Moved in Korea? You Have 15 Days to Tell Immigration Too

6 min read

Soo House app's Address Management screen, showing three saved Korean addresses in different cities, each with a road name, building number, floor and room number

You move apartments, do the responsible thing, and register your new address at the district office the same week. Box checked, or so it feels — except if you're a foreign resident, that trip only closes half the requirement. There's a second report, filed with a different authority, under a different law, with its own clock running from the day you moved in. Miss it, and it isn't your landlord who notices. It's immigration, usually the next time you need something from them.

One move, two separate reports

Every resident of Korea — Korean national or not — files a move-in report (전입신고) at the local district office (주민센터) when they change address. It's free, it's quick, and it's how Korea's resident registry stays current.

Foreign residents file a second, separate report: the change-of-domicile report, required under the Immigration Act because your Alien Registration Card (ARC) carries an address of its own, tracked by immigration independently of the district registry. The two systems don't automatically sync with each other — reporting at the 주민센터 updates where the city thinks you live. It does not update your immigration record.

One move produces two separate reports: a move-in report that every resident files for free at their district office, and a change-of-domicile report that only foreign residents file, within 15 days, or 14 days for F-4 overseas Korean nationals You move to a new address in Korea Move-in report Every resident in Korea files this Free, at your district office Change-of-domicile report Foreign residents only — 15 days 14 days if you hold an F-4 visa
Doing the first one doesn't do the second one for you — they go to different offices, under different laws.

The deadline, and who gets a different one

Under Article 36 of the Immigration Act, a registered foreigner must report a change of domicile within 15 days of moving in. There's one exception: if you're in Korea on an F-4 visa as an overseas Korean national (동포), the shorter 14-day deadline under the Act on the Immigration and Legal Status of Overseas Koreans applies instead.

  • 15 daysDeadline for most registered foreigners (출입국관리법 §36)
  • 14 daysDeadline for F-4 overseas Korean nationals (재외동포법 §6)
  • ₩1,000,000Maximum fine for failing to report

Quick Hop: if you've seen "14 days" quoted as the rule for everyone, that's not wrong by accident — it used to be the deadline for all registered foreigners before it was extended to 15 days, and a fair number of city and university guides, including some official English pages, still carry the older figure. The 15-day rule is what Government24 (gov.kr) and the Ministry of Legislation's own plain-language portal, easylaw.go.kr, both currently publish.

Where and how to file

You can report the change at either of two places, or skip the trip entirely:

Online, through Hi Korea

File at hikorea.go.kr once you've registered an account tied to your ARC. No visit needed, but you'll need your documents scanned or photographed.

In person

At the Si/Gun/Gu office or community service center for your new address, or at the immigration office with jurisdiction over it. Bring your ARC and passport.

Either way, you'll need proof that you actually live at the new address — a lease in your own name, or, if you're not the leaseholder, a signed accommodation-confirmation form (숙소제공확인서) from whoever is. That second path matters more than it sounds: a lot of foreign residents in Korea live in share houses, officetels split between roommates, or housing arranged by someone else entirely, where their own name is nowhere on the lease.

The one that catches people If your name isn't on the lease, you can't just bring a copy of someone else's contract and expect it to count. You need that accommodation-confirmation form signed by the person who is on the lease — a roommate, a host, or whoever holds the contract. Ask for it the week you move in, while it's a two-minute favor, not the week your ARC renewal is due and you suddenly need it fast.
Four steps to file a change-of-domicile report: gather your ARC and address proof, file it online through Hi Korea or in person, meet the 15-day deadline (14 for F-4 visas), and your ARC record is updated to show the new address Gather papers ARC + proof of address File it Hi Korea, or in person Beat the clock 15 days, 14 for F-4 You're set ARC record updates
Immigration then notifies your old district office on its own — you only have to report once, at your new address.

What actually happens if you skip it

The Immigration Act backs this with a fine of up to ₩1,000,000 for failing to report. In practice, a lot of foreign residents never get fined for one missed report — the way it actually bites is quieter: your ARC shows an address that no longer matches where you live, and that mismatch surfaces exactly when you'd rather it didn't, like a visa extension, a change of workplace permit, or any appointment where an immigration officer checks your file against your card. An outdated address on an official record is also the kind of small inconsistency that slows down anything that depends on that record matching reality — a bank re-verification, a phone contract renewal, a landlord's background check on you as a new tenant elsewhere.

Soo, what? The report itself takes less effort than finding a new delivery address for your groceries. The cost isn't the filing — it's the version of you three months from now, mid-renewal, discovering your file still says you live somewhere you moved out of in spring.

What we've seen, moving members around Korea

Soo House connects expats and foreign residents in Korea with paid brand campaigns, creator classes and community meetups — and because a lot of those campaigns ship a product to wherever a member is currently living, our own app has an Address Management screen built specifically to keep up with people who move often. Share houses, short officetel leases between campaigns, a move to a cheaper neighborhood after a contract ends — our members' addresses change more frequently than most, and the pattern our team keeps running into isn't the shipping address being wrong. It's that updating a delivery address in an app feels like the whole job, and the separate government report — the one with an actual legal deadline attached — gets forgotten entirely because nothing in daily life reminds you it exists.

Your next hop: if you've moved in the last two weeks and haven't filed anything with immigration yet, check your calendar against the date you moved in — then file at hikorea.go.kr or head to your new district's immigration office before the 15 days (14, if you're on an F-4) run out.

Checked in October 2026. The current 15-day deadline for registered foreigners, the online filing option through Hi Korea, and the ₩1,000,000 maximum fine are drawn from Government24's (gov.kr) own service page for the foreigner change-of-domicile report and the Ministry of Government Legislation's plain-language portal, easylaw.go.kr, both current as of their stated publication dates. The 14-day exception for F-4 overseas Korean nationals under the Act on the Immigration and Legal Status of Overseas Koreans, and the accommodation-confirmation-form requirement for applicants who aren't the leaseholder, are drawn from Yeongdeungpo-gu's own civil-service guide, which cites both Article 36 of the Immigration Act and Article 6 of the overseas-Koreans act by name. Some official English-language city and university pages still state the older 14-day deadline that applied before it was extended to 15 for most registered foreigners — confirm your own filing window at hikorea.go.kr or by calling 1345 before relying on any date here.

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