Korea K-STA 10-Year Visa Fact Check: C-3-9 and C-3-91 Rules for 2026

The name "K-STA" does not appear on the visa.go.kr "visa types by purpose" page, the K-ETA site, the Hi Korea visa-free entry page, or the visa-notice list titles of the Korean Embassy in China and the Guangzhou Consulate General. What those sites do show are real multiple-entry visas under the code C-3-9. On 2026-03-27 the Wuhan Consulate General announced that, from 2026-03-30, some C-3-9 groups get 10 years of validity instead of 5.

So use the official codes, not the nickname: C-3-9 (general tourism) and C-3-91 (household registration in 14 listed cities). The rest of this page covers who qualifies, what the application costs, how long it takes, and how this differs from group visa-free entry and K-ETA.

Do not mix "K-STA" up with "K-STAR". The Ministry of Justice release of 2026-06-08 describes a "K-STAR visa track" (Korea-Science & Technology Advanced human-Resources). It extends a residence and permanent-residence fast track, which had applied to foreign master's and doctoral graduates of science and technology institutes, to 32 selected universities in total. Foreign talent recommended by a university president gets residence (F-2) status on graduation and may apply for permanent residence (F-5) after 3 years. It has nothing to do with tourist visas.

What the 2026-03-27 notice says

The Wuhan Consulate General notice of 2026-03-27 says that for some C-3-9 (multiple-entry) applicants, validity changes from 5 years to 10 years, effective 2026-03-30. The review fee is the same for 5-year and 10-year multiple-entry visas. Details sit in an attachment on the consulate's tourist-visa page. That page is dated 2026-05-27 and carries a 7-page guide (file 观光26.6.pdf).

Everything below about eligibility comes from that Wuhan guide. The guide itself says each consulate's required documents for each visa type may differ, so treat it as one mission's rules, not a national list. The older visa.go.kr entry-procedure page (no date shown) still describes multiple-entry validity as 1, 3 or 5 years. That page does not list 10 years; follow the 2026 mission notices.

Who gets the 10-year C-3-9?

The Wuhan guide lists seven groups:

1. Doctors, lawyers, professors, and legal representatives of state-owned or private companies. "Professor" means university professor, associate professor or assistant professor; other teaching staff can only get the 5-year visa. A private company needs registered capital of KRW 5 billion (about RMB 30 million) or more.
2. Holders of a bachelor's or higher degree from a four-year university in Korea (graduates included), or a master's or higher degree from Korea or abroad.
3. Chinese civil servants, and holders of an official ordinary passport.
4. Employees of an enterprise that has invested USD 1 million or more in Korea.
5. Staff at section-head level or above, or employees with at least 6 months of service, of the top-500 enterprises selected by the China Enterprise Confederation.
6. People who held a visa of an OECD country and have visited an OECD country. The guide recognizes 22: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, US, Canada, Australia and Finland.
7. The spouse, minor children, parents and spouse's parents of a holder of a valid 10-year multiple-entry short-term (C-3) visa. The guide's wording is "C-3 multiple-entry visa (10-year)". The guide also says family members of applicants in groups 1, 3, 4 and 5 can apply at the same time.

What about C-3-91?

C-3-91 is a 10-year multiple-entry visa with stays of 90 days or less, for people whose household registration is in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Wuhan, Changsha, Qingdao or Chongqing. The guide sends readers to an image attachment for each area's detailed standard; see the attachment image on the Wuhan Consulate General's tourist-visa page. Only second-generation ID cards are accepted, and you submit a copy of the household register plus the ID original and copy.

The 5-year C-3-9: examples

The Wuhan guide lists 13 groups for the 5-year visa (stay of 90 days or less). It also says associate professors and above can apply for the 10-year visa instead. A selection:

The full 13-group list is in the guide. The Embassy's visa-types document (page dated 2026-03-27) lists a "Sesame credit policy change" among its updates, and Guangzhou posted a notice titled "Change to the issuance process for the Sesame credit report for general tourism (C-3-9) visas" on 2026-08-05. The list shows only titles, so their contents are not summarized here.

If you fit a multiple-entry group but want a single-entry visa, you can skip the proof of financial ability. You still submit the documents that show you fit the group. Adults who fit no group submit two or more of these for a single-entry C-3-9: six months of bank statements, six months of tax certificates, six months of social-security statements. Minors aged 17 or over submit two or more of these documents from their parents, plus proof of the relationship to the parents. The Wuhan guide requires the bank statement to carry the bank's stamp, and its last transaction must fall within 20 days of the application date.

