How much is a student visa for Korea? Fees from visa to ARC

What the total cost includes

A Korean D-2 student visa involves more than one payment. The total cost bundles:

1. Visa application fee — paid to the embassy or consulate in your home country at the time of application.
2. Alien Registration Card (ARC) — paid once after you enter Korea.
3. Extension fees — paid each time you extend your stay, usually once a year for D-2 students.

Some of these amounts are set by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and some by the Ministry of Justice (Immigration), so they appear on different official pages.

Visa application fee

The Korean visa fee is set by visa.go.kr (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). For a D-2 student visa, the base ranges are:

Visa type	Standard single entry
Up to 90 days	40 USD
Over 90 days (D-2)	60 USD
Multiple entry	70–90 USD

The standard fee above does not tell the whole story — the amount varies by nationality. For example, US citizens pay around 45 USD, some European nationalities pay a reduced or waived amount, and long-term study visas are handled differently in some embassies. Confirm the amount on your national embassy’s fee page before you apply, since these tables change without notice.

Alien Registration Card (ARC) fee

Once you enter Korea with a D-2 visa, you must obtain an Alien Registration Certificate (ARC) from the immigration office within 90 days. This is separate from the visa fee.

• Fee: 35,000 KRW — this is the current standard ARC issuance fee.
• Since 2025, the ARC has been issued as an IC-based card, and the fee reflects the new card.
• The ARC acts as your de facto ID in Korea, so the fee covers both issuance and the physical card.

You pay this at the district immigration office (via HiKorea appointment) when you apply for the card. Lost-card or renewal cases have their own separate fee rules, so check the immigration fee schedule for your situation.

Extension fees

Most D-2 students extend their stay once a year. The extension fee is charged per application:

Who	Fee per extension
General statuses including D-2	60,000 KRW
F-2 and F-6 holders	30,000 KRW

Because the D-2 visa is issued for a set number of months, these extension fees are the recurring cost of studying in Korea. An extension application is filed through HiKorea and processed at the immigration office, and the fee is paid at that time. Fees can be revised, so verify the current schedule on the official immigration pages before filing.

Soft costs around the visa

A few related expenses often get confused with the visa fee itself:

• Visa-issuance notice (Certificate of Visa Issuance) — D-2 students studying at a Korean university usually have this processed by the school through the immigration office; it is not the same as the embassy fee above.
• Health insurance — once your ARC is issued you become subject to the National Health Insurance service and pay premiums. This is a separate monthly cost, not a visa fee.
• Admission documents — the university may charge its own application or document fees, which are unrelated to immigration fees.

Budgeting only for the visa fee will leave you short once ARC issuance and extension fees are due.

Check the official fee schedule first

All amounts in this guide are as of the stated date, but immigration and consular fees change frequently. Before you apply:

1. Open the Korean embassy page for your country and check the exact visa fee for D-2.
2. Look up the current ARC issuance and extension fee on the Ministry of Justice’s HiKorea pages.
3. Save the official link you used, so you can re-check it if a fee changes before your payment date.

The official sources are linked below. Your actual total will depend on your nationality, the card type involved, and when you apply.