D-2 Student Visa Korea Guide 2026: Subcodes, Financial Proof (₩20M Seoul / ₩16M Regional), Certified Universities, ARC in 90 Days — Estimator

The D-2 is Korea's degree-student visa and the D-4-1 its language-course visa, and since July 2023 both are assessed on a bank balance stated in won: ₩20,000,000 for a degree at a university in the Seoul capital region, ₩16,000,000 elsewhere; ₩10,000,000 / ₩8,000,000 for language study. If your university is one of the 181 certified for degree programs (or 123 for language courses), the visa is normally issued on the standard admission letter alone. There is no statutory TOPIK minimum in the visa rules, you register for an ARC within 90 days of landing, and 20 universities are under a visa-issuance restriction for the 2026 fall and 2027 spring semesters. The estimator below gives the balance you need and a realistic first-year budget next to it.

Which visa: the D-2 and D-4 subcodes

The code on your visa sticker decides what you may do later — part-time hours, when health insurance starts, whether a D-10 job-seeker visa is open to you — so know which one you are applying for.

Code	Who	Notes
D-2-1	Associate degree, 전문학사 (jeonmun haksa)	2–3 year colleges
D-2-2	Bachelor's	the standard undergraduate visa
D-2-3 / D-2-4	Master's / PhD	from D-2-4 (PhD) upward, financial proof is commonly waived in practice (not a written rule — about)
D-2-5	Research	post-doc and visiting researchers at universities
D-2-6	Exchange student	one or two semesters
D-2-7	Work-study linked degree, 일학습연계 (ilhakseup yeongye)	vocational track; details vary by program
D-2-8	Short-term visiting student
D-4-1	Korean language course at a university institute, 어학당 (eohakdang)	max 2 years of language study in total
D-4-7	Foreign-language course	rare

Each grant is for up to two years; you extend from inside Korea. A D-4-1 needs enrolment in at least two consecutive ten-week terms — Part 6 covers the language institutes themselves.

Financial proof: in won, since July 2023

The Ministry of Justice — Immigration, 출입국 (churipguk) — switched the thresholds from dollars to won on July 3, 2023 and split them by region:

Program	Capital region (Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi)	Everywhere else	What it represents
Degree (D-2)	₩20,000,000	₩16,000,000	one year of tuition plus living costs
Language (D-4-1)	₩10,000,000	₩8,000,000	about six months of costs

The document is a bank balance certificate, 잔고증명서 (jango jeungmyeongseo), in your name or a parent's, usually issued within a month of the application (Korea University's language institute, for example, asks for ₩10,000,000 issued within one month). Many consulates expect the balance to have been held for about three months rather than deposited the week before; that practice is not written into the rule, so treat "three months" as the safe assumption. A scholarship letter — GKS (Part 2) or a university award — replaces the balance for the amount it covers.

Run the estimator with the defaults — a degree in Seoul, average tuition, a one-room near campus, ₩600,000 a month for everything else — and the first year comes to about ₩23,930,140 against a required balance of ₩20,000,000: tuition ₩7,270,300, housing ₩8,508,000, NHIS ₩951,840, living ₩7,200,000. Switch to a language course at a regional university with four terms at ₩1,400,000, a goshiwon and the same living budget and the year is about ₩18,075,920 against a ₩8,000,000 threshold. The threshold is what the officer checks; the budget is what you spend.

Certified universities, and the 20 that are restricted

Every February the Ministries of Education and Justice publish the list of certified universities, 인증대학 (injeung daehak), — 181 for degree programs and 123 for language courses in 2026. For an applicant, certification means the visa is assessed on the standard admission letter, 표준입학허가서 (pyojun iphak heogaseo), issued by the university, with the financial documents waived as a rule (nationals of countries the Ministry of Justice designates still submit them), faster processing, and priority in GKS placement. Certification is not a TOPIK exemption — the university still applies its own language requirement.

At the other end, 20 universities (16 degree-granting, 4 language institutes) with high overstay rates are barred from having new student visas issued for one year, from the 2026 fall semester through the 2027 spring semester. If a university you are considering will not confirm its certification status in writing, ask why. The thresholds — overstay rates of 1–2% for degree programs and 8–12% for language courses — and the joint inspections twice a year are set out in the February 12, 2026 announcement.

TOPIK and the visa

The visa rules contain no language requirement; the admission letter does. Certified universities are measured on the share of new students with TOPIK 3 or above (40% in 2026, rising to 60% by 2030) and enrolled students with 4 or above, and the restricted universities face tighter scrutiny of every file, so in practice a Korean-taught undergraduate program wants level 3 and a graduate program level 4. English-taught programs substitute an English score. Part 1 has the dates; note that the Speaking test does not help here.

After you land: registration, address, extensions

Obligation	Deadline	Fee (2026)
Foreign resident registration → ARC, 외국인등록증 (oegugin deungnokjeung)	within 90 days of entry	about ₩30,000
Change of address	within 15 days	free
Change of school or passport	within 15 days	—
Extension of stay	apply before expiry (about four weeks ahead is the norm)	about ₩60,000 in person, ₩50,000 online (HiKorea)
Change of status (e.g. D-4-1 → D-2, D-2 → D-10)	before the current status expires	about ₩100,000

Missing the 90-day registration is an offense (up to one year's imprisonment or a ₩10 million fine); a late address report is a fine of up to ₩1 million. The consular visa fee itself varies by nationality and single/multiple entry — check the consulate's own fee table rather than a forum. Processing runs from a few days to a few weeks after the university obtains the visa issuance confirmation, so apply four to six weeks before the semester. The ARC is also what you need for a bank account and a phone contract; the ARC article walks through the appointment.

Two rules that bite later: you cannot leave Korea while an extension is being processed and an extension is capped at six months if you owe health-insurance premiums or tax (NHIS for students).

How the estimator works

1. Required balance = the July 2023 threshold for your program and region: ₩20,000,000 / ₩16,000,000 (degree) or ₩10,000,000 / ₩8,000,000 (language).
2. First-year total = tuition + housing + NHIS + living. Monthly housing options are multiplied by 12 (one-room: rent + utilities; goshiwon and regional one-room: midpoint of the range); dorm options are the midpoint of the per-semester range × 2.
3. NHIS = ₩79,320 × 12 months on a D-2, × 6 months on a D-4-1 (enrolment starts after six months).
4. The result compares the two and says which is larger; the deposit on a one-room (₩10,000,000 is the Dabang survey basis) is not included because you get it back.

Common mistakes

• Quoting the dollar thresholds. US$20,000 / 18,000 / 9,000 were retired in July 2023; the rule is ₩20M / ₩16M and ₩10M / ₩8M.
• Assuming certification waives TOPIK. It waives paperwork, not the university's language requirement.
• Counting "16 restricted universities". It is 20 — 16 degree programs plus 4 language institutes.
• Registering late. 90 days is a hard deadline with criminal penalties, not a suggestion.
• Planning a third year of language study. Two years is the ceiling; move to a degree or leave.

Next: the rules for earning some of that budget back — part-time work on a D-2 or D-4.