E-9: maximum continuous employment activity period
Known universally as the four-year-ten-month visa, and routinely misread as a lifetime ceiling on working in Korea. It is a limit on one continuous period: a worker meeting the conditions can leave and return under the re-entry special case, and separately can move to E-7-4 skilled status without the cycle at all. Presenting it as a hard end date makes people plan a departure they may not need.
- Applies to
- Employment Permit System workers on E-9
- Review cadence
- Checked once a year
What we have recorded
- 2026-09-234 years 10 months
An initial employment activity period plus an extension, commonly totalling 4 years and 10 months of continuous work. Not an absolute lifetime cap: long-serving workers meeting the conditions can re-enter on E-9 under the re-entry special case after a short period outside Korea, currently one month.
Act on the Employment of Foreign Workers — employment activity period and extension
One reading so far. This becomes a history the first time the figure moves while we are watching — which is the part that cannot be reconstructed later.
Guides that depend on this figure
When this figure moves, every guide above needs the same edit. That is why it is tracked here rather than copied into each one.