Study in Korea from Vietnam

In Hanoi, visa applications go through a dedicated visa application center rather than the embassy directly. In Ho Chi Minh City, the Consulate General handles them itself. Either way, students in the south don't need to travel north to apply.

Vietnam is reported to be on Korea's tuberculosis high-risk country list, which would require a TB certificate from a designated clinic for any visa of 90 days or longer. Confirm the current list and requirement at HiKorea before you apply.

As of September 2026, Vietnam has just become a party to the Hague Apostille Convention (it entered into force on 11 September 2026), so Vietnamese diplomas and transcripts issued from that date on can be authenticated with a single apostille from Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, instead of the older multi-step consular-legalization process. Because this is so new, confirm directly with your target university whether they're already accepting apostilled documents from Vietnam.

Rather than a simple personal bank balance certificate, Korean missions in Vietnam have required a locked deposit product — historically around US$15,000 held for 3 months for a D-2 degree programme (roughly US$5,000 for D-4 language study) — and more recently a '지급유보' (payment-hold) savings product offered by banks such as Woori and Hana specifically for this purpose, transferring funds from a branch in Vietnam to a branch in Korea. Ask your bank for a 'Korea study deposit' or '유학 지급유보' product by name, and confirm the exact current amount with the embassy before you commit funds — this is one of the most misunderstood parts of the Vietnamese application.

VSAK (the Vietnamese Students' Association in Korea), established in 2007, is the main community for Vietnamese students across Korea and is active on Facebook.