English

Choose nationality

Registered foreigners are counted across 192 nationalities.

India

People registered with India nationality number 15,837, which is 1% of all registered foreigners and ranks 20 in size. Compared with 8,297 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is an increase of about 90.9%. They live in 215 districts, and the largest counts are Gyeonggi-do Pocheon-si with 1,415, Seoul Yongsan-gu with 604, and Gyeonggi-do Suwon-si Yeongtong-gu with 549. The index of dissimilarity (D) from Koreans is 0.429, the isolation index is 0.001, and interaction with Koreans is 0.955. The highest location quotient (LQ) is in Gyeonggi-do Pocheon-si at 32.6, where this nationality is 1% of the foreigners in that district. The continent of origin is South Asia. The largest age group is 30-34 at 19.7%, and men are 68.9%. This value alone is based on staying foreigners. Estimated mother tongues are Hindi at 31.8% and Bengali at 9%.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy 2025 (registered foreigners by nationality, registered foreigners by nationality and district, registered foreigners by status of stay), staying foreigners by nationality and age

The index of dissimilarity, the isolation index, and the location quotient are calculated from the open dataset.

Table 1.Key indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: people, organizations, index

Year 2025

Indicators	India	All registered foreigners	Relative to total
Registered foreigners	15,837	1,604,920	1.0% of the total
Districts of residence	215	250	86.0% of the total
Index of dissimilarity (D)	0.429	0.280	rank 86 of 107
Isolation index	0.0014	0.045	rank 20 of 107
Interaction with Koreans	0.955	0.955	rank 61 of 107
Continent	South Asia	193,031 (12.0% of the total)	8.2% of those from South Asia

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by nationality), segregation indicators from the open dataset.

Note: the dissimilarity index D measures how far a nationality's distribution across districts differs from that of Korean nationals; 0 means the two distributions match and 1 means complete separation. Isolation is the probability that a member meets someone of the same nationality, and interaction the probability of meeting a Korean resident. In the All registered foreigners column the three indices treat all registered foreigners as one group and use the same formulas. In the Relative to total column, rank 1 is the highest value among nationalities with 100 or more registered foreigners that year; in the continent row that column gives this nationality's share of all registered foreigners from the continent.

Figure 1.India nationals among registered foreigners, 2006–2025Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year.

Note: The vertical scale resets to the size of the selected nationality.

View as table

Year	India	Vietnam
2006	3,964	52,157
2007	4,261	67,197
2008	4,110	79,848
2009	4,131	86,166
2010	4,752	98,225
2011	5,363	110,564
2012	5,959	114,211
2013	6,686	113,843
2014	7,583	122,571
2015	8,297	128,042
2016	8,303	137,769
2017	8,606	151,385
2018	9,454	170,707
2019	10,090	187,334
2020	9,386	181,415
2021	9,979	178,928
2022	12,267	196,883
2023	13,443	227,930
2024	14,762	261,581
2025	15,837	293,907

Table 2.India nationality, top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	India Nationality	Share of local foreigners
1	Gyeonggi-do Pocheon-si	1,415	8.4
2	Seoul Yongsan-gu	604	4.6
3	Gyeonggi-do Suwon-si Yeongtong-gu	549	5.8
4	Gyeongsangbuk-do Gyeongsan-si	416	1.9
5	Daejeon Yuseong-gu	394	4.3
6	Gyeonggi-do Pyeongtaek-si	369	1.0
7	Gyeongsangbuk-do Gyeongju-si	366	2.3
8	Jeju-do Jeju-si	347	1.9
9	Seoul Songpa-gu	299	4.7
10	Gyeongsangnam-do Geoje-si	281	1.7

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by district and nationality).

Note: Nationwide, India nationals make up 1.0% of all registered foreigners, so an area whose share is above that holds relatively many of them.

Table 3.10 districts with the highest location quotient, 2025Unit: people, ratio, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	India Nationality	Location quotient (LQ)	Share of local foreigners
1	Gyeonggi-do Pocheon-si	1,415	32.6	1.0
2	Seoul Yongsan-gu	604	9.7	0.3
3	Gyeonggi-do Yeoncheon-gun	102	7.8	0.2
4	Gyeongsangbuk-do Gyeongsan-si	416	5.1	0.2
5	Gyeonggi-do Suwon-si Yeongtong-gu	549	4.9	0.2
6	Gyeongsangbuk-do Gyeongju-si	366	4.8	0.1
7	Gyeongsangnam-do Geoje-si	281	3.9	0.1
8	Daejeon Yuseong-gu	394	3.5	0.1
9	Chungcheongbuk-do Jincheon-gun	88	3.3	0.1
10	Seoul Jung-gu	119	3.3	0.1

Source: Location quotient from the open dataset.

Note: the location quotient is the local share divided by the national share; above 1.5 counts as over-representation.

