Registered foreigners living in South Korea hit 1.6 million in Nov

Seoul, Dec 27
The number of foreigners staying in South Korea for 90 days or longer for work or study has exceeded 1.6 million as of November, with about half of them living in the greater Seoul area, data showed on Saturday.

The figure, which came in at 1.1 million in 2021 and 1.3 million in 2023, has been on the rise, according to the monthly data compiled by the justice ministry. It marked an 8 percent increase from November last year.

By area, 54 percent of registered foreigners were residing in the greater Seoul area, with 54,584 living in Hwaseong, 42,158 in Siheung and 38,398 in Ansan, which are all located in southern Gyeonggi Province, reports Yonhap news agency.

By nationality, 29.8 percent were Chinese, followed by 18.4 percent who were from Vietnam, 5.5 percent from Nepal, 4.3 percent from Uzbekistan and 4.1 percent from Cambodia.

Registered foreigners refer to foreigners who have applied to stay in South Korea for 90 days or longer. They are eligible to receive foreign registration cards and have to report within 14 days should they change their area of residence.

Meanwhile, the number of foreigners residing in South Korea surpassed 2.8 million for the first time in October, driven by increases in long-term stays for work, study and seasonal employment, government data showed.

According to the immigration data from the justice ministry, 2,837,525 foreign nationals were registered as staying in the country as of October, up 3.6 percent from the previous month.

The foreign resident population had hit a pre-pandemic peak of 2.524 million in 2019, then fell sharply to 1.956 million in 2021 due to COVID-19. It rebounded to 2.507 million in 2023 and climbed to 2.65 million in 2024.

By type of stay, long-term residents totalled about 2.16 million, up 6.3 percent from a year earlier, while short-term residents rose 2.7 percent to 676,000.