KIRD Korea Immigration Regional Dashboard
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Registered foreigners are counted across 192 nationalities.

Registered foreign residents by nationality

In 2025 Korea had 1,604,920 registered foreign residents from 192 nationalities. The largest were Vietnam (293,907, 18.3%), Korean-Chinese (251,037, 15.6%), China (226,628, 14.1%), Nepal (89,521, 5.6%), Uzbekistan (69,317, 4.3%). Picking a nationality above, in the table below or in the nationality index opens its report.

Table. The 30 largest nationalities, 2025

RankNationalityRegistered foreign residentsShare (%)
1Vietnam293,90718.3
2Korean-Chinese251,03715.6
3China226,62814.1
4Nepal89,5215.6
5Uzbekistan69,3174.3
6Cambodia65,2204.1
7Indonesia62,0213.9
8Myanmar58,0163.6
9Philippines54,8663.4
10Thailand45,8922.9
11Mongolia42,0492.6
12United States37,0272.3
13Sri Lanka36,9512.3
14Bangladesh32,4072.0
15Japan29,3501.8
16Russia22,1381.4
17Kazakhstan20,0091.2
18Pakistan17,3951.1
19Taiwan17,1871.1
20India15,8371.0
21Laos11,5430.7
22Kyrgyzstan9,1700.6
23France5,5520.3
24Malaysia5,4060.3
25United Kingdom5,2540.3
26South Africa4,9790.3
27Timor-Leste4,6790.3
28Canada4,6020.3
29Türkiye3,4770.2
30Germany3,1680.2

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy 2025 (registered foreigners by nationality)

Table 1.Key indicators and benchmarks, 2025Unit: people, organizations, index
IndicatorsVietnamAll registered foreignersRelative to total

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.Vietnam 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
YearVietnamKorean-Chinese
Table 2.Vietnam nationality, top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %
RankDistrictVietnam NationalityShare of local foreigners

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

Note: Nationwide, Vietnam nationality is 18.3% of all registered foreigners, so a district where the share among its foreigners is above this has relatively many of them.

Table 3.10 districts with the highest location quotient, 2025Unit: people, ratio, %
RankDistrictVietnam NationalityLocation quotient (LQ)Share of local foreigners

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 Vietnam nationality, 2025Unit: persons, %
Visa categoryPersonsShare

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

Note: Every row of this table adds to 293,907, all registered foreigners of Vietnam nationality.

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

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

This table alone uses staying foreigners, so its total is 337,183 and differs from the 293,907 registered foreigners

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

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
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
YearIndex of dissimilarity (D)Isolation indexInteraction with Koreans
Table 6.Vietnam nationality, mother-tongue compositionUnit: %
First languageShare

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, Vietnam nationality, 2025Unit: persons

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
    ProvinceVietnam NationalityShare of national