Table 4.By status of stay India nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Visa category	Persons	Share
Other(G1)	4,657	29.4
Dependent Family(F3)	2,368	15.0
Student(D2)	1,874	11.8
Specially Designated Activities(E7)	1,641	10.4
Researcher(E3)	1,197	7.6
Residential(F2)	834	5.3
Other statuses(ETC)	760	4.8
Permanent Residence(F5)	615	3.9
Other statuses	1,891	11.9

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by status of stay and nationality).

Note: The rows of this table add to 15,837, the whole of the India nationality.

Table 5.Age and sex, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Age group	Total	Male	Female	Share
0-4	706	370	336	3.8
5-9	658	321	337	3.5
10-14	425	211	214	2.3
15-19	305	145	160	1.6
20-24	1,506	835	671	8.1
25-29	3,383	2,097	1,286	18.2
30-34	3,666	2,560	1,106	19.7
35-39	3,174	2,399	775	17.1
40-44	2,132	1,700	432	11.5
45-49	1,304	1,102	202	7.0
50-54	653	550	103	3.5
55-59	319	264	55	1.7
60+	362	262	100	1.9

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (staying foreigners by nationality and age).

Only this table counts all foreign residents, so it totals 18,593 rather than the 15,837 registered foreigners

Figure 2.Composition by age and sex, 2025Unit: %

Year 2025

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (staying foreigners by nationality and age).

Note: The bar length is the share each cell holds within the whole nationality. This figure alone uses staying foreigners, so its total differs from registered foreigners.

Figure 3.Change in status-of-stay composition, 2008–2025Unit: %

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year (registered foreigners by status of stay and nationality).

Note: The share each status holds within this nationality in that year. The five largest statuses in 2025 are drawn.

View as table

Year
2008	0.0	25.0	12.8	16.2	13.1
2009	0.0	28.1	14.7	14.6	14.1
2010	0.0	29.0	13.7	14.2	13.5
2011	0.0	30.8	13.1	15.2	14.1
2012	0.0	33.5	12.3	15.5	14.3
2013	0.0	34.5	12.1	14.7	14.4
2014	0.0	34.7	12.1	14.9	15.0
2015	4.1	34.1	11.7	13.8	14.2
2016	6.1	31.8	12.4	12.1	14.5
2017	11.3	27.7	13.3	11.2	14.4
2018	20.0	23.5	13.2	10.4	12.7
2019	25.2	21.1	13.0	9.4	11.1
2020	26.8	17.4	12.2	9.5	11.8
2021	21.9	19.3	12.2	9.1	13.9
2022	23.7	18.8	12.7	8.8	12.3
2023	24.8	16.7	12.2	10.8	10.9
2024	27.8	16.2	11.5	10.9	8.3
2025	29.4	15.0	11.8	10.4	7.6

Figure 4.Residential segregation and exposure over time, 2014–2025Unit: index

Indicators

Source: Segregation indicators from the open dataset.

Note: the dissimilarity index D measures how far a nationality's distribution across districts differs from that of Korean nationals, isolation is the probability that a member meets someone of the same nationality, and interaction the probability of meeting a Korean resident. The three run on different ranges, so they are selected one at a time.

View as table

Year	Index of dissimilarity (D)	Isolation index	Interaction with Koreans
2014	0.548	0.001	0.970
2015	0.533	0.001	0.969
2016	0.526	0.001	0.970
2017	0.506	0.001	0.971
2018	0.468	0.001	0.968
2019	0.451	0.001	0.967
2020	0.444	0.001	0.969
2021	0.437	0.001	0.971
2022	0.439	0.001	0.966
2023	0.439	0.001	0.962
2024	0.431	0.001	0.958
2025	0.429	0.001	0.955

Table 6.India nationality, mother-tongue compositionUnit: %

First language		Share
Hindi		31.8
Bengali		9.0
Marathi		6.7
Telugu		6.5
Tamil		5.6
Gujarati		4.5
Urdu		4.1
Bhojpuri		4.1

Source: Ethnologue 24th edition, first-language shares by country.

Note: the estimated demand on the language page is this share multiplied by the registered foreign population of each nationality. Shares below 0.5% are not listed, and a person who speaks more than one language is not distinguished.

Figure 5.By province, India nationality, 2025Unit: persons

Year 2025

Count range

Note: The boundaries are shapes simplified for display and are drawn as pen lines. The fill values are the provincial totals from the yearbook and do not depend on the shapes.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook (registered foreigners by nationality and district), summed to the province level.

View as table

Province	India Nationality	Share of national
Gyeonggi-do	5,337	33.7
Seoul	3,099	19.6
Gyeongsangbuk-do	1,081	6.8
Gyeongsangnam-do	1,014	6.4
Chungcheongnam-do	802	5.1
Daejeon	637	4.0
Busan	554	3.5
Incheon	482	3.0
Daegu	423	2.7
Jeollabuk-do	423	2.7
Gwangju	395	2.5
Chungcheongbuk-do	388	2.4
Jeju-do	381	2.4
Ulsan	342	2.2
Gangwon-do	240	1.5
Jeollanam-do	207	1.3
Sejong	32	0.2