photocopy. From the agency in Korea: the registered-seal invitation and guarantee letters, business registration certificate, Ministry of Health and Welfare registration certificate and hospital appointment confirmation. Remember the split: if an agency is not arranging the treatment, this is a C-3-1 application.

Full checklist, the agency registration that makes the route possible, and why a resume is on the list: Korea medical visa from Nepal (C-3-3).

Artist and entertainment (C-4-5)

Adds a performance plan or performance contract, a venue rental agreement, a performance recommendation letter from the Korea Media Rating Board, event posters and pamphlets, and your portfolio — photographs of your work as a singer or band member, YouTube screenshots and similar evidence. The Media Rating Board letter is the long lead item and depends on your Korean promoter, so it should be requested the moment an engagement is confirmed.

Full checklist, the recommendation letter process and how to build a portfolio: Korea artist and performance visa (C-4-5).

Marriage migrant childcare support (F-1-5)

A narrow and unusually document-heavy route for parents or family of an F-6 marriage migrant coming to provide childcare. From the inviter: the F-1-5 invitation letter, guarantee letter and a pledge to prevent illegal stay and employment, each on its specific form, plus an ID copy and resident registration copy. A family relation certificate in the child's name is required, and if the mother is pregnant, a pregnancy medical certificate or prenatal handbook instead. Certificates are needed for each child where there are two or more; an adoption relation certificate if the child is adopted; a certificate of enrolment if the child is of school age. Where illness or disability is the basis of the request, a disability certificate marked "severe disability" or "degree of disability is severe". Single-parent households must additionally submit their own family relation certificate, the child's, resident registration, and the former spouse's marriage relation certificate. From you in Nepal: the form, photograph, passport, return booking, a family relationship certificate covering all immediate family and siblings of the Nepali spouse, and — if a sibling is coming because the parents cannot — copies of the parents' IDs and a doctor's opinion explaining why.

Full checklist, the three specific forms and the sibling provision: Korea F-1-5 childcare visa from Nepal.

Long-stay routes: more than ninety days

Undergraduate study (D-2)

The heaviest list of the twelve, and the one where sequencing matters most. Beyond the core: a statement of purpose; latest educational certificates for the course you are applying to, transcript and graduation document, originals and photocopies; your Grade 11 mark sheet; character certificates; a language result from IELTS, TOEFL, CEFR, TEPS, TOPIK or the Sejong Institute; the tuberculosis report from a designated hospital; family relationship and marriage certificates; and a copy of the business registration certificate, notarised PAN and passport of your consultancy representative.

Three rules decide this application:

• Academic documents must be verified by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Nepal. Where verified documents have been sent directly to your university, you may submit photocopies. Verified educational documents carry a six-month validity.
• A provisional graduation certificate is accepted only within one year of your graduation date. Past one year, the official graduation certificate is required and no alternative is accepted. This follows Ministry of Justice guidelines, so there is no discretion in it.
• Clip all original documents together — transcripts, ward papers, IELTS and the rest — and submit them as a bundle.

On language requirements, TOPIK for Nepali students covers levels, test dates and preparation. For the wider picture, see studying in Korea from Nepal and education links and scholarships.

Full checklist, the three rules that admit no exceptions, and how the SOP is read: Korea D-2 student visa from Nepal.

Re-applying after a leave of absence (D-2)

The student list again, with photocopies accepted where originals were previously required for family relationship and marriage certificates, plus two additions that are the whole point of the route: an enrolment certificate from your Korean university and a mark sheet for the semester you completed there. Educational documents, relationship and marriage certificates must still be submitted as originals.

Full checklist, the five requirements that disappear and the originals contradiction: returning to Korea on D-2 after a leave of absence.

Dependent of an E-7 holder (F-3-17 / F-3-74)

The dependent set, plus a tuberculosis report from a designated hospital for applicants aged six and above, and a birth certificate for minors. The sponsor supplies foreign resident registration, residence card copy valid beyond six months, certificate of seal, employment certificate or contract, business registration, confirmation of residence or lease, two years of income certificate, invitation and guarantee letters, passport photocopy, and Korean bank documents. Related reading: employer-sponsored work visas.

Full checklist, the sponsor-code trap and the TB rule for children: Korea F-3 dependent visa from Nepal.

Residence (F-2-3)

For the spouse and children of an F-5 permanent resident, and the most searching file of the twelve. From the inviter: a marriage background statement on the specific form, a copy of both sides of the alien registration card, seal certificate, marriage certificate, divorce agreement where applicable, a health checkup certificate from a hospital or higher covering syphilis, mental illness and AIDS, family relationship certificate, criminal record certificate, a personal credit information inquiry form issued by the Korea Federation of Banks and available online at credit4u.or.kr, occupation documents, six months of bank statements including salary details issued within one month of application, bank balance certificate, proof of income from the National Tax Service, a real estate lease agreement and a certificate of complete registration information.

