F-4 Overseas Koreans Are Barred from 37 Jobs — The 10 Occupations Opened Up by the 2026 Notice Revision, and What Is Still Restricted

As of August 2026, holders of the Overseas Korean (F-4) status are barred from 37 occupations. That's 29 simple-labor jobs plus 8 others, and the number comes from Ministry of Justice Notice No. 2026-65, effective February 12, 2026. Before that it was 47 (39 + 8), so 10 occupations dropped off the list in the span of half a year.

The reason they dropped off isn't deregulation. On the same day, Work Visit (H-2) was merged into Overseas Korean (F-4), and the simple-labor work that had been permitted under H-2 was gradually extended to F-4 — this list was tidied up in that process. So this revision is less "the door swung wide open" and more an adjustment that came out of merging two statuses into one.

It's also an unusually hard topic to verify. Two notice numbers float around — No. 2026-65 and No. 2026-35 — and two effective dates, February 12 and February 2, 2026. On top of that, articles written against the 2023 notice (39 occupations) are still sitting at the top of search results, so people believe an already-opened occupation is still banned, or the reverse. And the occupation list isn't in the body of the notice at all; it only exists inside a PDF attachment, and only in Korean. There's no foreign-language translation, so to check whether your job is on the list you have to read a table written in Korean Standard Classification of Occupations terminology. We've reproduced that table below, exactly as in the original, numbers and classification codes included.

F-4 uses a "banned list," not an "allowed list"

The thing people most often get backwards here isn't the number of items — it's the direction you read the list in. Non-professional Employment (E-9) and the old Work Visit (H-2) work by specifying the industries you may work in. If it's on the list, you can; if it isn't, you can't. F-4 is the exact opposite. Only the restricted occupations are set by notice, and everything else is left open, so the list in the notice is not "jobs you can do" — it's "jobs you cannot do."

Read it backwards and the conclusion flips entirely. The moment you spot your job on the list and think "it's here, so I'm good," you're actually starting work that's prohibited. Treat every table below as a list of prohibitions.

The legal basis is a Ministry of Justice notice, not a statute

F-4 employment restrictions aren't written directly into any statute passed by the National Assembly. Article 18(1) of the Immigration Act, Article 23(3) of its Enforcement Decree, and Article 27-2 of its Enforcement Rules only create the framework that says "the Minister of Justice shall determine and publish a notice" — the actual occupations are set by the notice.

The current notice is the "Notice on the Scope of Employment Activity Restrictions for the Overseas Korean (F-4) Status," i.e. Ministry of Justice Notice No. 2026-65, promulgated and effective February 12, 2026. Upon taking effect it repealed the previous notice (No. 2023-187, effective May 1, 2023), and that 2023 notice had in turn repealed the one before it (No. 2018-70, March 26, 2018).

In short, this standard has changed three times — in 2018, 2023, and 2026. Because it's a notice rather than a statute, it can change without legislation, and the notice itself contains a clause requiring a validity review every three years. The Ministry of Justice has also stated regarding the remaining 37 that it will "review whether to expand employment after gathering opinions from industry and relevant ministries," so this list may well move again.

The restrictions come in three branches — items (a), (b), and (c)

The notice doesn't lump the grounds for restriction together; it splits them into three branches. The three differ in their legal basis and in whether a list even exists.

The fact that item (b) has no list matters. Here the question isn't a job title but whether the statutes apply, so no amount of scanning the tables will give you an answer. This is also where privately compiled summaries most often get mixed up. Plenty of articles bundle golf caddies, bathhouse attendants, and wedding-ceremony workers from Attachment 2 (item c) under "morals-related," but those three are restricted on public-interest and employment-order grounds, not morals grounds. Different branches mean the exception provisions attach differently — and that actually changes the outcome under the regional exception discussed later.

The 10 occupations opened up in 2026

From February 12, 2026, simple-labor restrictions dropped from 39 to 29. Here are the 10 that came off the list.

Here's how the math closes. Before the revision it was 39 (Attachment 1) + 8 (Attachment 2) = 47, and with 10 removed it became 29 + 8 = 37. The Ministry of Justice laid out the same calculation in its February 11, 2026 press release.

Why the change happened — H-2 was merged into F-4

The Ministry of Justice stated its reasoning in the administrative notice (Ministry of Justice Public Notice No. 2026-2, January 9, 2026): "As the Overseas Korean statuses (H-2, F-4) are being consolidated into the Overseas Korean (F-4) status, the simple-labor employment permitted to Work Visit (H-2) holders is to be gradually extended to Overseas Korean (F-4) holders after the consolidation, and the revisions in the 8th Standard Classification of Occupations are to be reflected."

In other words, this wasn't an attempt to overhaul F-4 regulation — it was a matter of sorting out where the jobs went once H-2 disappeared. The phrase "gradually" also reads as a signal that these 10 may not be the last. The consolidation itself has three concrete parts.

