If you’ve been told your next move to Korea is on a “D-7,” you’ve almost certainly also noticed how little is written about it compared to Korea’s more famous visas. That’s not an accident — D-7 is genuinely one of Korea’s rarest long-term visa categories, and most of what’s online about it is either a law-firm summary or a visa agency’s marketing page. This guide works from the primary source: the Immigration Act Enforcement Decree itself, and the Ministry of Justice’s own registration statistics, so you can see exactly what the law requires and exactly how uncommon this visa actually is.
What D-7 actually is
D-7 is Korea’s intra-company transferee visa — for people who are already employed somewhere and are being sent, by their existing employer, to work in Korea. It is not a visa for someone who wants to move to Korea and then find a Korea-based job, and it is not a visa for someone founding a brand-new company from scratch. The defining feature of D-7 is the word “dispatch”: you keep your existing employment relationship, and your organization sends you to a related entity in Korea.
The Enforcement Decree of the Immigration Act (출입국관리법 시행령), Attached Table 1-2 (별표 1의2) — current as of June 1, 2025, under Presidential Decree No. 35540 — splits D-7 into two distinct sub-categories, and which one applies to you depends entirely on the direction of the dispatch and who your employer is:
D-7-1: a person who has worked for one year or more at the head office, branch, or other place of business of a foreign public institution, organization, or company, and who is being dispatched as essential professional personnel to work at that organization’s affiliated company, subsidiary, branch, or office in Korea.
D-7-2: a person who has worked for one year or more at an overseas local subsidiary or overseas branch established by a Korean listed company (KOSPI or KOSDAQ) or a public institution, and who is being dispatched to that company’s Korea head office to provide or receive specialized knowledge, technology, or skills.
Notice the mirror-image structure. D-7-1 moves someone into Korea from a foreign parent company. D-7-2 moves someone into Korea from a Korean company’s own overseas operation, coming back to headquarters. Both share two non-negotiable elements: at least one year of continuous prior employment at the sending entity, and status as “essential professional personnel” — a phrase that does a lot of work in this visa category, and one we’ll come back to.
Why D-7 is so rare
Here’s a number that puts this visa in perspective, and one that almost no consultancy blog post on this topic actually cites: as of May 2026, only 1,115 people nationwide hold registered D-7 status, according to the Ministry of Justice’s own monthly statistical bulletin (통계월보), accessed via Hi Korea’s immigration big-data dashboard.
To see how small that is, compare it to Korea’s other foreign-investment-adjacent visas from the same official dataset:
| Visa | Registered holders (May 2026) | What it’s for |
|---|---|---|
| E-9 (Non-professional employment) | 340,540 | Manufacturing, agriculture, and similar sectors |
| D-2 (Study abroad) | 239,709 | University students |
| F-5 (Permanent residency) | 226,278 | Long-term settled residents |
| D-8 (Corporate investor) | 8,490 | Founders investing ≥₩100M in their own Korea company |
| D-7 (Intra-company transferee) | 1,115 | Employees dispatched by an existing employer |
D-7 registrations are roughly one-seventh the size of D-8’s, and a rounding error next to E-9 or D-2. Part of this is structural: D-7 is a narrow-purpose visa by design, built for a specific corporate-transfer scenario rather than a broad category like “study” or “work.” But part of it is also that D-7 is genuinely underused relative to how many companies actually do send staff to Korea — many end up on D-8 (by having the transferee personally invest and found a Korea entity) or E-7 (by structuring the role as a straightforward local hire) simply because those paths are better understood, not because they’re a better legal fit.
D-7-1 vs. D-7-2: the two paths in detail
D-7-1 — foreign company to Korea branch. D-7-1 is the path for someone whose employer is a foreign company, and that company either already has, or is setting up, a presence in Korea — a branch office, a subsidiary, or a liaison office — that the employee will be dispatched to.
The core conditions, straight from the Enforcement Decree, are:
- At least 1 year of continuous employment at the foreign company’s head office, branch, or other place of business.
- Dispatch to a Korea-based affiliated company, subsidiary, branch, or office of that same organization.
