Registered foreign residents by visa status

The status code is E9, and it covers non-professional manual work, that is, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and fisheries, and services (Employment Permit System).

In 2025 Korea had 1,604,920 registered foreign residents. The largest statuses were Non-professional Employment (E9, 336,713), Permanent Residence (F5, 220,788), Student (D2, 219,127), Marriage Migration (F6, 153,213), General Trainee (D4, 85,238). Picking a status above, in the table below or in the visa index opens its report.

Table. Registered foreign residents by visa status, 2025

Rank	Visa status	Registered foreign residents	Share (%)
1	Non-professional Employment (E9)	336,713	21.0
2	Permanent Residence (F5)	220,788	13.8
3	Student (D2)	219,127	13.7
4	Marriage Migration (F6)	153,213	9.6
5	General Trainee (D4)	85,238	5.3
6	Specially Designated Activities (E7)	81,723	5.1
7	Visiting Employment (H2)	81,082	5.0
8	Dependent Family (F3)	74,261	4.6
9	Visiting Cohabitation (F1)	73,423	4.6
10	Residential (F2)	67,842	4.2
11	Other (G1)	61,380	3.8
12	Other statuses (ETC)	34,015	2.1
13	Seasonal Worker (E8)	31,609	2.0
14	Job Seeker (D10)	21,933	1.4
15	Crew Employment (E10)	20,920	1.3
16	Foreign Language Instructor (E2)	12,864	0.8
17	Corporate Investment (D8)	8,518	0.5
18	Arts & Entertainment (E6)	4,224	0.3
19	Working Holiday (H1)	3,889	0.2
20	Researcher (E3)	3,365	0.2
21	Trade Management (D9)	2,650	0.2
22	Religious Worker (D6)	1,778	0.1
23	Professor (E1)	1,729	0.1
24	Intra-company Transferee (D7)	1,089	0.1
25	Industrial Trainee (D3)	931	0.1
26	Specialized Occupation (E5)	221	0.0
27	Technical Instructor (E4)	209	0.0
28	Journalism (D5)	128	0.0
29	Culture & Arts (D1)	58	0.0

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

Indicators	Non-professional Employment	All registered foreigners	Relative to total

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

Non-professional Employment is the largest status within the E group.

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

Year

Family		Persons	Share

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 E group, which contains Non-professional Employment.

Figure 1.Non-professional Employment and all of the E group, 2006–2025Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook, each year.

Putting the status and the group on one axis shows the share Non-professional Employment takes within the E group.

View as table

Year	Non-professional Employment	all of the E group	Share of family

Table 3.By nationality Non-professional Employment top 10 countries, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year

Rank	Nationality		Persons	Within Non-professional Employment	Within nationality

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

The within-nationality column is the share Non-professional Employment holds among registered foreigners of that country.

Table 4.Non-professional Employment top 10 districts, 2025Unit: persons, %

Year

Rank	District		Non-professional Employment	Share of local foreigners

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

Note: In the district file, Non-professional Employment comes to 334,921, below the national 336,713 by 1,792.

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

Year

Status		Persons	Within group

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, Non-professional Employment, 2025Unit: persons

Year

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	Non-professional Employment	Share of national