What the Settlement Service Covers
The scope starts at the airport and ends when the household can operate without us. It overlaps deliberately with the housing service, because the lease and the registrations depend on each other.
Alien registration
Preparation and accompaniment at the competent immigration office. A foreign national staying more than 90 days must complete registration within 90 days of entry, and the card that results is what everything downstream runs on.
Report of the place of stay
Filed within 15 days of moving in. Under the Immigration Act, alien registration and the report of change of place of stay take the place of resident registration and the move-in report — which is why this step also carries the residential lease protection.
Banking, mobile and utilities
Account opening, mobile contract, electricity, gas, water and internet, plus the payment arrangements that most households want automated before the first bills arrive.
Health insurance and dependants
Workplace-insured enrolment for the assignee, the position of accompanying family, and the exclusion application where foreign coverage applies. The employer's enrolment report is due within 14 days of the day the employee becomes a workplace-insured person.
Driving, schooling handover and departure
Whether a foreign licence can be exchanged and what that requires, the handover to the family and education service where there are children, and the closing steps when the posting ends.
The Order of Operations After Arrival
The sequence matters more than the individual errands, because two of the steps are legal deadlines and the rest are dependencies.
Arrival and interim accommodation
The household lands, usually before the lease is signed. We start the registration file immediately rather than waiting for the address.
Alien registration at the competent immigration office
Within 90 days of entry where the stay exceeds 90 days. Documents differ by status of stay, and the set is prepared before the appointment rather than assembled at the counter.
Lease signature and possession
Run in parallel with the housing service. Possession is one of the two limbs of the residential lease protection.
Report of the place of stay, then the fixed date
Within 15 days of moving in. Together with possession this gives opposing power from the following day; the fixed date on the lease contract adds priority for repayment of the deposit.
Bank account, then mobile line
In that order, because the mobile contract and most subscriptions expect a Korean account. Both expect the alien registration card.
Utilities, insurance and the household set-up
Electricity, gas, water, internet, health insurance enrolment or the exclusion application, and the everyday accounts the family will actually use.
The Deadlines That Sit on the Company
Assignees are usually told about the first two. The third and fourth belong to the employer, and they are the ones discovered late.
| Item | Deadline | Whose duty |
|---|---|---|
| Alien registration | Within 90 days of entry, where the stay exceeds 90 days | The individual |
| Report of change of place of stay | Within 15 days of moving in | The individual |
| Health insurance enrolment report | Within 14 days of the day the employee becomes a workplace-insured person | The employer |
| Health insurance loss-of-status report | Within 14 days of the day the status is lost | The employer |
| Employer's report on a foreign employee | Within 15 days of dismissal, retirement, death, loss of contact, or a change to a material term of the employment contract | The employer |
| Change or addition of workplace | Prior permission as a rule; for the professionals the Decree prescribes, a report within 15 days | The individual, with the employer exposed |
Sources: Immigration Act arts. 19, 21, 31 and 36; National Health Insurance Act art. 109 and its Enforcement Rule art. 61. Processing times at banks, carriers and district offices are not fixed by law and are not estimated here.
What to Prepare
Most of the friction comes from documents that exist abroad and are needed in Korean, so the useful work happens before departure rather than after arrival.
| Item | Held by | Needed for |
|---|---|---|
| Passport and the visa issued on the certificate | Each household member | Entry and alien registration |
| Certificate of employment and assignment letter from the Korean entity | The company | Alien registration, bank onboarding, landlord assurance |
| Legalised family documents with Korean translation | The assignee | Dependant registration and school admission |
| Korean address, once the lease is signed | The assignee | Report of the place of stay, utilities, deliveries |
| Evidence of foreign medical coverage, where exclusion is sought | The company or the assignee | The application to be excluded from health insurance enrolment |
| Foreign driving licence and its translation | The assignee | Assessing whether an exchange is possible |
Requirements differ by status of stay and nationality, and are confirmed against the household's actual facts at intake.
What to Watch Out For
The failures are consistent across households, and all four are scheduling problems rather than legal ones.
Waiting for the lease before starting the registration
The registration and the lease each want something the other produces. Starting the immigration file on arrival, rather than after the address exists, is what keeps the two from deadlocking.
Treating health insurance as optional
A foreign national who has completed alien registration and is an employee at a workplace subject to the Act becomes a workplace-insured person; a foreign resident who has resided or is expected to reside in Korea for six months or more falls under locally-insured enrolment. There is an exclusion route where foreign coverage applies, but it is an application, not an assumption.
Letting the employer reports lapse
The health insurance enrolment and loss reports and the immigration report on a foreign employee are the company's duties. They surface at the end of a posting, when nobody is looking for them.
Leaving the departure steps to the last week
Closing accounts, settling utilities, the deposit return and the tax and insurance loss reports all take longer than the flight date allows. We plan the exit at the same time as the arrival.
Settlement Service — Frequently Asked Questions
Can an assignee open a bank account before the alien registration card is issued?
In practice most banks and mobile carriers work from the alien registration card, so the usual order is alien registration, then the bank account, then the mobile line. Planning the arrival around that sequence avoids the common situation where a household has an apartment but cannot pay for anything from a Korean account.
Does the family need to be registered separately?
Yes. Accompanying family hold F-3 status derived from the assignee's, and each family member staying more than 90 days completes alien registration in their own right. Their position for health insurance is assessed separately from the assignee's, so it should not be assumed.
What happens when the posting ends?
There is a closing sequence that mirrors the arrival one — lease termination and the deposit return, utilities and account closures, the health insurance loss report by the employer, and the immigration report where the employment ends. We run it as a defined workflow rather than a rush in the final week.
Related
Statutory references on this page were checked against the current text of the Immigration Act and the National Health Insurance Act and its Enforcement Rule on the National Law Information Centre (law.go.kr). Processing times at banks, carriers and district offices are not published here because they are not fixed by law. Pricing is not published on this site — scope and fees are quoted individually after a consultation.
Households arriving soon?
Tell us how many are coming and when — we will set out the order of operations and mark the deadlines that belong to the company.
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