F-5-26 (R&D Personnel of a Foreign-Invested Company) Korea Visa Guide | 2026

1. What F-5-26 Is

F-5-26 is a permanent-residence route for essential specialized personnel working at a research-and-development facility of a foreign-invested company. The applicant must hold Corporate Investment ('기업투자', D-8, 가목 sub-type) status and be recognized as essential specialized personnel at an R&D facility formally designated under the Enforcement Decree of the Foreign Investment Promotion Act, having worked there continuously for a required minimum number of years.

2. Eligibility Checklist

• Requires at least a bachelor's degree (domestic or foreign) in addition to the years-of-service requirement.
• Employer-transfer tolerance rule (a visible-digit distinguishing rule): across a 3-year window, if the cumulative gap in employment during employer changes totals 90 days or fewer, continuity of service is still recognized and those periods are combined toward the service-length requirement ('3년 동안 근무처 변경 과정에서 근무 중단 일수의 총 합산이 90일 이내일 경우 근무의 계속성을 인정').
• Required documents are specific to this subtype: an R&D-facility designation letter (issued via official notice from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy), plus a dispatch order or employment certificate — this document set was matched independently between the per-subtype document table and the detailed eligibility section.
• The exact number of required years of continuous R&D-facility service (referenced multiple times but always as a blank digit) could not be confirmed numerically from the extracted text.

3. Criteria Summary

• F-5-26 is not a points-based category.
• The definition above is taken from the manual's own wording for this code.
• Numeric thresholds, stay periods and fees are set in the manual's tables and annexes and are deliberately not reproduced here — confirm the current figures before filing.
• Where a rule depends on another status, check that status's own criteria too; several of these codes take their conditions from a principal holder.

4. Salary and Contract Rules

• The manual does not attach a salary or contract framework to this code specifically.
• Where income or financial capacity is assessed, it is evidenced with the documents named under that requirement rather than against a published floor.
• If your circumstances involve employment, verify separately whether this status authorises it — several of these categories do not.
• Do not assume the salary rules of a neighbouring code apply; they are set per status.

5. Employer and Workplace Change Rules

• Employer sponsorship is not the organising basis of this code.
• Any economic activity must fall within what the status authorises; where it does not, activity-outside-status permission is the mechanism.
• Report changes of circumstance that bear on the ground for the status.
• Keep the evidence that established eligibility available for extension reviews.

6. Required Documents

• Application form, passport, standard photograph and the fee.
• Evidence establishing the ground on which this status is claimed, as described above.
• Residence and identity documents as required at the counter.
• Any further documents the reviewing office considers necessary.

7. Fees and Processing

• Fees follow the published schedule for the application type rather than the subtype.
• Processing time varies by office workload and by how clearly the qualifying ground is evidenced.
• Where a principal holder's status governs the period granted, the principal's expiry date is the practical constraint.
• Apply with margin before any existing permission expires.

8. Common Rejection Reasons

• The qualifying ground for this specific code is not established by the evidence.
• The circumstances fit a neighbouring code better, making this a category mismatch.
• Supporting documents are incomplete, inconsistent, or out of date.
• An underlying condition the status depends on has ceased to apply.
• Unresolved immigration compliance history.

9. FAQ