Tuesday, July 07, 2015

dodging a bullet

I thought I needed to get my alien-registration card renewed so it would be valid when I finally got around to applying for the F-4 visa, but as it turns out, the card is valid until the end of September, so we ought to be all good. That's a nice feeling: thinking you're obliged to do a thing, then realizing you don't have to do anything.


_

4 comments:

John from Daejeon said...

13 months is the new norm in South Korea as of the last major visa overhaul.

Kevin Kim said...

Hmmm. My card's validity is 1 year, 15 days (i.e., 12.5 months): from 9/15/14 to 9/30/15. Maybe the length of validity varies because they always peg the end date to the end of a calendar month...? If that's true, then conceivably, if you get your card at the very beginning of a calendar month, you'll get about 13 months' validity because the period won't end until the end of that calendar month.

John from Daejeon said...

It may also have been pegged at the date you actually went into your local Immigration office and applied for it.

As of the last overhaul, the extra month was to let leaving workers have an extra month to tie up all their loose ends and maybe spend some of their accumulated South Korean wealth traveling around the country spending it.

John from Daejeon said...

Damn, I should have said, "It may also have been pegged at the date you actually went into your local Immigration office and applied for it after arriving in the country."

According to South Korean Immigration, you have 90 days to apply for your Alien Registration card after arriving in the country, Before issuance, you are supposed to always carry your passport with its current visa in it at all times.