- The dispatched person must qualify as essential professional personnel.
What this rules out is worth being explicit about. D-7-1 is not available if the Korea entity doesn’t exist yet in any form — it dispatches someone into an existing, operating branch or office. If your company is planning to set up in Korea from scratch and you’ll be the one doing the setting-up as a personal investor, you’re looking at D-8’s territory, not D-7-1’s, even though the practical outcome (foreign employee running a Korea office) can look similar from the outside.
It’s also not a visa for hiring someone locally in Korea who happens to share a nationality with your foreign HQ — the dispatch has to originate from actual prior employment at the foreign entity, which is why the 1-year service requirement exists: it’s evidence that the sending relationship is real and not a paper arrangement created just to qualify for the visa.
D-7-2 — Korean listed company’s overseas operation back to HQ. D-7-2 runs in the opposite direction, and it’s noticeably narrower in one specific way: it only applies when the Korea side is a listed corporation (on KOSPI or KOSDAQ) or a public institution. A private, unlisted Korean company cannot use D-7-2 to bring staff back from its overseas branch — that scenario, if it doesn’t fit elsewhere, typically needs to be evaluated under D-7-1’s logic (treating the overseas operation as the “foreign” side) or another visa category entirely.
The core conditions are:
- At least 1 year of continuous employment at the overseas local subsidiary or overseas branch established by the Korean listed company or public institution.
- Dispatch to that company’s Korea head office or headquarters.
- The purpose of the dispatch is to provide or receive specialized knowledge, technology, or skills — language the Decree uses that’s slightly different from D-7-1’s “essential professional personnel” framing, but functions similarly in practice as the qualitative bar reviewers apply.
- A funding condition on the Korea side: immigration consultancies commonly cite that the Korea headquarters must have invested, or provided operating funds of, roughly US$500,000 or more into that overseas subsidiary or branch — generally waived if the Korea entity is a public institution. We couldn’t independently confirm the exact figure against the Decree text itself, so treat this as a commonly-cited practical threshold and confirm the current amount with Hi Korea or an immigration attorney before applying.
This category exists for a specific, real business pattern: a Korean conglomerate or public company opens an overseas subsidiary, staffs it partly with foreign nationals who build up expertise or a track record there, and later wants to bring one of them back to Seoul to transfer that experience into the home organization. It’s a narrower door than D-7-1 by definition — you need the Korea entity to be listed or public — but it exists precisely because that flow of talent doesn’t fit neatly into D-8 (no personal investment is happening) or a plain E-7 hire (the relationship is a transfer within one corporate group, not a fresh local hire).
“Essential professional personnel”: how you actually prove it
This is the part of D-7 that trips people up, because there is no numeric points table here — unlike Korea’s F-2-7 long-term residency visa, which scores age, education, income, and Korean-language ability against a published 80-point threshold, D-7’s “essential professional personnel” standard is a qualitative judgment made by the reviewing consular or immigration officer on your specific file.
In practice, based on the kind of evidence the required-documents list asks for (see the checklist below) and how the category is applied, the factors that tend to strengthen a case are:
- Depth of relevant experience — typically several years in the specific role or field, not just total years employed anywhere.
- Specialized knowledge, technology, or a license that is genuinely difficult to source from the Korean labor market — the more your skill set is generic and locally available, the harder “essential” is to argue.
- Seniority of the role — a managerial or executive title (branch manager, department head) supports the case more easily than an entry-level position, though seniority alone isn’t the whole test.
- Formal qualifications — an advanced degree or professional certification directly relevant to the dispatched role.
None of these is individually decisive, and none is formally required by the statute’s text — the Decree simply says “essential professional personnel” without defining a checklist. What that means practically is that your application file needs to make the case in prose and documentation, not just tick boxes: a detailed job description, an organization chart that shows exactly where you sit and why the role can’t easily be filled locally, and a resume or career certificate that backs up the experience claim. Applicants who treat this section lightly — assuming any transferred employee automatically qualifies — are the ones most likely to be asked for additional evidence or refused outright.