From you: the form, photograph, passport, cover letter, medical reports on syphilis, HIV, mental disorder and tuberculosis from the designated hospitals only, the marriage background statement — the personal details form for F-2-3, downloadable from the embassy website — and marriage and family relationship certificates in original and copy.

The route's own note is worth quoting in substance: additional documents may be requested, and an interview may be conducted if necessary. Plan for both.

Full checklist, the four-part medical and the two marriage statements: Korea F-2-3 residence visa from Nepal.

Assembling and submitting

Two instructions appear across the lists and both are easy to dismiss and worth following.

Arrange the documents in the order the list gives, before you submit. The lists say so explicitly. A file in the published order can be checked quickly; a file in your own order makes the person at the counter hunt, and a hunt is where omissions get found.

Clip the originals together. On the student routes this is stated directly. It also happens to be the arrangement that makes it obvious whether anything is missing.

A third habit, not required but sensible: photocopy the entire assembled file before you hand it over, in the order you submitted it. If a question comes back weeks later, you will want to know exactly what you gave them.

The defects these rules exist to catch

Every item below follows from a rule stated earlier. They are grouped by the only thing that matters once you are close to a deadline: whether you can still fix it.

Cannot be fixed in a hurry — check these first.

• A bank account that is not with a Class A bank, or one with no deposit history. Building six months of history takes six months.
• Tax clearance that does not cover two years. If filings are behind, that is a separate project.
• Academic documents not yet verified by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Nepal, on the student routes.
• No tuberculosis appointment booked at one of the four designated hospitals. Fixed capacity, shared by every applicant on these routes.
• A provisional graduation certificate when more than a year has passed since graduation. No alternative document is accepted.
• An inviter whose residence card expires within six months. Their renewal comes before your application.

Fixable before you submit, if you look.

• A bank statement older than one month, or one showing withdrawals rather than deposits only.
• A flight that departs sooner than fifteen business days after your application date — three working weeks, more around public holidays.
• A page 5 signature that does not match the passport.
• Ward documents past their window. Six months where that rule applies, three if in doubt.
• The wrong visa code — particularly E-7-4 against E-7-4R, and C-3-3 medical tourism against a C-3-1 general treatment application.
• Translations supplied as photocopies rather than original notarised translations.
• Korean-origin documents supplied as scans rather than originals.
• A cover letter that contradicts its attachments on dates, itinerary or who is paying.
• A file assembled in your own order rather than the order the published list gives.

After the visa

The paperwork does not stop at the airport. Within the first weeks in Korea you will deal with alien registration, health insurance and housing, and each has its own document logic:

• Getting your Alien Registration Card in Korea — the document everything else depends on
• National Health Insurance in Korea: what foreign residents pay and get
• Jeonse, wolse and key money: Korean housing explained for foreigners
• Sending money from Korea to Nepal: rates, limits and the cheapest routes

If your stay will need extending or your status changing, extending your stay in Korea and immigration offices and overstay cover what that involves. For the language side of settling in, see Korean in Nepal, Nepali in Korea, and for what tends to surprise people, cultural exchange and differences.

Policy on these routes moves. Policy news and what to watch tracks changes that affect Nepali applicants.

Where these lists come from, and how to check them

The document requirements described here were compiled from the trilingual visa document lists maintained and published by DAGACHI and World DAGACHI, the multilingual communication platform for foreign residents of Korea, available at worlddagachi.com. DAGACHI publishes these lists in English, Nepali and Korean; this guide works from the English versions and adds explanation, sequencing and context rather than reproducing them. More about the platform and its services in the DAGACHI section.

Two things you should do before acting on any of it.

Treat the embassy as the only authority. The Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Nepal sets these requirements and can change them without notice. Forms referred to above as downloadable — invitation letters, guarantee letters, the F-1-5 pledge, the F-2-3 marriage background statement — should be downloaded from the embassy's own website so that you have the current version, not a copy circulating on social media.

Check the date. This guide reflects the lists as published at the time of writing. Requirements, designated hospitals and validity windows all change. If you are reading this months later, confirm the current list before you spend money on translations, medicals or bookings.

Nothing here is legal or immigration advice, and no guide can tell you whether your particular application will succeed. What it can do is make sure that when you walk up to the counter, the reason for any decision is the substance of your case and not the shape of your paperwork.

If you spot something out of date, tell us — corrections from readers who have just been through the process are the fastest way these pages stay accurate.