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Registered foreigners are counted across 192 nationalities.

Timor-Leste

People registered with Timor-Leste nationality number 4,679, which is 0.3% of all registered foreigners and ranks 27 in size. Compared with 1,463 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is an increase of about 219.8%. They live in 161 districts, and the largest counts are Jeollanam-do Wando-gun with 648, Gyeongsangnam-do Tongyeong-si with 427, and Gyeonggi-do Hwaseong-si with 243. The index of dissimilarity (D) from Koreans is 0.689, the isolation index is 0.003, and interaction with Koreans is 0.941. The highest location quotient (LQ) is in Jeollanam-do Wando-gun at 158.8, where this nationality is 1.5% of the foreigners in that district. The continent of origin is Southeast Asia. The largest age group is 25-29 at 37.3%, and men are 96.5%. This value alone is based on staying foreigners. Estimated mother tongues are Mambae at 24.2% and Makasae at 15.2%.

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	Timor-Leste	All registered foreigners	Relative to total
Registered foreigners	4,679	1,604,920	0.3% of the total
Districts of residence	161	250	64.4% of the total
Index of dissimilarity (D)	0.689	0.280	rank 25 of 107
Isolation index	0.0027	0.045	rank 11 of 107
Interaction with Koreans	0.941	0.955	rank 102 of 107
Continent	Southeast Asia	602,559 (37.5% of the total)	0.8% 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.Timor-Leste 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	Timor-Leste	Vietnam
2006	21	52,157
2007	19	67,197
2008	11	79,848
2009	93	86,166
2010	424	98,225
2011	600	110,564
2012	1,012	114,211
2013	1,201	113,843
2014	1,316	122,571
2015	1,463	128,042
2016	1,751	137,769
2017	1,806	151,385
2018	1,962	170,707
2019	2,256	187,334
2020	2,121	181,415
2021	2,186	178,928
2022	3,097	196,883
2023	3,756	227,930
2024	4,336	261,581
2025	4,679	293,907

Table 2.Timor-Leste nationality, top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	Timor-Leste Nationality	Share of local foreigners
1	Jeollanam-do Wando-gun	648	11.2
2	Gyeongsangnam-do Tongyeong-si	427	8.0
3	Gyeonggi-do Hwaseong-si	243	0.4
4	Gyeonggi-do Pocheon-si	160	1.0
5	Gyeongsangnam-do Geoje-si	155	0.9
6	Chungcheongnam-do Seocheon-gun	153	5.5
7	Jeollabuk-do Gunsan-si	151	1.5
8	Jeollanam-do Yeosu-si	149	2.0
9	Jeollanam-do Jindo-gun	139	4.4
10	Jeollanam-do Sinan-gun	126	6.4

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

Note: Nationwide, Timor-Leste nationals make up 0.3% 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	Timor-Leste Nationality	Location quotient (LQ)	Share of local foreigners
1	Jeollanam-do Wando-gun	648	158.8	1.5
2	Jeollanam-do Jindo-gun	139	54.4	0.5
3	Gyeongsangnam-do Tongyeong-si	427	40.0	0.4
4	Chungcheongnam-do Seocheon-gun	153	35.4	0.3
5	Jeollanam-do Sinan-gun	126	32.9	0.3
6	Gyeongsangnam-do Namhae-gun	118	31.6	0.3
7	Incheon Ongjin-gun	52	29.0	0.3
8	Jeollanam-do Goheung-gun	91	16.7	0.2
9	Gyeonggi-do Pocheon-si	160	12.5	0.1
10	Gyeongsangbuk-do Uljin-gun	45	10.7	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 Timor-Leste nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Visa category	Persons	Share
Non-professional Employment(E9)	4,396	94.0
Specially Designated Activities(E7)	151	3.2
Other statuses(ETC)	51	1.1
Student(D2)	41	0.9
Religious Worker(D6)	12	0.3
General Trainee(D4)	8	0.2
Dependent Family(F3)	8	0.2
Other(G1)	4	0.1
Other statuses	8	0.2

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

Note: The rows of this table add to 4,679, the whole of the Timor-Leste nationality.

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

Year 2025

Age group	Total	Male	Female	Share
0-4	4	1	3	0.1
5-9	7	3	4	0.1
10-14	6	2	4	0.1
15-19	7	2	5	0.1
20-24	622	573	49	12.4
25-29	1,867	1,814	53	37.3
30-34	1,545	1,520	25	30.9
35-39	730	711	19	14.6
40-44	182	174	8	3.6
45-49	24	23	1	0.5
50-54	6	4	2	0.1
55-59	0	0	0	0.0
60+	4	3	1	0.1

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

Only this table counts all foreign residents, so it totals 5,004 rather than the 4,679 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	72.7	0.0
2009	87.1	0.0	0.0	9.7	0.0
2010	95.0	0.0	0.0	3.8	0.0
2011	97.0	0.0	0.0	2.5	0.0
2012	97.8	0.0	0.0	2.0	0.0
2013	98.3	0.1	0.0	1.2	0.0
2014	97.9	0.0	0.0	1.1	0.0
2015	98.1	0.0	0.0	1.2	0.0
2016	98.0	0.1	0.0	1.5	0.0
2017	97.4	0.1	0.4	1.7	0.0
2018	97.1	0.1	0.4	1.9	0.1
2019	97.7	0.0	0.3	1.6	0.0
2020	95.3	0.1	3.3	0.9	0.1
2021	95.5	0.2	2.7	1.0	0.1
2022	96.5	0.2	1.9	0.7	0.2
2023	96.4	0.6	1.3	1.3	0.2
2024	95.9	1.1	1.3	1.1	0.2
2025	94.0	3.2	1.1	0.9	0.3

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	0.697	0.000	0.970
2015	0.693	0.000	0.969
2016	0.689	0.001	0.968
2017	0.690	0.001	0.969
2018	0.680	0.001	0.967
2019	0.693	0.001	0.966
2020	0.693	0.001	0.967
2021	0.684	0.001	0.968
2022	0.693	0.002	0.963
2023	0.700	0.002	0.954
2024	0.688	0.003	0.946
2025	0.689	0.003	0.941

Table 6.Timor-Leste nationality, mother-tongue compositionUnit: %

First language		Share
Mambae		24.2
Makasae		15.2
Tetum		11.9
Baikeno		8.6
Kemak		8.4
Bunak		8.0
Tukudede		5.8
Fataluku		5.1

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, Timor-Leste 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	Timor-Leste Nationality	Share of national
Jeollanam-do	1,368	29.2
Gyeongsangnam-do	941	20.1
Gyeonggi-do	845	18.1
Chungcheongnam-do	440	9.4
Incheon	188	4.0
Jeollabuk-do	177	3.8
Gyeongsangbuk-do	161	3.4
Jeju-do	155	3.3
Busan	124	2.7
Chungcheongbuk-do	99	2.1
Gwangju	49	1.0
Ulsan	46	1.0
Seoul	40	0.9
Daegu	25	0.5
Gangwon-do	10	0.2
Daejeon	6	0.1
Sejong	5	0.1