Korea Visa Extension 2026: When HiKorea Opens Applications, Fees, and What Happens If You Miss the Deadline

Bottom line: This only applies to long-term residents holding an Alien Registration Card — students on D-2, workers on E-7, marriage migrants on F-6, and similar visas who stay longer than 90 days. If you're here as a tourist, this doesn't apply to you. HiKorea (hikorea.go.kr) opens the extension-of-stay application well before your expiry date — for many visa types, including D-2 students, that window opens 4 months before expiry — and most people don't realize they can file that early.

If you didn't know: miss your expiry date by even one day and you become an undocumented (overstaying) resident immediately, which can trigger deportation proceedings and a future entry ban. How large the fine is and how long any re-entry ban lasts depends on your length of stay and the specific circumstances, decided case-by-case by the immigration office handling your file — in this search we could not confirm a single nationwide fee or fine table from an official source, so don't trust a number you see on a random blog. Call 1345 (the Korea Immigration & Integration Contact Center, multilingual) or your local immigration office for the figure that actually applies to you. The extension fee itself also varies by visa type and changes over time — the only reliable number is whatever HiKorea's payment screen shows you when you're logged in and filing.

This article summarizes official guidance and is not legal, medical or financial advice.

Why this matters: as of end-December 2025, 2.78 million foreign residents were registered in Korea — 5.4% of the population — and 2.16 million of them are long-term residents. Despite that, searches related to visa extension had produced zero matching articles on this paper until now; the demand was always there, it just had nowhere to land. HiKorea is the Justice Ministry's official portal for Alien Registration Card holders to file extension-of-stay applications electronically, with the fee payable on the spot by card or mobile payment. Because the opening window differs by visa category, student-affairs offices commonly cite "4 months before expiry" for D-2 visas, but work and marriage-based visas can follow different timing — always check your own visa's screen on HiKorea rather than assuming the same rule applies. People who wait until the last few weeks often find in-person appointment slots booked solid, missing the chance to file before their current stay runs out.

Journey stage: During the trip · Verified 2026-10-30