• New issuance of Work Visit (H-2) visas stopped on February 12, 2026. The Overseas Korean population residing in Korea is roughly 860,000 (per the Ministry of Justice press release of February 11, 2026).
• People who already hold H-2 may stay in Korea through the maximum period of stay. They didn't lose their status that day.
• Even before expiry, you can apply to change to F-4. If the status-change procedure itself is new to you, start with how to change your visa status and the documents you need.

The 29 simple-labor occupations still closed

Below is the complete list from [Attachment 1] of the notice. The grouping in the last column is something we added for readability, based on the leading digits of the classification code; the numbers, occupation names, and codes are exactly as in the original notice.

Source = original text of [Attachment 1], Ministry of Justice Notice No. 2026-65 / effective 2026-02-12 / verified 2026-08-25.

One more point before we close the list. Not being among these 29 doesn't automatically mean you're clear. The 8 items in Attachment 2 below apply separately, morals-related restrictions are judged by statute rather than by list, and the same job can be classified differently depending on what you actually do. And this article only goes as far as reproducing the list. Whether your job falls under it is ultimately confirmed with ☎1345 and your local immigration office.

Some terms are unfamiliar even in Korean. Item 4, "neulchan baedalwon," is the purified Korean term for quick-service courier work — if you don't know the word, it's easy to skim past without realizing delivery-agency work is restricted. Delivery work by visa status, and how summary fines (notice dispositions) are calculated, are covered separately in what foreign riders can and can't do by visa status.

The 8 occupations in Attachment 2 — none of them changed in this revision

Attachment 2 covers "other detailed occupations for which restricting employment is recognized as necessary for the public interest or the maintenance of domestic employment order." Not a single item was removed in the 2026 revision.

Source = original text of [Attachment 2], Ministry of Justice Notice No. 2026-65 / effective 2026-02-12 / verified 2026-08-25.

Why these 8 stayed put is something we could not confirm from an original source. The press release only says it will "review whether to expand employment after gathering opinions from industry and relevant ministries," and we couldn't find a document explaining the rationale for keeping them.

The population-decline area exception — here's what the provision actually says

The notice contains one "exception standard." The condition isn't the occupation — it's the region. Here's the original text.

Three things to read closely. First, the exception attaches only to items (a) (Attachment 1) and (c) (Attachment 2); item (b) (morals) remains restricted. Second, the current list of eligible si/gun/gu isn't in the body of the notice. It only says "designated by the Minister of Justice," so you can't tell from the notice alone whether your registered place of residence qualifies.

Third, and this is the tricky part, the wording of the provision differs from document to document. The promulgated version says "has a place of residence or," while the draft at the administrative notice stage said "has a place of residence and." That's the difference between needing to satisfy both the residence requirement and the workplace requirement, versus only one of them, so we won't assert a conclusion here. Reading it the safe way, you should proceed on the assumption that both requirements apply.

What happens if you violate the rules — sanctions come in three layers

The consequences of working in a restricted occupation aren't one thing — three different kinds of consequences run separately. Bundle them together as "a fine of X won" and you'll miss the other two.

① Criminal — Article 94, subparagraph 8 of the Immigration Act. A person who engages in employment activity without having obtained a status of stay that permits employment activity is subject to imprisonment of up to 3 years or a criminal fine of up to 30 million KRW (violation of Article 18(1); current as of August 2026). That said, we could not confirm from official documents whether employment in a restricted occupation under F-4 is charged under Article 18(1) or Article 20. The statutory penalty is the same under both provisions — 3 years / 30 million KRW — so you can assume the ceiling reaches that level, and which provision is actually applied is up to the competent office. How summary fine (notice disposition) brackets are set out is laid out in a table in the summary-fine calculation section of our foreign rider article, though whether those brackets apply as-is to F-4 cases has not been verified.

② Administrative — cancellation of your stay permit and entry restrictions. This runs separately from criminal punishment. The guarantor form in the Ministry of Justice's Easy-to-Understand Manual on Foreign-National Korean Affairs (Feb. 2026) contains the sentence: "I will raise no objection to the cancellation of the stay permit and entry restriction measures under the Immigration Act should the guaranteed person enter the Republic of Korea and take employment in a simple-labor occupation." In other words, the sanction is already contemplated at the moment you sign the paperwork.

③ Future screening — your next application gets blocked. Per the same Ministry of Justice manual, if the total summary fines (notice dispositions) imposed for Immigration Act violations reach 7 million KRW or more, grant of F-4 status is restricted for 3 years from the date you fully pay the fine that brings the cumulative total to 7 million KRW. If a service record certificate from the Korea Central Volunteer Center confirms at least 6 months and at least 100 hours of volunteer work, the restriction period is reduced to 1 year. The same 3-year restriction from the date of full payment also applies where total criminal fines for domestic law violations reach 7 million KRW or more. We'll flag that the figures in ③ rest on a single source — the Ministry of Justice manual — not on the notice itself.