How to apply

Which mission. Applications go in principle to the mission that covers your household-registration place. The Shanghai Consulate General's 2019 page gives its area as Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. The Xi'an Consulate General's procedure page (no date shown) gives Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia, and says business visas go to the mission where the company is. If your household registration is outside the mission's area, Wuhan asks for temporary-residence proof and Xi'an asks for proof of residence in its area; Xi'an waives it for multiple-entry visa holders and for people who have applied there twice or more and visited Korea. Visa.go.kr says that where its document guidance and a mission's differ, the mission's standard applies.

Where. Individual tourist-visa applications go through the mission's visa application center. The Wuhan guide also lets a designated travel agency or an immediate family member apply and collect for you; group, school-trip, nursing-a-patient, bereavement and official visas go to the consulate.

• Shanghai center: 31st floor, No. 99 Xianxia Road, Changning District, Shanghai; tel. +86-400-8133-666; website visaforkorea-sh.com (Shanghai Consulate General page dated 2026-09-28).
• Wuhan center: tel. 4008-008-389 (Wuhan guide); website koreavisa-wh.com (Wuhan Consulate General tourist visa page). Its hours for individuals are 09:00 to 16:00, and for travel agencies 09:00 to 12:00.

The Shanghai Consulate General's 2019 page says individuals can apply at the center in person for all personal visas except C-3-2, and designated agencies can apply for all personal visas except group tourism. The visa.go.kr e-visa page (marked with a 2014.12.08 basis date) lists the visa types open to e-visa application; C-3-9 is not in that list. Use the mission's own process.

Documents. The Wuhan guide's common documents for C-3-9 are the passport, one 35 mm x 45 mm photo (white background, taken within the last six months), the visa application form, the ID original and copy, a copy of the whole household register, and temporary-residence proof where required. The guide also says submitted application documents must be valid within three months. Xi'an's page asks for a 2-inch (3.5 x 4.5 cm) white-background photo taken within 3 months, so photo age differs by mission.

Fees. Wuhan (page dated 2026-05-27) and Xi'an (no date shown) list the same RMB amounts. The USD column is the visa.go.kr base schedule.

The visa application center adds RMB 120 per application (Xi'an), or RMB 120 for regular processing and RMB 200 for expedited processing (Wuhan). The Wuhan guide says the visa fee is paid by Alipay or RMB cash only, with no card or bank transfer, and is not refunded, in full or in part, whether or not a visa is issued and whether or not the result matches what you applied for. It also says the consulate charges nothing beyond those fees. Visa.go.kr likewise says its fee is collected at application and not returned if the visa is refused.

From 2026-06-01, the Wuhan guide's list of visas eligible for expedited processing is C31, C33, C34, C38, C45 and the 10-year multiple-entry C-3-9 and C-3-91; for the 10-year visas you must submit a flight ticket for travel to Korea within 10 working days, plus an expedite reason form. The Xi'an page (no date shown) sets a different condition for expedited visas: the applicant needs a record of an earlier trip to Korea on the same visa type.

Processing time. Each mission publishes its own figure.

Other missions have changed their times recently too. The Embassy's notice list has a notice titled "Notice on changes to visa issuance time (effective 2026-07-20)" posted 2026-07-14, and Guangzhou's list has "Notice on changes to processing time by visa type" posted 2026-09-03. The lists show only titles, so no numbers are given here. The Embassy's list also carries "agency submission suspension" notices dated 2026-08-07, 2026-09-04, 2026-09-14 and 2026-09-23. Before you pay an agency or build a timeline, read your own mission's current notices.

After a refusal. The Wuhan guide says you wait 2 months before applying for the same visa type again (6 months for marriage-migration F-6-1 and residence F-2-3). The Xi'an page says you can reapply 2 months after a refusal (6 months for marriage visas), and that you can still apply if you need to enter for a humanitarian or similar reason. If another mission refused you in the last two months, the Wuhan guide says to reapply at the mission that refused unless there is a special reason. The Wuhan guide says the consulate cannot tell applicants the specific reason for a refusal. Nothing in these pages supports an approval rate or a guaranteed ten-year visa. For non-refundable flights and hotels, the safer plan is to wait for the result.

