I'm no longer on an E2 visa anymore!
My teaching contract with my academy ended last November and I decided not to renew my contract/end my teaching days (for various reasons). But a couple months before my contract ended, that left me with the problem of what visa to get and how to stay in Korea. As I wanted to job search and get a non-teaching job in Korea, I knew I needed some sort of short term visa that would let me find a job. Luckily, Korea has such visa!
After a bit of research, I found the D10 (job-searching visa). I've gotten many questions from different people in Korea about how I was able to get this visa and what it allows you to do so I figured I'd cover it in a blog post so I don't miss any information. :)
A D10 visa allows those who it's granted to to stay in Korea and job search for 6 months. You're not allowed to work while on the visa, but are allowed to do an internship (paid or unpaid!) or job training on the visa. After 6 months, if you still haven't found a job, you are allowed to apply for another 6 month extension. (I've heard from murmurings online that you can extend it for up to 2 years, but I'm not sure if this is true or not!)
Recently, the Korean government has tightened the requirements for applying for the D10 visa if you don't have a visa currently or are transferring from another visa, but luckily for E2 visa holders, it's a fairly straightforward process. Back in October, I made my immigration appointment (everything was all booked up until December...why!!!) and started to gather the documents. After seeing blog posts online and calling and talking to immigration directly, here are the documents I was required to submit at my visa appointment:*
Passport
ARC
Application form 34 (can be downloaded from HiKorea website or here)
Copy of housing contract
Plan for seeking employment form (also found here)
130,000 won
*Immigration may or may not require other supplementary documents (such as a bank statement) so be sure to call immigration beforehand to see what documents are needed!
**OTHER IMPORTANT POINT! You CANNOT apply for a D10 visa until AFTER your current school/academy employment contract has ended! My contract ended at the end of November and so I applied for my D10 visa at the beginning of December.
I had no trouble gathering these documents, although the only tricky thing was filling out application for 34 and knowing what would be an 'adequate' job seeking plan on the plan for seeking employment. Luckily I found a video online that explains all the parts of application form 34 here and you'll know what to fill out once you take a look! The plan for seeking employment form simply asks what you will do each month of your 6 month visa stay in order to find a job. I listed things such as specific job websites I would use and where I would reach out to potential recruiters or places hiring. I also mentioned that a goal of mine was to complete an internship.
Once the day of my appointment came, the process was really easy. I simply paid the 130,000 won fee, got a slip at the payment desk verifying my payment, and then sat down to wait until I was called. Once my number was called, I simply gave all my documents to the officer, told him I wanted to come pick up my visa rather than wait for it to be mailed, and then got a slip saying I was legally allowed to stay in the country until my new visa was processed.
At the time, I was applying for the D10 before going home to visit the states and I was quite stressed about the time my visa would take to process. Luckily, my visa was processed within a week and 10 days after applying, I could go pick it up from immigration (one day before heading back to the states!)
To those who plan on traveling before getting their ARC card is ready, I read somewhere online that once your visa is approved, you can go to your local Gu office and get a "proof of alien registration form" (or 외국인등록사실증명서) which is a paper form of your ARC that proves you do have a legal visa in Korea. However, I'm not sure if immigration officers at the airport would legally accept this so please call immigration before hand to check this! I was told it would be okay, but I was able to get my ARC card before leaving for America so I wasn't able to see if immigration would accept this.
I'm two months into my six month stay on a D10 visa and have been working at an internship currently (will cover this in another post!) But overall the process was very straightforward and the D10 visa is pretty easy to get if you are someone on an E2 visa and worried about not having enough time to find another job (whether in academia or not) before your visa expires.
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