Overstay Korea 90 Days? Penalties Start Immediately — and Can Reach 20 Million Won

Korea's Immigration Act bans continuing to stay past your permitted period without an extension and makes it a punishable offense. In practice, offices issue a penalty notice instead of referring every case to court, and the amount is reported to climb the longer you overstay, reaching as much as 20 million won for multi-year cases — but this investigation could not directly access the Ministry of Justice's official notice setting the exact figure for each length of overstay. Short-term stayers were never subject to alien registration in the first place (Article 31 only applies to people staying more than 90 days), so there's no registration card, no address-change reporting duty, and no automatic health insurance enrollment — for readers in this group, the important thing isn't a checklist of duties but knowing what's blocked without a registration card (opening a bank account, activating a phone line, and similar) and what kicks in the moment you overstay. I checked the relevant articles of the Immigration Act on the National Law Information Center (law.go.kr) directly on 2026-11-05. However, the Enforcement Rule's Attached Table on penalty-notice amounts would not open, so I could not verify the specific figures in it.