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In English · Sourced to the Korean original
Korean money, with the receipts.
Banking, credit, loans, cars, housing, business and insurance — current Korean rules, real numbers, and the official page behind each one.
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93 guides, every figure sourced · re-checked every 6 months · written from inside a Korean company since 2016
Quoted
This is the reference rate (매매기준율) published by Korea Eximbank. Your bank will not give you this rate. Card payments, cash exchange and outbound transfers each carry their own spread and fees, so treat this as the midpoint everything else is priced around — not as what will land in the account.
Most people arrive here holding a job to get done, not a topic to read about. Start from the job.
What the branch asks for, and why the first account is limited.
How NICE and KCB score someone with no Korean history yet.
What lenders actually underwrite: visa, stay, verifiable income.
Lease, instalment or cash — the total cost, not the monthly.
Jeonse against wolse, and how to keep the deposit safe.
Compare by what arrives, not by the advertised fee.
Visa permission first, then tax registration — in that order.
The four insurances, their deadlines, and what missing one costs.
Free calculators built for the money decisions expats actually face in Korea. Everything runs in your browser.
Most bad advice about money here is a real rule from one bank or one year, repeated until it sounds like the law.
You can only send USD 50,000 a year out of Korea.
That ceiling applies to remittances whose source of funds you have not separately documented. A foreign resident who can document how the money was acquired — salary, declared income — may remit the documented amount. Organise the proof and the "limit" largely stops applying to you.
Someone in China can only receive USD 50,000 a year from abroad.
That figure is an annual facilitation quota for an individual in China settling foreign currency into renminbi or buying foreign currency — a quota on conversion, not a ceiling on what may arrive. SAFE’s own position is that a genuine current-account transaction can be processed above it against documents, and that reading it as a personal annual maximum is wrong.
My annual remittance allowance out of Korea is USD 100,000 now.
Not if you are a foreign resident. Korea did raise the undocumented annual figure to USD 100,000, but it applies to resident Korean nationals; foreign residents and non-residents sending through licensed small-amount remitters keep USD 5,000 per transaction and USD 50,000 per year. The route that actually lifts your ceiling is documenting how the money was acquired, not the headline change.
Latest · Cost of Living
A government refund on what you spend commuting. Nationality is not the barrier — registration and residence verification are, and both are doable.
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The card price is not a deposit, the top-up rules differ by product, and the refund channel depends on how much is left. Sorted before you land.
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The fear is not the procedure. It is what happens to your status while you use it — and one protection changed in November 2025.
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They go to different bodies on different clocks. Working the wage claim first is how people lose the dismissal remedy without ever being told.
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A release letter is evidence that a job ended, not a veto over your next one. What to do when the previous company simply refuses to sign.
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Getting into Korea and staying legally: visa-free entry, K-ETA and the arrival declaration, short-stay visas, and registering once you are here.
Opening a bank account, sending money abroad, and getting a card as a foreigner in Korea.
How loans and credit scores work for foreigners in Korea: eligibility, rates, and required documents.
Leasing, installment financing, and insuring a car in Korea as a foreign resident.
Registering a sole proprietorship or corporation in Korea, and the taxes that come with it.
Health insurance (NHIS), car insurance, and travel insurance for foreigners living in Korea.
What life in Korea actually costs: rent, jeonse and wolse, phone plans, utilities, and food.
Contracts, payroll, working hours, the four major insurances, and changing jobs as a foreign worker in Korea.
Coming to Korea to study Korean: the D-4 visa, choosing a school and city, and what a term actually costs.