50+ Essential Websites Foreign Residents in Korea Use (2026)
Honest, regularly-updated directory of the websites foreign residents in Korea actually use. Organized by visa and immigration, jobs, housing, daily life, banking, healthcare, and community. Includes Korean-only sites worth learning.
Key facts
- →Most foreign residents in Korea rely on a stack of about 10 to 15 websites and apps for daily life, regardless of how long they have been in the country
- →The largest Korean job boards (Saramin, JobKorea) carry roughly 10x the listings of foreigner-targeted boards but require Korean-language reading
- →KakaoTalk, Naver Map, and a Korean-issued payment card are the three minimum requirements for using most other services in Korea
- →Government services have improved English coverage significantly since 2023 but still require a Korean phone number for most authentication flows
If you've moved to Korea recently or you're planning to, this is the short list of websites and apps that actually do the work. Most foreign residents in Korea, regardless of how long they have been here, rely on roughly the same stack of ten to fifteen sites for daily life. The other forty are situational: useful for one specific thing, then forgotten.
This page is grouped by what you need to do, not by which company runs the site. Each entry is short and honest, including what to watch out for. The goal is a single page you can bookmark on day one and still be using on day five hundred.
A note on Korean-language sites: about a third of the entries below have Korean-only interfaces. We include them anyway when they are clearly the best option for that need, because pretending Korean-only sites do not exist makes this kind of list useless. Where there is a real English-language alternative we say so.
Visa, immigration, and government
The official portals are not pretty, but they are the only authoritative source for visa rules, ARC procedures, and tax filings. Bookmark them. Avoid relying on third-party blogs (including this one) for filing decisions on visas.
HiKorea (hikorea.go.kr) is the Ministry of Justice's foreigner portal. Reserve in-person immigration appointments here. Walk-ins are no longer accepted at most offices. The English UI is functional but dated. Bookmark the appointment-booking page directly because the homepage is hard to navigate.
Korea Visa Portal (visa.go.kr) handles visa applications and tracking for D, E, and F-series visas. The system is slow and occasionally crashes during peak hours. Save your draft frequently.
EPS Korea (eps.go.kr) is the Employment Permit System portal for E-9 visa workers. Country-specific test schedules, employer-matching results, contract templates. The single official source of truth for the E-9 process.
1345 Immigration Contact Center (call 1345) is the multilingual phone helpline run by the Korea Immigration Service. Nineteen languages including English, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian. Use it before going to an immigration office; it saves hours.
Seoul Global Center (global.seoul.go.kr) offers free legal, tax, and immigration consulting plus Korean classes. If you live in Seoul, this is the most useful single resource the city offers foreign residents. Most other major cities have an equivalent (Busan Global Center, Incheon Global Center, Gyeonggi Global Center).
Government 24 (gov.kr) is the government's universal service portal. Apply for residence certificates, ARC reissues, and other official documents online. English UI is partial; some forms still require a Korean co-applicant or a translator.
NTS English (nts.go.kr) is the Korean tax authority's English portal. File year-end tax settlement (연말정산), check withholdings, request your Income Tax Certificate.
NHIS English (nhis.or.kr) is the National Health Insurance Service. Check your premium, get a foreign-language insurance card, find affiliated hospitals. The premium calculator is hidden under "Health Insurance > Insurance Premium" and worth bookmarking directly.
Liveinkorea / Danuri (liveinkorea.kr) is the Multicultural Family Support portal run by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. Designed for marriage migrants and their families, but the Korean-language and culture programs are open to many residents.
Jobs and careers
Two parallel ecosystems exist: foreigner-targeted boards (smaller, easier, English-friendly) and the major Korean boards (much larger, Korean-only, more professional roles). Use both.
KLiK (klik.co.kr) is a foreigner-focused job board with English and Korean interfaces. Heavy on service, hospitality, part-time, and English teaching, with a smaller pool of professional roles.
KOWORK (kowork.kr) is a visa-friendly job platform with resume templates and visa-tier filters. Strong on E-7 and F-2 sponsorship roles. English-Korean bilingual interface.
Saramin (saramin.co.kr) is the largest Korean job board. Korean-only interface, but roughly ten times the listings of any foreigner-targeted site. Worth learning if your Korean is intermediate or you have a good translator browser extension.
JobKorea (jobkorea.co.kr) is the other major Korean job board. Same caveat as Saramin: Korean-only but worth the effort once your reading is functional.
Wanted (wanted.co.kr) is the default platform for Korean tech and startup hiring. Many listings show salary bands openly, which is unusual in Korea. Foreign-resident-friendly tech employers concentrate here.
