Incorporation is a starting line, not a finish line. Once the court registry issues your corporate registration, a series of tax, foreign-investment, insurance and immigration filings begin to fall due — several of them within weeks. This checklist is for founders and headquarters teams setting up a foreign-invested company or a branch in Korea, and it covers the obligations that arrive in the first 90 days. Requirements are current as of September 2026.
The first 90 days at a glance
Deadlines in Korea are counted from an event — the day business begins, the day an investment is paid in, the day an employee is hired — not from the date of incorporation. Mapping those events onto a calendar early is what keeps the first quarter calm.
| Timing | Step | Where it is filed |
|---|---|---|
| Before remittance | Foreign investment notification | Designated foreign exchange bank or KOTRA |
| Within 20 days of starting business | Business registration | District tax office |
| Within 60 days of the triggering event | Foreign-invested company registration | KOTRA / delegated agency |
| Within 90 days of entry | Alien registration | Immigration office |
| Within 14 days of the first hire | Establishing insurance relations | National insurance agencies |
| Monthly, by the 10th | Withholding tax return | District tax office |
Read the table as a sequence rather than a menu. Each row depends on the one above it: the tax office wants the corporate registration, the investment registration wants proof that the investment object was paid in, and the immigration office wants both.
Business registration with the tax office
A company that exists in the commercial registry still cannot invoice. For that you need a business registration certificate, and the clock is short.
Two practical consequences follow. First, the 20 days run from commencement of business, which in practice is usually the first revenue-generating activity rather than the registration date — if you signed a lease and started sales preparation in the same week, assume the clock has started. Second, the certificate is a prerequisite for almost everything else: a corporate bank account, tax invoices, insurance enrolment, and the documents an immigration officer will ask for. Filing early, before business begins, is allowed and is usually the right call.
Foreign-invested company registration
Foreign investment in Korea runs on a two-step rhythm: a notification before the money moves, and a registration after it lands. The notification is normally made to a designated foreign exchange bank or KOTRA before the investment is remitted; the registration of the foreign-invested company follows once the investment object has been paid in and the shares have been acquired, within the period set by the Foreign Investment Promotion Act and its Enforcement Decree — 60 days from the triggering event.
Missing the registration rarely causes an immediate penalty notice, which is exactly why it gets forgotten. The cost shows up later: the certificate of foreign-invested company registration is the document that supports an investment visa application, tax and incentive claims, and any later capital increase. If your remittance route, the investor named on the notification and the shareholder recorded in the registry do not match each other, fix that before registering rather than after. Our Korea market entry guide walks through how the notification and the incorporation sequence fit together, and investment and corporate setup support covers the filings themselves.
Bank account, corporate seal, premises
The operational layer is unglamorous and blocks everything. A corporate bank account generally requires the corporate registration certificate, the business registration certificate, the registered corporate seal and its certificate, and identification for the representative — and banks apply their own review to accounts controlled from abroad, so expect questions about the source of funds and the nature of the business.
Premises deserve more attention than they usually get. The address on your business registration must be a place where business can lawfully be conducted, and a lease in the company's name with a matching address is what ties the registration, the insurance enrolment and any visa application together. A virtual office may satisfy the registry and still fail an immigration site review.
Residence status and alien registration
If a foreign national is going to run the company from Korea, the corporate timeline and the immigration timeline have to be planned as one.
Two points are worth internalising. The 90 days are counted from entry, not from the day your residence status changes, and the registration is what produces the alien registration number that banks, insurers and telecom providers all ask for. An investment-based status also depends on the foreign-invested company registration described above, so the order of operations matters: notify, remit, incorporate, register the investment, then apply. Where a family accompanies the investor or an assignee transfers in from headquarters, visa and residence support and the assignment track set out the dependent and secondment routes.
Your first hire and the four social insurances
Employing even one person in Korea brings the company into the four social insurance schemes: national pension, national health insurance, employment insurance and industrial accident compensation insurance.
When a company hires its first employee, it reports the establishment of insurance relations within 14 days of that hire. For each employee, acquisition of insured status is reported to the health insurance service within 14 days, and to the pension, employment and industrial accident schemes by the 15th day of the month following the month in which status was acquired. Enrolment is not optional for a single-employee company, and a representative director who receives remuneration is generally covered as a workplace-based subscriber too.
The first tax calendar
Three recurring obligations start immediately. Withholding tax on salaries and certain payments is filed and paid by the 10th of the month following payment, unless the company is approved for semi-annual filing. A corporation files value-added tax four times a year, with preliminary and final returns due on the 25th of January, April, July and October. Corporate income tax is filed within three months from the end of the month in which the fiscal year closes, which for a December year-end means the end of March.
Decide your fiscal year, bookkeeping method and invoicing workflow in the first month rather than the first quarter. Retrofitting a chart of accounts after six months of transactions is far more expensive than setting it up once. Corporate administration support covers the ongoing filings for companies without a local finance team.
What companies most often miss
Four items account for most of the remedial work we see. The foreign-invested company registration is left undone because nothing breaks immediately. The business registration address does not match the actual place of business after a move. Insurance enrolment is skipped for the representative director on the assumption that an owner is not an employee. And a change in registered particulars — address, representative, capital — is not reported to the registry, the tax office and the immigration office alike, so the three records drift apart.
Keeping those four aligned is most of what compliance means in the first year.
Frequently asked questions
Q. Can we register the business before we start trading? Yes. An application may be filed before business begins, and doing so is usually preferable because the certificate unlocks the bank account and insurance steps.
Q. Does the 90-day alien registration deadline restart when our residence status changes? No. It runs from the date of entry. A change of status is a separate application with its own timing, so plan both together rather than sequentially.
Q. Is a virtual office enough for a foreign-invested company? It may satisfy the registry, but it can fail a site review for an investment-based residence status. If a visa depends on the company, use premises where business is actually conducted.
Q. Do we need to enrol in all four insurances with only one employee? Yes. The four schemes apply from the first employee, and a remunerated representative director is generally covered as well.
Q. What happens if we miss the foreign-invested company registration? There is usually no immediate notice, but the certificate is required for investment-based visa applications, incentive claims and later capital increases. Register as soon as the omission is found.
KOCATION maps the corporate, tax, insurance and residence steps onto one schedule before you remit, so the filings above arrive in the right order. Tell us your timeline and we will tell you what has to happen first. Fees are quoted per case after a review of your plan.
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