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Registered foreigners are counted across 192 nationalities.

Laos

People registered with Laos nationality number 11,543, which is 0.7% of all registered foreigners and ranks 21 in size. Compared with 491 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is an increase of about 2250.9%. They live in 240 districts, and the largest counts are Gyeongsangnam-do Miryang-si with 1,081, Gyeonggi-do Hwaseong-si with 617, and Jeollanam-do Wando-gun with 614. The index of dissimilarity (D) from Koreans is 0.605, the isolation index is 0.003, and interaction with Koreans is 0.95. The highest location quotient (LQ) is in Jeollanam-do Wando-gun at 61, where this nationality is 1.4% of the foreigners in that district. The continent of origin is Southeast Asia. The largest age group is 25-29 at 30.6%, and men are 57.5%. This value alone is based on staying foreigners. Estimated mother tongues are Lao at 52.4% and Khmu at 10.8%.

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	Laos	All registered foreigners	Relative to total
Registered foreigners	11,543	1,604,920	0.7% of the total
Districts of residence	240	250	96.0% of the total
Index of dissimilarity (D)	0.605	0.280	rank 45 of 107
Isolation index	0.0030	0.045	rank 10 of 107
Interaction with Koreans	0.950	0.955	rank 80 of 107
Continent	Southeast Asia	602,559 (37.5% of the total)	1.9% of those from Southeast 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.Laos 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.

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Year	Laos	Vietnam
2006	79	52,157
2007	74	67,197
2008	88	79,848
2009	114	86,166
2010	167	98,225
2011	235	110,564
2012	316	114,211
2013	381	113,843
2014	430	122,571
2015	491	128,042
2016	554	137,769
2017	604	151,385
2018	759	170,707
2019	1,015	187,334
2020	1,031	181,415
2021	1,100	178,928
2022	1,908	196,883
2023	3,479	227,930
2024	6,641	261,581
2025	11,543	293,907

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

Year 2025

Rank	District	Laos Nationality	Share of local foreigners
1	Gyeongsangnam-do Miryang-si	1,081	18.6
2	Gyeonggi-do Hwaseong-si	617	1.1
3	Jeollanam-do Wando-gun	614	10.6
4	Gyeongsangbuk-do Seongju-gun	388	13.4
5	Gyeonggi-do Paju-si	372	2.3
6	Jeollanam-do Muan-gun	297	11.5
7	Gyeongsangbuk-do Sangju-si	267	11.6
8	Gyeongsangnam-do Changnyeong-gun	258	7.1
9	Jeollanam-do Jindo-gun	239	7.6
10	Gyeonggi-do Pocheon-si	207	1.2

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

Note: Nationwide, Laos nationals make up 0.7% 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	Laos Nationality	Location quotient (LQ)	Share of local foreigners
1	Jeollanam-do Wando-gun	614	61.0	1.4
2	Gyeongsangnam-do Miryang-si	1,081	48.3	1.1
3	Gyeongsangbuk-do Seongju-gun	388	42.2	1.0
4	Jeollanam-do Jindo-gun	239	37.9	0.9
5	Gyeongsangnam-do Sancheong-gun	194	26.3	0.6
6	Gyeongsangnam-do Uiryeong-gun	134	24.1	0.5
7	Gyeongsangnam-do Changnyeong-gun	258	20.8	0.5
8	Gyeongsangnam-do Goseong-gun	166	15.6	0.4
9	Jeollanam-do Muan-gun	297	13.8	0.3
10	Gyeongsangbuk-do Sangju-si	267	13.2	0.3

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 Laos nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Visa category	Persons	Share
Seasonal Worker(E8)	5,863	50.8
Non-professional Employment(E9)	4,028	34.9
Marriage Migration(F6)	1,098	9.5
Visiting Cohabitation(F1)	179	1.6
Student(D2)	144	1.2
General Trainee(D4)	98	0.8
Permanent Residence(F5)	36	0.3
Other statuses(ETC)	21	0.2
Other statuses	76	0.7

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

Note: The rows of this table add to 11,543, the whole of the Laos nationality.

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

Year 2025

Age group	Total	Male	Female	Share
0-4	17	6	11	0.1
5-9	46	24	22	0.3
10-14	33	15	18	0.2
15-19	96	32	64	0.7
20-24	2,060	1,499	561	15.3
25-29	4,115	2,613	1,502	30.6
30-34	3,482	1,910	1,572	25.9
35-39	2,467	1,128	1,339	18.4
40-44	754	356	398	5.6
45-49	189	75	114	1.4
50-54	85	28	57	0.6
55-59	47	17	30	0.4
60+	36	20	16	0.3

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

Only this table counts all foreign residents, so it totals 13,427 rather than the 11,543 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.

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Year
2008	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.1	42.0
2009	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.9	32.5
2010	0.0	0.0	0.0	3.0	36.5
2011	0.0	0.0	1.7	4.3	31.9
2012	0.0	0.0	36.1	12.3	28.2
2013	0.0	0.0	53.8	9.4	18.6
2014	0.0	0.0	61.3	5.0	18.1
2015	0.0	0.0	62.1	5.1	17.9
2016	0.0	0.0	60.7	7.6	16.9
2017	0.0	0.0	59.1	8.3	15.2
2018	0.0	14.8	50.2	8.0	11.1
2019	0.0	27.0	41.9	7.9	9.8
2020	0.0	27.3	46.8	6.4	7.6
2021	0.0	26.5	45.8	6.0	8.6
2022	6.9	41.0	31.1	6.7	5.5
2023	22.3	45.7	19.9	4.6	2.6
2024	35.9	44.4	12.4	2.4	1.7
2025	50.8	34.9	9.5	1.6	1.2

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.

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Year	Index of dissimilarity (D)	Isolation index	Interaction with Koreans
2014	0.421	0.000	0.977
2015	0.395	0.000	0.975
2016	0.401	0.000	0.974
2017	0.396	0.000	0.974
2018	0.370	0.000	0.971
2019	0.357	0.000	0.969
2020	0.351	0.000	0.973
2021	0.335	0.000	0.975
2022	0.388	0.000	0.969
2023	0.479	0.000	0.963
2024	0.543	0.002	0.954
2025	0.605	0.003	0.950

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

First language		Share
Lao		52.4
Khmu		10.8
Thai		7.2
Hmong		4.1
Western Bru		2.5
So		2.5
Lü		1.9
Akha		1.7

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, Laos 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.

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Province	Laos Nationality	Share of national
Gyeonggi-do	2,680	23.2
Gyeongsangnam-do	2,184	18.9
Jeollanam-do	1,858	16.1
Gyeongsangbuk-do	1,213	10.5
Chungcheongnam-do	1,042	9.0
Chungcheongbuk-do	626	5.4
Jeollabuk-do	412	3.6
Gangwon-do	365	3.2
Incheon	273	2.4
Seoul	244	2.1
Busan	182	1.6
Daegu	127	1.1
Ulsan	98	0.8
Gwangju	77	0.7
Jeju-do	75	0.6
Daejeon	72	0.6
Sejong	15	0.1