Additional D-8 Visa Approved case

2025-08-05BY Immikorea

Additional D8 Visa Personnel Approved

How many extra staff can be sponsored under a D-8 visa?

When a foreign investor establishes a company in Korea and receives a D-8 visa, one common question is ‘How many additional staff members can be sponsored with D-8 visas?’

There’s no clearly defined rule, but based on experience, we can say:

Approximately 1 additional person per KRW 100 million (≈USD 75,000) investment
For every 3 Korean employees, you can usually add 1 more foreign staff
High sales volume can help support additional visa applicants
Larger business scale or foreign headquarters also improves the chances

So theoretically, if you invest KRW 300 million and hire 9 Korean employees, you might assume you can apply for 3 additional D-8 visas.
But it’s not that simple.

Key factor of Visa approval

The key factor is what kind of work the applicant is actually going to do in Korea.

Let’s say three foreign investors each invest KRW 100 million and want to open an ice cream franchise in Korea.
They plan to hire Korean staff to operate the stores and only want to visit occasionally.
In that case, immigration may ask:

“What kind of role will these investors play in the business?”

If the investors aren’t directly managing or working, but instead just making investments and letting others run operations, their visa applications may be denied.

You don’t need to be deeply involved in day-to-day operations, but you must demonstrate a necessary, active role.
And if a foreign parent company is investing, the size of the company, its global sales, and Korean employee headcount can also affect the approval.

In this case, the applicant received approval for an additional D-8 visa because

The foreign investor had invested over KRW 1 billion
The company had 6 full-time Korean employees
The scale and nature of the business showed that an additional foreign manager was necessary