Documents you’ll typically need
The exact document list depends on which path you’re on, and consulates can request additional material case by case, but the baseline commonly required is:
For D-7-1 (foreign company → Korea branch/subsidiary/office):
- Visa application form
- Passport
- Passport-size photo
- Application fee
- Employment certificate from the overseas (sending) company
- Dispatch order (파견명령서)
- Proof that the Korea branch, subsidiary, or office is legally established
- Proof the Korea office or liaison office is actively and normally operating
- Evidence of essential-professional-personnel status — resume, career certificate, and similar supporting documents
For D-7-2 (Korean listed company/public institution’s overseas branch → Korea HQ):
- Visa application form
- Passport
- Passport-size photo
- Application fee
- Evidence of essential-professional-personnel status — resume, career certificate, and similar supporting documents
- Full certified corporate register (등기사항전부증명서) of the Korea head office
- Overseas direct investment report or overseas branch establishment report
- Proof of the overseas remittance
- The overseas branch’s corporate register or business registration certificate
- Employment certificate and tax payment certificate from the overseas branch
- Personnel order specifying the dispatch period
A few of these are worth flagging because they trip people up: the proof of “normal operation” for D-7-1 and the overseas remittance/branch-registration documents for D-7-2 both exist to establish that the corporate relationship is genuine and not a shell arrangement set up purely to move someone into Korea. Consular officers scrutinize these closely, and a thin or inconsistent paper trail on the corporate side can sink an otherwise strong individual case.
D-7 vs. D-8 vs. E-7: picking the right visa
D-7 sits between two much more common visa categories, and understanding the actual dividing line — not just the marketing description — will save you from applying under the wrong one.
| D-7 (Intra-company transferee) | D-8 (Corporate investor) | E-7 (Specific activity) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registered (May 2026) | 1,115 | 8,490 | 85,030 |
| Core requirement | 1yr+ prior service at sending entity + essential personnel + dispatch to an existing related entity | ≥₩100M personal capital investment in a Korea company | Job offer matching a listed occupation code, generally requiring a local employer sponsor |
| Who invests? | No personal investment required | You personally invest the capital | No investment |
| Best fit | You’re being sent by your current employer to an existing Korea affiliate | You’re setting up (or buying into) your own Korea company | You’re being hired fresh into a specific professional role |
| Max stay per grant | 3 years | 5 years | 3 years |
The practical decision tree looks like this. If you’re founding a brand-new Korea entity and putting your own money into it, you want D-8 — that’s a fundamentally different legal relationship from D-7’s dispatch model, even if you end up doing similar day-to-day work. If you already work for a company (foreign, or a Korean listed/public one with an overseas arm) and that company is sending you to an existing related entity in Korea, D-7 is the structurally correct category — and it’s worth pursuing even though it’s less common, because trying to force that relationship into D-8 (by having you personally invest ₩100 million you don’t actually need to spend) or E-7 (by pretending you’re a fresh local hire rather than an internal transfer) can create its own problems if the reviewing officer looks closely at the actual facts. If you’re being hired directly into a specific role without any prior employment relationship to a related overseas entity, E-7 — Korea’s much larger specific-activity category — is almost always the right starting point.
Stay period, renewal, and family
D-7 is granted for a maximum of 3 years per issuance — shorter than D-8’s 5-year maximum, which is a real trade-off worth weighing if your assignment is open-ended rather than fixed-term. Renewal is possible as long as the underlying dispatch relationship continues: you’re still employed by the sending organization, still assigned to the same or an equivalent essential role, and the corporate relationship between the two entities is still intact. If the dispatch ends — you’re recalled, the assignment concludes, or you leave the sending employer — D-7 status doesn’t survive that change on its own; you’d need to either qualify under a new category or exit.
Spouses and minor children of a D-7 holder can generally accompany them under Korea’s F-3 (dependent family) visa, which allows residence for the duration of the principal’s stay but does not itself grant permission to work — a separate change of status or work permit is required if a dependent wants to take a job in Korea. This is standard across most of Korea’s D-series work visas, not unique to D-7, but it’s frequently the detail transferring employees ask about first when planning a move with family.
