Global Foreigner Communication Platform
Topic
Nepal-Korea Employment Permit System news, notices, exam schedules, quotas and the official steps in order.
The Employment Permit System is the main legal route from Nepal to Korean employment, and it was built as a government-to-government programme for one reason: to take brokers out of it.
So the single most useful sentence on this page is this. The official process has official costs and nothing else. Any payment to anyone outside the published steps is money gone, and nobody - no agency, no agent, no relative with a contact - can move you up the roster.
This page is the Nepal side, in order. Life on the visa once you arrive is at EPS: working in Korea.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Announcement | Sector quotas and the test schedule are published officially |
| 2. Registration | You apply within the announced window, to the official body |
| 3. Language test | The EPS Korean test, conducted for the Korean side |
| 4. Skills and medical | Requirements depend on the sector you applied for |
| 5. Roster | Passing candidates join a jobseeker list held centrally |
| 6. Selection | Korean employers choose from the roster. This is the wait |
| 7. Contract | Issued once an employer selects you |
| 8. Pre-departure training | Required before you fly |
| 9. Arrival | Training, placement, and registration for your residence card |
Every stage before the roster is something you can prepare for. The roster itself is not.
The gate, and the one part of the process where effort translates directly into outcome. It is a Korean test administered for the Korean side, with a published syllabus and past material, and preparation courses are a large industry in Nepal of extremely variable quality.
Two things worth being clear about:
This is not the academic TOPIK. It is a separate, simpler test for EPS recruitment. A pass does not give you a TOPIK level and will not satisfy a university or the residence points route. If your goal is study or a professional route, you need the main TOPIK instead. The TOPIK test covers that distinction, and language covers where to study in Nepal.
Choose a preparation institute carefully. Ask to see recent results, talk to former students, and be suspicious of anyone combining tuition with a promise about selection. Tuition is a legitimate service; selection is not theirs to sell.
Where expectation and reality separate. Passing the test puts you on a jobseeker list. Korean employers then select from that list, and the roster is valid for a defined period after which you may need to start again.
Nobody controls this. Not the department, not an agent, not a relative in Korea. Selection reflects employer demand by sector, and in an oversubscribed system most candidates wait and some are never selected before validity lapses.
Which means two things. Any fee offered to shorten the wait is a fraud, without exception. And it is sensible to keep working and keep studying Korean during the wait rather than treating selection as imminent.
Quotas are allocated by sector and announced annually, and they are the only reliable signal of what is open in a given year. Manufacturing carries the largest share, with agriculture, livestock, fishing and construction alongside it.
Choose the sector honestly against the work you can actually do. The requirements, the medical standards and the conditions differ between them, and a candidate who applies for a sector to improve their odds and then cannot do the work has created a problem that follows them.
Announcements come from the official channels rather than from social media. News covers where to watch.
There are legitimate costs in this process: test registration, medical examination, training, documents, the flight, and the insurance products attached to the visa.
Get a receipt for every one of them. Keep the receipts together, because they are what distinguishes a legitimate payment from a disputed one later. A published fee schedule exists; ask for it and compare.
What is never legitimate: a payment for selection, for a particular employer, for a faster test date, or for a place on the roster.
The things that are easier to do in Kathmandu than from Korea:
Four insurances attach to this visa, and one of them is effectively your severance, paid when you leave Korea, and it must be claimed. Workers go home without claiming it every year.
Workplace transfers are limited in number, but a transfer caused by the employer's fault generally does not count against your allowance - which only helps if you documented the reason at the time. EPS: working in Korea covers both in detail, and your rights as a worker covers the law that protects you.
EPS: working in Korea covers arrival onward, and work routes covers the alternatives if EPS is not open to you.
Jesse Plum
The Employment Permit System is the largest legal route from Nepal to Korea. It is also the route with the most misinformation around it. This is the official sequence.
