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 on Korea's official list of 35 tuberculosis high-risk countries (Ministry of Justice, 2026), so any stay of more than 90 days requires a TB certificate from a hospital designated by the Korean embassy.

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.

If you are going to a university language institute (D-4) at a university that is not certified by the Ministry of Justice, you cannot apply at the embassy directly: the institute first obtains a visa issuance certificate (사증발급인정서) from immigration in Korea, and you then collect your visa with its number. The same applies to exchange and visiting students at some lower-rated universities. Degree students apply at the embassy as usual — ask your institute which route applies to you.