The Ultimate Guide to Digital Nomad Life in Korea
You'll love working remotely in Korea. The country is safe, has a unique cafe culture (buy a coffee to connect to the free wifi), the fastest Internet connection speed in the world, a vibrant nomad community, and all the activities you can think of.
🇰🇷 About Korea
With its 77 million people living on 223 km² of land area, the Korean peninsula is growing increasingly popular as a tourism destination. The country’s rich modern culture is gathering a cult following everywhere, with hit series on streaming services, K-Pop’s latest sensations, delicious spicy food, bingeable online comics, Samsung phones, LG screens… But as digital nomads, we love Korea first and foremost for its dynamism, convenience, safety, sociability, and, of course, its many, many, many - manyyy - cafes. It’s also a hiker’s paradise, as the country is 70% mountains!
💰 Cost of living in Korea
We’ll soon do a full guide on this topic. In the meantime, here’s a rough idea of what will cost you and what will be relatively cheap for a developed country:
What’s cheap in general: cafes, transportation, going out (cinema, bars, nightclubs…), restaurants, tourist spots (palaces, expos, galleries, etc), health, shopping (beauty products, cute accessories, socks, etc), sauna (jjimjilbang)…
What’s expensive in general: accommodation, car rental, groceries (unless you’re more than 5), shopping (tech, clothes, etc)…
You can go check out Numbeo's breakdown of prices.
$970
Total nomad living cost/month
$970
Total nomad living cost/month
$970
Total nomad living cost/month
$970
Total nomad living cost/month
🛂 Visas in Korea
A digital nomad visa should be announced this year, but it is still in the works. We do not know yet when it will come out, how long it will allow you to stay, or what the requirements will be to get it. We will keep you posted with this as soon as we know!
If you’re a digital nomad working for a remote company that has no ties with South Korea, chances are high you can visit the country, visa-free, for 90 days. To do so, you’ll need to apply for the K-ETA online, which is cheap (less than 10 dollars). The approval process is fast (it takes between 24 and 72 hours) allowing you to get a ‘visa’ authorization for two years. Then you can just get in and out of the country pretty easily, as long as you don’t overstay 90 days and don’t work in Korea.
In any case, we recommend you check with your embassy in Korea or the Korean embassy in your country of origin 📑
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