LinkedIn is the best path for international companies and English-first roles. Most multinationals operating in Korea (Coupang, NVIDIA Korea, AWS Korea, Naver's overseas teams) recruit primarily here.
Albamon (alba.co.kr) covers part-time and hourly work. Korean-only. Common starting point for international students with D-2 or D-4 part-time work permits.
Seoulstart Jobs (seoulstart.com/jobs) is our own filtered Korea job board. Surfaces roles where the JD is in English or bilingual and the employer is set up to hire foreign residents. Each listing shows the visa-tier match and the language requirement upfront. (Disclosure: this is us.)
Housing and apartments
Korean rental sites have far larger inventories than English-only alternatives, even before language is a factor. The major Korean apps are worth learning to navigate.
Zigbang (zigbang.com) is the largest Korean rental app. Many listings include 3D walkthroughs. Korean-only UI, but listing photos and KRW figures are universal. Filter by deposit (보증금) and monthly rent (월세).
Dabang (dabangapp.com) is the second-largest rental app. Stronger on jeonse (전세) listings than Zigbang, slightly weaker on monthly rent.
Naver Real Estate (land.naver.com) has the largest pool of listings overall, including older apartment complexes that smaller apps miss. Korean-only.
Stay Korea (staykorea.org) lists goshiwon, hasuk-jib, and shared housing without large key-money deposits. Useful for short-term stays under one year.
Craigslist Seoul (seoul.craigslist.org) is where many foreign residents post sublets and shared apartments when leaving Korea. Heavily date-sorted; older posts are often dead.
Facebook housing groups. Search for "Seoul Apartments and Housing for Foreigners," "Seoul Housing Sublets," and the equivalents for Busan and Incheon. Active daily for short-term and roommate situations. Tighter community moderation than Craigslist.
Onepick Real Estate (onepickrealestate.com) is a foreigner-facing Seoul agency. Higher fees than going directly to Zigbang or Dabang, but they handle contract translation and key-money negotiation.
Daily-life essentials
These are the apps you will install in your first week and use every day.
Naver Map (map.naver.com) is Korea's default mapping app. More accurate than Google Maps for walking, public transit, and small businesses. The English version is partial; many place names appear only in Korean.
KakaoMap (map.kakao.com) is the alternative to Naver Map. Some prefer it for indoor navigation in malls and subway stations.
KakaoTalk is the default messaging app in Korea. You will not be able to coordinate with delivery drivers, landlords, or most service workers without it. Free to download and use.
Kakao T is for hailing taxis and ride-shares. English UI. The default of choice for most foreign residents.
Naver Papago (papago.naver.com) is a translation tool more accurate than Google Translate for Korean, particularly for context-heavy phrases and slang.
Coupang (coupang.com) is Korea's largest e-commerce platform. Same-day or next-morning delivery on most household items. Korean-only checkout, and a Korean-issued card is usually required.
Gmarket Global (global.gmarket.co.kr) is the English-language e-commerce alternative. Slower than Coupang, but accepts foreign credit cards and ships internationally.
Olive Young (oliveyoung.co.kr) is the Korean cosmetics and skincare chain. Both online and physical stores; in-store is often easier for foreign residents.
Baemin (baemin.com) is the largest food-delivery app. Korean-only and a Korean phone number is required to register. Yogiyo (yogiyo.co.kr) is the more English-friendly alternative with similar coverage.
Subway Korea route apps (also bundled into Naver Map and KakaoMap) are reliable. The official Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit site is mostly relevant for live disruption notices.
Money, banking, remittance
A Korean bank account is required for rent, utilities, salary, and most direct-debit subscriptions. Opening one requires an ARC.
Toss (toss.im) is the dominant Korean banking super-app. Send money domestically, split bills, manage cards. Korean-only interface, but the UX is famously good.
KEB Hana Global Banking is the most foreigner-friendly traditional Korean bank. English mobile banking and English-speaking staff at major branches. Kookmin (KB), Woori, and Shinhan are also viable; Hana has the best English coverage.
Wise is the most reliable platform for sending money out of Korea. Transparent rates, faster than international bank wires for most corridors.
Hanpass (hanpass.com) is a Korean remittance app with strong corridors to the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia. Often beats banks on rate and speed for Southeast Asia.
WireBarley (wirebarley.com) is another Korean remittance app. Similar to Hanpass with different country coverage; worth comparing rates per corridor.
Healthcare and insurance
For routine care, neighborhood clinics are inexpensive and fast under NHIS. For complex care or English-language coordination, the major hospital international clinics are the standard pick.
Severance International Health Care Center at Yonsei University Hospital. Bilingual coordinators, online appointments, multilingual interpreters on-site.
