D-8 — corporate investor

What D-8 is

D-8 is granted to a foreign national who has invested in, and manages or works at, a Korean company with foreign investment. D-8-1 covers corporate investment, D-8-4 covers technology-based start-ups founded by holders of relevant degrees or patents.

It is a work visa tied to your own company. You may work for that company and nothing else.

The investment requirement

The threshold is set by the Foreign Investment Promotion Act and sits at ₩100 million for a single investor in the standard category. Three things about it matter more than the number:

• The capital must come from abroad. Money you already hold in a Korean bank account does not qualify. It has to be remitted into Korea from overseas and documented as foreign investment through a designated foreign exchange bank or KOTRA.
• It must be genuinely invested, not parked. The funds go into the company's capital, and the company is expected to spend them on operating the business.
• It is per investor. Two founders each needing D-8 generally means two thresholds, not one split in half.

Setting the company up

1. Foreign investment notification. Filed at a designated foreign exchange bank or KOTRA before the funds arrive. This is the step that makes everything afterwards possible — doing it out of order is the classic mistake.
2. Remit the capital into a Korean account in the company's name, receiving a certificate of foreign currency purchase.
3. Incorporate — corporate registration at the court registry, then business registration at the tax office.
4. Obtain the foreign-invested company registration certificate.
5. Apply for D-8 at your regional immigration office, or via a visa issuance confirmation if applying from abroad.

Most founders use a Korean administrative scrivener (행정사) or a law firm for steps 1 to 4. The cost is modest relative to the cost of getting the sequence wrong.

The office requirement

You need a real, leased, independent office space with a lease agreement in the company's name. A virtual office, a co-working hot desk, or your apartment will almost always be rejected — immigration officers do visit, and a photograph of an empty room is not persuasive.

A dedicated private office within a serviced-office building is usually acceptable. A shared desk is not.

Renewals: what is actually checked

First grants are typically one year. Renewals look at whether the business is real:

• Revenue, or a credible explanation and runway if there is none yet.
• Employees on the payroll, with the social insurance records to prove it.
• Rent actually being paid on the office lease.
• Corporate tax returns filed and taxes paid.
• The invested capital still in the business rather than withdrawn.

A company that has filed nil returns for two years and employs nobody will struggle at renewal regardless of how clean the original investment was. Plan for the renewal from the first month.

What the company costs to keep alive

The investment threshold is the number founders plan for. The running cost of a Korean corporation is the number that catches them, and it arrives whether or not the business earns anything.

• Accounting and tax filing. A Korean company files VAT quarterly or half-yearly, withholds and reports payroll tax monthly, and files corporate tax annually. Almost every small company retains a tax accountant (세무사) on a monthly retainer to do it, because the filings are in Korean and the penalties for late ones are automatic.
• Social insurance on every salary, including your own. A director drawing a salary is enrolled in the four national insurances like any employee, and the employer's share is a real cost on top of the wage.
• The office lease you were required to sign, with its deposit and its monthly rent, for as long as you hold the status.

This is why the honest advice to a founder is to treat the visa threshold as the floor of the capital requirement rather than the whole of it. A business that spent exactly the minimum on incorporation has no runway left for the year of filings and rent that the renewal will inspect.

D-8 against the alternatives

Founding a company is not the only way to work for yourself in Korea, and it is the most expensive.

D-10-2, the start-up preparation sub-type of the job-seeker visa, exists precisely for the stage before you have capital to remit. It gives you time in Korea to build the business to the point where D-8 makes sense, without requiring the investment up front.

F-2-7 or F-5 removes the question entirely. A residence status carries no employer and no company condition, so you can found, close and re-found businesses without touching your immigration position. Founders who qualify on points usually find this cheaper and far less fragile than tying their status to a single company's survival — see the F-2-7 page and the eligibility checker.

D-8-4 is worth checking before defaulting to D-8-1. The technology start-up sub-type is aimed at founders with a relevant degree, patent or recognised award, and its conditions differ from the standard corporate-investment route in ways that can favour an early-stage technical founder considerably.

Employing others

Your own company can sponsor E-7 visas for other foreign staff — but it has to satisfy the same employer conditions as any other sponsor, including the national-to-foreign staffing ratio. In practice a young company must hire Korean employees before it can hire foreign ones.

Where D-8 leads

D-8 is a qualifying status for F-2-7, and business assets and income can contribute to the points score. It also counts towards F-5, and there is an investment-led F-5 route for larger investments that maintain Korean employment.

Common pitfalls

• Remitting the capital before filing the foreign investment notification.
• Using funds already held in Korea.
• Registering at a virtual office address.
• Treating the company as a visa vehicle rather than a business — renewals catch this.
• Underestimating running costs. Corporate accounting, tax filing and social insurance for a Korean company are ongoing obligations with real fees attached.