A word about employers too. Subparagraph 9 of the same article applies the same statutory penalty to anyone who employs a person without a status of stay permitting employment activity. So don't rely on an employer's or broker's assurance that "our company is fine." Whether or not the employer gets punished, the immigration-status consequences stay with you. If unpaid wages or improper demands are also involved, check the contact details by service at official counseling hotlines for foreign residents.

If you switched from H-2 to F-4 — continuing at the same job requires "permission for activities outside your status"

If your status changed in the February 12, 2026 consolidation, you're the reader who needs to be most careful here. Your status stayed the same or improved, but the work you've been doing may be a restricted occupation under F-4 rules. It's entirely possible to keep working the same job without ever having received specific guidance about the consolidation.

The Ministry of Justice laid out the path for this case in its press release: where a former H-2 holder wishes to continue working at the same workplace in a field restricted for F-4 holders, employment is permitted through "permission for activities outside the status of stay." In other words, even in a restricted occupation, there's a separate lawful route in this situation.

That said, we could not obtain the application procedure, documents, or deadlines from an original source. The press release gives the route but not the process, so check the actual application method through the Hi Korea (hikorea.go.kr) civil affairs guide or ☎1345. What matters here is the fact that permission is required at all. Same company, same job — if your status changed, separate permission may be needed.

How to check whether your job is on the list

Three steps. Following the order matters.

• Step 1 — Find the occupation name and code in the original notice. Open [Attachment 1] and [Attachment 2] in the PDF attached to the notice posting on the Korea Immigration Service site (immigration.go.kr).
• Step 2 — Cross-check the index terms for that sub-minor classification by code. On the Korean Statistical Classification Portal at kssc.kostat.go.kr, open the index terms for that code and see whether the work you actually do falls under them. This is the method the notice itself directs you to.
• Step 3 — If it's ambiguous, get a determination. Ask, in this order: the Immigration Contact Center ☎1345 (multilingual), your local immigration office, and Hi Korea (hikorea.go.kr).

Don't skip Step 2. The occupation names differ from everyday language, and the list contains several entries — like "other service-related elementary workers (99999)" — whose scope you simply can't tell from the name. Only by reading the index terms do you get any basis for judging whether your work falls under that code. Step 3 comes with a practical problem too: ☎1345 offers multilingual counseling, but fine-grained questions like which category a specific job belongs to may require an in-person visit to your local office, and that's hard to schedule while you're working. Still, once you've started the job there's no undoing it, so if you're at all unsure, asking beforehand is by far the cheaper outcome.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1. If my job isn't among the 29, am I in the clear? No. The 8 items in Attachment 2 apply separately, and entertainment- and speculation-related restrictions (item b) are judged not by an occupation list but under the Act on Special Cases Concerning Regulation and Punishment of Speculative Acts, the Food Sanitation Act, and the Act on the Regulation of Amusement Businesses. On top of that, the same job can be classified differently depending on the actual duties, so absence from the list alone doesn't mean you're safe. This article only goes as far as reproducing the list — get a determination on your own case from ☎1345 and your local immigration office.

Q2. I'm seeing the notice number as No. 2026-35. Which one is correct? The promulgated notice is Ministry of Justice Notice No. 2026-65, effective February 12, 2026. No. 2026-35 is the number used in Appendix 7 of the Ministry of Justice's Easy-to-Understand Manual on Foreign-National Korean Affairs (Feb. 2026), so it does appear in Ministry documents — but the promulgated version is No. 65. The 2026-02-02 date that also shows up in searches belongs to the un-promulgated administrative notice draft. We were unable to confirm with the Ministry why two numbers are circulating, so if you have to write a number on a form, ask your local office which one they use.

Q3. Why is delivery work still off-limits? Because none of the 10 occupations removed in the 2026 revision were delivery-related. Attachment 1 still lists parcel delivery workers (92220), express/quick-service couriers (92230), restaurant delivery workers (92291), other delivery workers (92299), and so on. In particular, "neulchan baedalwon" is the purified Korean term for quick-service couriers, so delivery-agency work falls under it. What's allowed by visa status is covered in more detail in what foreign riders can and can't do by visa status.

Q4. My employer says it's fine — can I trust that? It's not something you can rely on. Article 94, subparagraph 9 of the Immigration Act applies imprisonment of up to 3 years or a criminal fine of up to 30 million KRW to the party that employs someone without a status of stay permitting employment activity — yet employers frequently don't know this notice exists, and brokers sometimes know and say nothing. Above all, consequences like cancellation of your stay permit and entry restrictions land on you, not on the employer. If you get a job offer, write down the occupation title and the duties you'd be performing, exactly as stated, and ask ☎1345.

Q5. Can I keep doing the work I did under H-2 after switching to F-4? In its February 11, 2026 press release, the Ministry of Justice stated that where a former H-2 holder wishes to continue working at the same workplace in a field restricted for F-4 holders, employment is permitted through "permission for activities outside the status of stay." So it doesn't carry over automatically — separate permission is required. We could not obtain the application procedure, documents, or deadlines from an original source, so check with Hi Korea (hikorea.go.kr) or ☎1345 and get it handled before you continue working.