Korea

Korea rewards preparation more than almost anywhere. The systems work, they are fast, and they are almost entirely digital - but three things gate everything else, and they unlock in a fixed order: a residence card, then a Korean phone number in your own name, then a bank account. Until you have all three, large parts of ordinary life are closed to you, including most websites.

Get that sequence right in your first month and the rest of the year is straightforward. Get it wrong and you will spend weeks unable to pay a bill, book a hospital appointment or receive a salary.

The first ninety days

When	What	What it needs
Within 90 days of arrival	Register and collect your residence card	Passport, visa, photo, fee, address
Arrival week	Prepaid SIM so you are reachable	Passport
After the card arrives	Phone contract in your own name	Residence card
After the phone works	Bank account	Residence card, phone number, proof of study or work
Within 14 days of moving in	Report your move at the district office	Lease, residence card
By six months of residence	National health insurance enrolment	Residence card

The move-in report is the step foreigners skip and should not. It is what protects your housing deposit, and in Korea that deposit is not a month's rent - it is frequently a sum larger than most people's savings.

Why identity verification runs your life here

Korean websites verify who you are before letting you do much, and that verification is usually tied to a mobile number registered in your own name. No number, no banking app, no hospital booking, no delivery account, no ticket purchase.

This is the biggest practical difference between Korea and most other countries, and the reason the phone contract matters more than it sounds. Legal and administrative covers the residence card that makes it possible, and essential living covers the phone and bank accounts that follow.

How this section is organised

Nine hubs cover life by subject - essential living for housing, banking, phone and transport, legal and administrative for visas and rights, jobs and education for work and study, medical and health for care and insurance, plus family, vehicles, lifestyle and community.

Five more are written for a situation rather than a subject: international students, foreign workers, foreign residents, foreign tourists, and Nepalis in Korea.

If you are arriving for the first time, the Korea life guide walks the first year in order.

Money, roughly

Korea is a high-cost country with one unusual feature: housing is paid for with enormous refundable deposits rather than high monthly rent. A deposit of tens of millions of won against modest monthly rent is normal, and the capital required to start is what surprises people, not the running cost.

Against that, public transport is cheap and excellent, health care is inexpensive once insured, and eating at ordinary places costs little. Imported goods, fruit, and anything involving a car cost more than you expect.

What it is actually like

Three things stand out to most new arrivals, and none of them appear in a checklist.

It is extremely safe. Walking home late, leaving a laptop on a cafe table, a child taking the subway alone - all unremarkable here, and it recalibrates what you worry about.

Age and seniority organise everything. The language itself changes depending on who you are speaking to, and relative age sets the register. Nobody expects a foreigner to navigate this perfectly, but knowing it exists explains a great deal of otherwise confusing behaviour.

Work culture is demanding, with long hours in many sectors and a social dimension to the job that is not optional everywhere. It is loosening, generationally and legally, but it varies enormously by employer and is worth asking about directly before accepting a role.

The seasons are pronounced: a hot and humid summer with a rainy season, a genuinely cold winter, and two short, excellent shoulder seasons.

Korean is the variable that matters most

You can live here with no Korean. Plenty do, in English-speaking jobs in Seoul, and the country makes it possible.

But Korean is what converts a posting into a life, and it is the thing that compounds: it unlocks cheaper housing outside the foreign enclaves, better work, the points-based residence route, and the ability to deal with a landlord or a hospital yourself. Free and subsidised classes exist through local government and the national integration programme, and they are consistently undersubscribed.

Jobs and education covers the classes and the tests that recognise them.

For Nepali readers

Korea is one of the largest destinations for Nepali workers and a growing one for Nepali students, and the routes in are specific: the Employment Permit System for workers, and a university or language track for students.

Those are covered at Nepalis in Korea, and the bilateral side - applying from Kathmandu, documents, recognition of qualifications - sits in Nepal and Korea.

Where this goes wrong

• Missing the 90-day registration deadline. It carries a fine and complicates every later application.
• Trying to open a bank account before the residence card. The order is not negotiable.
• A phone contract in someone else's name. It breaks identity verification for everything, and it is a bad idea for other reasons too.
• Skipping the move-in report. It is the protection for your deposit.
• Assuming health insurance is optional. It is mandatory past six months, and arrears follow you to your visa renewal.

Where to go next

New arrivals should start with essential living for the setup sequence, then legal and administrative for the residence card and visa rules underneath it.