General Trainee

The status code is D4, and it covers Korean language training, or general training at educational institutions outside D-2.

People registered under the General Trainee (D4) status number 85,238, which is 5.3% of all registered foreigners. Compared with 29,977 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is an increase of about 184.3%. The largest nationalities are Vietnam at 64.5%, Mongolia at 7.4%, and China at 6.9%. They are found in 215 districts, and the largest counts are Gyeongsan-si with 3,284, Dongdaemun-gu with 2,752, and Seodaemun-gu with 2,485.

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

Note: the status families are exactly as the yearbook groups them. The overseas Korean status (F-4) does not appear on this page. Its holders file a place-of-residence report rather than a foreign-resident registration, so they are outside the registered foreigner statistics; they are not absent from the country. On the staying basis they were the largest single status in 2025, at 556,288.

Table 1.Key indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: persons, places, %

Year 2025

Indicators	General Trainee	All registered foreigners	Relative to total
People	85,238	1,604,920	5.3% of the total
Nationalities counted	159	192	82.8% of the total
Districts of residence	215	250	86.0% of the total

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

General Trainee ranks #2 by size within the D group.

Table 2.Registered foreigners by status family, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Family	Persons	Share
F family, residence, family, and overseas Koreans	589,527	36.7
E family, employment	493,577	30.8
D family, study, training and investment	341,450	21.3
H group, Visiting Employment and Working Holiday	84,971	5.3
G group, other	61,380	3.8
Outside the families, other statuses	34,015	2.1

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

The 6 groups sum to 1,604,920, the same as all registered foreigners.

Note: a family is the sum of the statuses inside it, so adding a family together with its individual statuses counts the same people twice.

The jade bar is the D group, the group General Trainee falls under.

Figure 1.General Trainee and all of the D group, 2006–2025Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year.

Putting the status and the group on one axis shows the share General Trainee takes within the D group.

View as table

Year	General Trainee	all of the D group	Share of family
2006	11,294	113,288	10.0
2007	18,650	96,970	19.2
2008	22,020	104,091	21.2
2009	19,529	107,492	18.2
2010	37,519	125,674	29.9
2011	35,751	123,072	29.0
2012	21,082	105,912	19.9
2013	21,866	106,745	20.5
2014	24,980	111,537	22.4
2015	29,977	120,257	24.9
2016	37,622	135,996	27.7
2017	45,511	151,887	30.0
2018	55,540	176,863	31.4
2019	59,526	194,874	30.5
2020	49,171	168,845	29.1
2021	48,839	178,836	27.3
2022	60,273	217,267	27.7
2023	70,087	250,374	28.0
2024	79,805	291,006	27.4
2025	85,238	341,450	25.0

Table 3.By nationality General Trainee top 10 countries, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	Nationality	Persons	Within General Trainee	Within nationality
1	Vietnam	54,990	64.5	18.7
2	Mongolia	6,330	7.4	15.1
3	China	5,863	6.9	2.6
4	Myanmar	4,127	4.8	7.1
5	Uzbekistan	1,657	1.9	2.4
6	Japan	1,335	1.6	4.5
7	Russia	1,008	1.2	4.6
8	Nepal	896	1.1	1.0
9	Kyrgyzstan	893	1.0	9.7
10	Bangladesh	591	0.7	1.8
11	Other countries (149)	7,541	8.8	-

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

The within-nationality column is the share of that country's registered foreigners who hold General Trainee.

Table 4.General Trainee top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	General Trainee	Share of local foreigners
1	Gyeongsangbuk-do Gyeongsan-si	3,284	14.7
2	Seoul Dongdaemun-gu	2,752	13.3
3	Seoul Seodaemun-gu	2,485	14.9
4	Daegu Dalseo-gu	2,380	17.3
5	Chungcheongnam-do Cheonan-si Seobuk-gu	2,255	12.6
6	Seoul Seongbuk-gu	2,092	14.0
7	Seoul Dongjak-gu	1,862	15.1
8	Seoul Gwanak-gu	1,582	8.0
9	Gyeonggi-do Bucheon-si	1,576	5.0
10	Seoul Gwangjin-gu	1,553	8.7

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

Note: In the district file, General Trainee totals 85,238, the same as the nationwide count.

Table 5.Composition of statuses within the D group, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Status	Persons	Within group
Student(D2)	219,127	64.2
General Trainee(D4)	85,238	25.0
Job Seeker(D10)	21,933	6.4
Corporate Investment(D8)	8,518	2.5
Trade Management(D9)	2,650	0.8
Religious Worker(D6)	1,778	0.5
Intra-company Transferee(D7)	1,089	0.3
Industrial Trainee(D3)	931	0.3
Journalism(D5)	128	0.0
Culture & Arts(D1)	58	0.0

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy (registered foreigners by status of stay).

Note: the teal bar is the status you selected. Selecting a status outside a family shows that status alone.

Figure 2.By province, General Trainee, 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 district and status of stay), summed to the province level.

Note: The map shades the 17 provinces, and the same values are also held for the 250 districts.

View as table

Province	General Trainee	Share of national
Seoul	21,879	25.7
Gyeonggi-do	16,063	18.8
Gyeongsangbuk-do	6,318	7.4
Busan	5,974	7.0
Chungcheongnam-do	5,974	7.0
Daejeon	4,745	5.6
Daegu	4,618	5.4
Jeollabuk-do	3,528	4.1
Gyeongsangnam-do	2,812	3.3
Gwangju	2,714	3.2
Chungcheongbuk-do	2,534	3.0
Incheon	2,513	2.9
Gangwon-do	2,123	2.5
Jeollanam-do	1,925	2.3
Ulsan	565	0.7
Jeju-do	546	0.6
Sejong	407	0.5