Visiting Cohabitation

The status code is F1, and it covers Visiting and living with relatives or with the family of a marriage migrant, foreign domestic helpers, families of recognized refugees and similar cases.

People registered under the Visiting Cohabitation (F1) status number 73,423, which is 4.6% of all registered foreigners. Compared with 84,047 in 2015, 10 years earlier, that is a decrease of about 12.6%. The largest nationalities are Vietnam at 36%, China at 24.5%, and Uzbekistan at 6.5%. They are found in 250 districts, and the largest counts are Ansan-si Danwon-gu with 2,927, Siheung-si with 2,477, and Asan-si with 2,363.

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	Visiting Cohabitation	All registered foreigners	Relative to total
People	73,423	1,604,920	4.6% of the total
Nationalities counted	117	192	60.9% of the total
Districts of residence	250	250	All districts

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

Visiting Cohabitation ranks #4 by size within the F 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 F group, the group Visiting Cohabitation falls under.

Figure 1.Visiting Cohabitation and all of the F group, 2006–2025Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year.

Putting the status and the group on one axis shows the share Visiting Cohabitation takes within the F group.

View as table

Year	Visiting Cohabitation	all of the F group	Share of family
2006	128,385	256,645	50.0
2007	50,999	199,301	25.6
2008	43,149	206,115	20.9
2009	44,029	213,157	20.7
2010	40,168	239,429	16.8
2011	42,555	267,542	15.9
2012	49,578	301,523	16.4
2013	58,923	334,415	17.6
2014	69,343	359,676	19.3
2015	84,047	386,967	21.7
2016	101,961	413,695	24.6
2017	109,550	428,995	25.5
2018	116,322	444,687	26.2
2019	120,962	469,017	25.8
2020	103,621	459,516	22.6
2021	94,094	457,155	20.6
2022	101,107	479,776	21.1
2023	109,262	517,399	21.1
2024	96,797	558,544	17.3
2025	73,423	589,527	12.5

Table 3.By nationality Visiting Cohabitation top 10 countries, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	Nationality	Persons	Within Visiting Cohabitation	Within nationality
1	Vietnam	26,439	36.0	9.0
2	China	17,975	24.5	7.9
3	Uzbekistan	4,760	6.5	6.9
4	Korean-Chinese	4,342	5.9	1.7
5	Kazakhstan	3,476	4.7	17.4
6	Russia	2,983	4.1	13.5
7	Philippines	2,613	3.6	4.8
8	Cambodia	2,383	3.2	3.7
9	Mongolia	1,214	1.7	2.9
10	Thailand	1,164	1.6	2.5
11	Other countries (107)	5,986	8.2	-

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 Visiting Cohabitation.

Table 4.Visiting Cohabitation top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year 2025

Rank	District	Visiting Cohabitation	Share of local foreigners
1	Gyeonggi-do Ansan-si Danwon-gu	2,927	7.6
2	Gyeonggi-do Siheung-si	2,477	5.9
3	Chungcheongnam-do Asan-si	2,363	9.3
4	Gyeonggi-do Hwaseong-si	1,987	3.6
5	Gyeonggi-do Pyeongtaek-si	1,897	5.2
6	Incheon Yeonsu-gu	1,680	8.9
7	Gwangju Gwangsan-gu	1,608	10.0
8	Gyeonggi-do Bucheon-si	1,590	5.0
9	Gyeonggi-do Ansan-si Sangnok-gu	1,487	9.0
10	Gyeongsangnam-do Gimhae-si	1,443	5.3

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

Note: In the district file, Visiting Cohabitation totals 73,423, the same as the nationwide count.

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

Year 2025

Status	Persons	Within group
Permanent Residence(F5)	220,788	37.5
Marriage Migration(F6)	153,213	26.0
Dependent Family(F3)	74,261	12.6
Visiting Cohabitation(F1)	73,423	12.5
Residential(F2)	67,842	11.5

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, Visiting Cohabitation, 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	Visiting Cohabitation	Share of national
Gyeonggi-do	23,427	31.9
Seoul	9,098	12.4
Chungcheongnam-do	5,864	8.0
Incheon	5,761	7.8
Gyeongsangnam-do	4,626	6.3
Gyeongsangbuk-do	3,963	5.4
Chungcheongbuk-do	3,244	4.4
Jeollanam-do	2,901	4.0
Jeollabuk-do	2,423	3.3
Daegu	2,326	3.2
Gwangju	2,299	3.1
Busan	2,120	2.9
Ulsan	1,413	1.9
Gangwon-do	1,388	1.9
Daejeon	1,174	1.6
Jeju-do	1,092	1.5
Sejong	304	0.4