Korea's E-7 Visa Salary Requirement for 2026: The Number Your Job Offer Has to Clear

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Poster for Soo House's Find Strength: Career in Korea workshop, led by an HR and recruiting coach, for foreign job seekers in Korea

If you're being sponsored for Korea's E-7 "specific activity" work visa, the salary line in your job offer isn't just a negotiating point — it's a pass/fail gate. Every year, Korea's Ministry of Justice publishes a minimum annual wage for each E-7 sub-category, and an immigration officer checks your contract against it before your sponsor's visa issuance confirmation certificate (사증발급인정서) gets approved. Fall short, even by a small margin, and the application comes back — not because anything else about you or the job is wrong, but because of one number.

  • ₩31,120,000Minimum annual salary for E-7-1 (specialist professional), 2026
  • ₩25,890,000Minimum for E-7-2 and E-7-3 (semi-professional / general skilled), 2026
  • ₩26,000,000Minimum for E-7-4 (skilled functional worker), 2026
  • Feb 1 – Dec 31, 2026The window these figures apply to

Where this number comes from

These aren't figures a recruiter or a visa agency invented to sound official. They come from a single document the Ministry of Justice re-issues every year — 법무부 공고 제2025-406호, posted December 29, 2025, titled "2026년 특정활동(E-7) 체류자격 임금요건 기준 공고" (the 2026 E-7 wage requirement notice). Issued under Article 7(7) of the Immigration Act's enforcement decree, it sets a floor for each of the four main E-7 sub-categories and applies from February 1 through December 31, 2026 — anything filed on or before January 31 is still judged against the prior notice.

Korea's 2026 E-7 visa minimum annual salary by sub-category: E-7-1 specialist professional at 31,120,000 won, E-7-2 and E-7-3 semi-professional and general skilled at 25,890,000 won, and E-7-4 skilled functional worker at 26,000,000 won E-7-1 Specialist professional ₩31,120,000 minimum per year, 2026 E-7-2 / E-7-3 Semi-pro & general skilled ₩25,890,000 minimum per year, 2026 E-7-4 Skilled functional worker ₩26,000,000 minimum per year, 2026
Every E-7 sub-category has its own wage floor, reissued by Ministry of Justice notice each year.

Which category you fall into depends on the job, not your nationality or your degree: E-7-1 covers specialist professional roles — engineers, researchers, management, most office and tech jobs. E-7-2 and E-7-3 cover semi-professional and general skilled roles. E-7-4 is the point-system skilled functional worker track most people convert into from an E-9 or H-2 visa — Soo House has covered that conversion process separately in more detail. One case sits outside this table entirely: if the Ministry has set a different wage standard for your specific occupation code "for the protection of domestic jobs," that number governs instead of the general floor above — check your occupation code on Hi Korea rather than assume the table applies to you.

The number on paper has to match the number that moves A contract that states ₩31,120,000 doesn't clear the floor on its own. Caseworkers can cross-check the salary your employer claims against what actually shows up in your registered national pension and health insurance contributions, and in your payslips. If your employer writes the qualifying number into your contract but quietly pays less, or folds part of it into a housing allowance or a bonus that isn't guaranteed, you're the one left holding the mismatch at renewal time — not them.

If your offer comes in short

A job offer that lands under the floor doesn't always mean a dead end, but it does mean a conversation has to happen before you file. Ask whether the employer can restructure the offer so the guaranteed base salary — not a bonus that depends on performance, not an allowance that isn't fixed — clears the number on its own. Confirm your actual occupation code is classified the way you assume it is; a title that sounds like E-7-1 work can code differently once Immigration reviews the real duties. And if neither of those moves the number, ask whether the role genuinely fits a different E-7 sub-category with a lower floor, rather than the one the recruiter defaulted to.

Soo House — the Seoul-based community platform and events organizer built for expats and other foreign residents trying to build a life in Korea — hears some version of this at nearly every Find Strength: Career in Korea workshop it runs with an outside HR and recruiting coach. Members walk in with an offer letter in hand, asking whether the number will actually clear sponsorship, and the advice the coach gives first is never about visa rules — it's to get the final salary figure in writing, in the contract itself, before signing anything or giving notice at a current job. An offer that sounds right over the phone and a contract that holds up to an immigration caseworker's review aren't always the same document.

Your next hop

Confirm your own occupation code and the current wage floor directly at Hi Korea or with your sponsoring employer's immigration counsel before signing anything — this notice gets reissued every year, and the figures above are only good through December 31, 2026. (Checked against the Ministry of Justice's official 2026 E-7 wage requirement notice, 법무부 공고 제2025-406호, posted December 29, 2025 and verified October 23, 2026.)

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