John Morgan Recruiting

You need to go to the Korean consulate or embassy which is in your jurisdiction. To check out which Korean consulate serves your jurisdiction, check here. When you contact the consulate be sure to ask them the questions that we have prepared here. Also, be polite when dealing with them as this always makes the process a lot smoother.

You will need a multiple reentry permit if you wish to leave Korea during your vacation and come back. Many teachers travel internationally during their summer and winter vacation but in order to be able to return you need to have a multiple reentry permit in your passport.

This is very easy to get. All you need to do is fill out the form for a Multiple Reentry permit at immigration in Korea and pay the fee for the permit. You can do this at the same time that you get your Alien Registration Card.

You should note that American citizens are given multiple reentry status when they enter Korea automatically.

Your Alien Registration Card is your foreign ID card that you will need to have while staying in Korea. The law states that you must get this within 90 days of being in Korea but most people get it in the first couple of weeks. It is quite easy to prepare and your employer will help you get it at Korean immigration. All you need to do is bring a picture, fill in some forms and pay the fee (10,000 won) and you will receive your Alien Registration Card about a week later.

You will need this card in order to be able to open a bank account, send money back to your home country and start your medical insurance. If you lose your card, you need to report it as lost and get a new one. When you leave the country permanently this card will be taken back by the official at the airport.

Yes, you can. In fact most teachers do end up staying more than the 1 year and several stay for many years. You can either extend your visa with the same school, provided both you and director are in agreement, or get a new E-2 visa to work at a new school.

If you apply for a new E-2 visa, it will need to be processed outside of Korea but unlike your first E-2 visa, which had to be processed in your home country, your new E-2 visa can be processed in one of Korea’s neighboring countries such as Japan or Thailand and the process is much easier. Some teachers combine their vacation with the preparation of their new E-2 visa.

It is important that you do NOT overstay your visa. Overstaying your visa will result in fines. If you wish to stay longer in the country you may either: a) get a work extension (cost, 30,000 won) or get a tourist extension which is free and valid for up to 30 days but does not allow you to work legally in Korea. If you want some time after your contract finishes to explore the country a little more, you might be interested in the tourist extension. Should you decide on this, your employer can help you with this.

Most other visas you will probably have no use for. Besides the E-2 visa, you may have some teachers at your school that are working on an F-2 visa. An F-2 is different from the E-2 visa in that with the F-2 visa, your Korean spouse sponsors your visa, not the school. In order to be eligible for a F-2 visa, you need to be married to a Korean. The F-2 visa does carry certain advantages, one being that they are not required to submit as many documents as E-2 visa holders.

Other visa types you may come across include:

• C-4: A short-term employment visa used for summer and winter camps.
• D-2: A study visa for those who come to Korea to study Korean.
• E-1: If you work at a university in Korea, you might acquire this visa.
• F-4: An overseas Korean visa obtainable only by those of Korean descent.

Your visa is sponsored by the school who hires you. As such your work is limited to the school that hires you unless you get a rider for your visa.

It usually takes about 4 weeks to process the E-2 visa once the applicant has all of their documents ready to send to Korea. Preparing these documents can take up to 4 weeks as the criminal background check in some countries takes a while to prepare. The timeline for submitting your documents to immigration in Korea and the Korean consulate in your own country is the following:

• Sending your documents to Korea and submitting them to immigration: 2-4 days
• Getting your Visa Issuance Number from Korean immigration: 7-10 business days
• Sending documents to the Korean consulate and getting your E-2 stamp: 3-5 business days

Apostille authentication means to legalize your documents for international use. In accordance with the Hague Convention of 1961, documents which have been notarized by a notary public and then certified with an apostille are accepted for legal use in all the nations that have signed the Hague Convention. This means that documents that do not have this apostille authentication will not be accepted overseas. When you receive this apostille authentication, it will be on a separate sheet that will need to be included with the original document.

In the application for the E-2 visa, for most countries the criminal background check and the university diploma will both need apostille authentication before they can be used to process your visa. Note that Canada has not signed the Hague Convention and therefore Canada does not require apostille authentication of any documents. In the case of Canadian applicants, certain documents will need to be authenticated by the Korean consulate or embassy that serves their region.

If you have any questions about this, please contact us.

You will need to submit the documents and follow the process outlined here. If you have questions about this process, please contact us.

An E-2 visa is the teaching visa that is necessary to be able to legally teach in Korea. To be eligible for the E-2 visa you must meet the basic requirements. Once you obtain your E-2 visa, you will have 90 days to enter the country.