Asan Medical Center International Clinic is a top-tier hospital with a dedicated international clinic. Common pick for major procedures.
Samsung Medical Center International Health Service completes the "big three" Seoul hospitals with an international wing.
HIRA Bogun (hira.or.kr) is the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. Look up hospital fees, check whether a procedure is covered by NHIS, find affiliated providers.
Community and connection
Most of the practical "how do I do X in Korea" answers floating around the internet originate in one of these channels. Lurk first, then ask.
r/Living_in_Korea is the most active English-language subreddit for practical foreign-resident questions. Banking, visas, deposits, housing, healthcare. Search before posting.
r/korea covers broader discussions, Korean culture, and news. More foreigners visiting plus commenting than residents.
r/Seoul and r/CareerKorea are smaller but useful for city-specific and work-related questions.
Facebook: Expats in Korea has 100,000+ members. General help, buy/sell, housing, events. Active daily.
Facebook: Every Expat in Korea has 60,000+ members. Discussion-leaning, fewer transactional posts.
InterNations Seoul runs monthly professional networking events. Skews older and more corporate.
Meetup Seoul is the most reliable channel for finding hobby-based friends: hiking, language exchange, board games, sports leagues.
News, guides, and what's happening in Korea
For staying informed: a mix of major English newspapers and resident-facing publications.
Seoulstart (seoulstart.com) is plain-language guides on visas, housing, money, healthcare, plus a weekly brief on what's happening in Korea worth knowing about. Available in English, Vietnamese, Filipino, Russian, and Chinese. (Disclosure: this is us.)
The Korea Herald (koreaherald.com) is the largest English-language Korean newspaper. Daily news, business, culture.
The Korea Times (koreatimes.co.kr) is the second-largest English daily. Strong opinion section, more accessible than the Herald.
Korea JoongAng Daily (koreajoongangdaily.joins.com) is JoongAng Ilbo's English edition. Often syndicates from the New York Times for international coverage.
10 Magazine (10mag.com) is a lifestyle and events publication. Where foreign residents look for things to do on a given weekend.
Expat Guide Korea (expatguidekorea.com) is a long-running directory of English-speaking services: vets, dentists, hair salons, lawyers. Useful complement to this list.
How to use this list
If you've just landed: bookmark HiKorea, Naver Map, KakaoTalk, Kakao T, Papago, Gmarket Global, and either Toss or KEB Hana. That's your minimum stack for the first month.
If you've been here a while: skim the Jobs, Money, and Healthcare sections. The remittance corridors and the international hospital clinics are the entries most often missed by foreign residents who arrived before 2023.
If you're researching from outside Korea: the visa, immigration, and government section is the only one that matters until you have an ARC. Most other services require a Korean phone number and a Korean-issued payment card to function fully.
This list is reviewed and updated quarterly. If a site has shut down, changed scope, or you think we're missing one that actually deserves a spot, let us know.
Frequently asked questions
Do I really need a Korean phone number to use most of these sites?
For full functionality, yes. Korean digital services rely heavily on phone-number authentication (본인인증) tied to a Korean SIM and Korean ID document. Government portals, banks, and Coupang all require it. You can browse most listings without one, but you cannot complete bookings, transactions, or sign-ups. Get a Korean SIM in your first week, even a prepaid one.
Is Naver Map really better than Google Maps in Korea?
Yes, especially for walking directions, public transit, and small businesses. Google Maps is missing roughly half of the small restaurants and shops in any Korean neighborhood, and its walking directions in dense urban areas are unreliable. Naver Map (or KakaoMap) is what Koreans use and what delivery drivers use.
Should I learn to use Saramin and JobKorea, or stick to foreigner-targeted job boards?
If your Korean is intermediate or better, Saramin and JobKorea will multiply your options by roughly ten. Foreigner-targeted boards (KLiK, KOWORK, VIVISA, Seoulstart Jobs) are easier to use and screen for visa-friendly employers, but the listing pool is smaller. The realistic strategy for most foreign residents: foreigner-targeted sites first, plus Saramin or JobKorea once your Korean reading is functional.
Are these sites all free?
All the consumer-facing platforms listed here are free to browse and most are free to use. The exceptions are paid services like Wise (transfer fees), real-estate agencies (commission paid at lease signing), and concierge services like GoWonderfully (per-task fee).
How often is this list updated?
Quarterly. We re-verify every URL, drop sites that have shut down or stopped serving foreign residents, and add new ones based on what actually shows up in Reddit threads, Facebook groups, and reader emails. Last full review: May 2026.
Official sources used in this guide
Have feedback or a topic we should cover?
Email us with corrections, questions, or topic suggestions. Or leave a public review so other foreign residents find the site.
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