Three real-world scenarios
Seeing how the rules apply in practice usually clarifies more than the statute text alone. Three common situations:
Scenario 1 — Regional director, sent to open a Korea liaison office. A mid-sized European manufacturer has employed someone for six years as a regional sales director covering Northeast Asia. The company decides to open a small liaison office in Seoul and wants to send this director to run it. This is a clean D-7-1 case: well over the 1-year service minimum, a senior title, specialized regional expertise, and a genuine dispatch to a newly-registered (but real) Korea office. The main documentation risk here is making sure the liaison office’s registration and “normal operation” evidence is fully in place before the application, since a liaison office that exists only on paper at filing time weakens the case significantly.
Scenario 2 — Engineer at a Korean conglomerate’s overseas plant, transferring to Seoul HQ. A foreign national has worked for three years as a process engineer at a Korean-listed manufacturer’s overseas production subsidiary. Head office wants to bring this engineer to Seoul to transfer process-optimization knowledge learned at the overseas plant into the domestic operation. Because the Korea entity is listed, this is squarely D-7-2 territory — the specialized-knowledge-transfer language in the statute is written almost exactly for this scenario. The key documentation here is the overseas branch’s registration and the direct-investment/branch-establishment report, since these prove the overseas operation is a genuine, reporting-compliant part of the same corporate group.
Scenario 3 — The case that doesn’t fit D-7 at all. A foreign professional wants to move to Korea, and a friend who runs a small Korean company offers to “sponsor” a dispatch from an overseas shell entity set up mostly to create the paper trail for a visa application, with no real prior employment history or ongoing business relationship. This is exactly the pattern the 1-year service requirement and the “normal operation” documentation exist to screen out, and it’s also exactly the kind of case that gets flagged when a reviewing officer looks past the paperwork at the underlying facts. If there’s no genuine year-plus employment relationship and no real operating entity on both ends, D-7 isn’t a shortcut — and attempting it is more likely to create a refusal on record than to result in an approval.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between D-7-1 and D-7-2? D-7-1 moves someone from a foreign company to that company’s Korea branch, subsidiary, or office. D-7-2 moves someone from a Korean listed company or public institution’s overseas branch back to the Korea headquarters. Both require 1+ years of prior service at the sending entity.
How many people actually hold D-7 status? 1,115 nationwide as of May 2026, per Ministry of Justice statistics via Hi Korea — one of Korea’s smallest long-term visa categories.
Is there a minimum investment for D-7 like D-8? No fixed investment requirement. The trade-off is that “essential professional personnel” status is judged case by case rather than against a bright-line rule.
Can I switch between D-7 and D-8? Yes, in principle, via a status-change application — but you need to separately qualify under the target category’s own rules (for example, actually investing ₩100 million+ personally for D-8), not simply relabel the existing dispatch arrangement.
How long can I stay on D-7? Up to 3 years per grant, renewable while the dispatch relationship continues — shorter than D-8’s 5-year maximum.
Check your own situation. Because “essential professional personnel” is a judgment call rather than a checklist, the most useful next step is usually working through your own facts against the structure above rather than reading more general summaries. Our free D-7 Visa Eligibility Checker walks through the D-7-1/D-7-2 branch, your service duration, and the professional-personnel factors, and generates the document checklist for your specific path.
If you’re still deciding between sending an existing employee on D-7 versus setting up a new Korea entity from scratch, our EOR vs. own-company comparison and corporate tax guide cover the D-8 side of that decision in detail, and our take-home pay calculator shows what a dispatched employee’s Korea salary actually nets after tax and the four insurances. For the full picture of doing business in Korea by the numbers, start at our overview hub.
This article is general information based on the Immigration Act Enforcement Decree and official Ministry of Justice statistics, not a legal determination of your individual case — Hi Korea (1345) or a licensed visa agent or immigration attorney should confirm your specific eligibility and required documents before you apply.
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Disclaimer: This post reflects the author’s experience and publicly available information as of 2026. It is general information, not legal, tax, or immigration advice. Rules and rates change — verify current details with the relevant authority (NPS, NTS, MOJ) or a licensed professional before acting.