You can look up a result on visa.go.kr under "Inquiry/Issuance" with your passport number, English name and date of birth (Wuhan guide).

Visa-free entry for Chinese tour groups

The Ministry of Justice press release of 2025-09-07 announced a temporary visa-free scheme for Chinese tour groups, from 2025-09-29 to 2026-06-30. The conditions as written:

• Groups of 3 or more recruited by designated agencies: a domestic agency designated by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and an overseas agency designated by Korean missions in China.
• Stay up to 15 days, anywhere in Korea.
• The Ministry of Justice pre-checks group name lists. People it flags as high-risk are excluded and must get a visa from a mission.

The Ministry's 2026-06-08 release uses the same dates and reports 71,308 Chinese group tourists through April 2026. The Ministry's 2026-07-01 release is about something else: the waiver of the USD 15 (about KRW 22,500) visa fee for group tourists from China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, India and Cambodia, which it extends from "June this year" to 2026-12-31. The release page does not mention visa-free entry, so do not read it as an extension of that scheme. The Wuhan notice of 2026-03-27 also lists a waiver of group-tourism fees "until 2026-06-30"; the Ministry's release of 2026-07-01 is the later date.

The official period is 2025-09-29 to 2026-06-30. The 2025-09-07 release names no later date, the 2026-06-08 release repeats the same period, and the notice titles shown in the Korean Embassy in China's visa-notice list (dated 2026-03-05 to 2026-09-23) include none about extending or ending the scheme. Before you book a group trip that relies on the scheme, ask the tour operator and the Ministry of Justice or a Korean mission what applies on your travel dates. Guangzhou's notice list has one titled "Guidance on enquiries about the visa-free policy for Chinese tour groups" (2025-10-27); the list shows only its title.

Other group and transit rules. The Guangzhou page describes policies resumed in 2023: Chinese groups of 3 or more with a Japanese group visa can enter visa-free for 15 days when they travel from China through Korea to Japan, or from Japan through Korea back to China or on to a third country. Chinese groups of 3 or more coming from China (including Hong Kong and Macao) through Incheon, Gimpo, Gimhae, Cheongju, Muan, Daegu or Yangyang airport can stay up to 5 days in designated open tourist areas and then go on to Jeju, with a stay of 15 days. Both must be organized by designated agencies. Third-country transit (B-2, 30 days) and Incheon airport regular transit (up to 3 days) have their own conditions. These mainly serve travel agencies and transit passengers.

Jeju visa-free

The Hi Korea visa-free page (last revised 2024-12-30) says the Jeju scheme is open to nationals of every country except 23 designated by the Ministry of Justice. China is not among them. The conditions: you enter Jeju's airport or port directly, stay only on Jeju, and get B-2 status for up to 30 days. The Ministry's 2025-09-07 release confirms that Chinese nationals keep 30 days visa-free on Jeju, for individual and group travel.

"Directly" has a definition. The Korean Mission in Singapore's page "Visa-Free Entry to Jeju Island" (dated 2026-01-02) says a direct flight is one from overseas to Jeju without stopping elsewhere in Korea. Its examples: Singapore to Shanghai to Jeju counts; Singapore to Seoul or Busan to Jeju does not. That page is written for Singapore residents, so use it only for this definition.

K-ETA

K-ETA is a different thing from a visa and from "K-STA". The K-ETA site says it is for "citizens who can enter the Republic of Korea without a visa". The fee is KRW 10,000 (about USD 7 to 8), assessment is generally within 72 hours, and the only official channels are www.k-eta.go.kr and the K-ETA mobile app. It warns about look-alike sites that charge high fees.

A temporary exemption period is set. The K-ETA notice dated 2025-12-23 says the Ministry of Justice extended it by one year, from 2026-01-01 to 2026-12-31 (KST), for the countries and regions already exempt. The notice does not list them. Exempt travelers can still apply to get K-ETA benefits such as skipping the arrival card, and then pay the fee.

For Chinese passport holders, the pages say this much. Chinese citizens normally enter with a visa. FAQ Q58 (dated 2026-06-11) exempts "registered foreigners and VISA holders" from applying, along with travelers 17 and under or 65 and over on the date of entry, transfer passengers, cruise travelers and ABTC holders. Transfer passengers still need K-ETA if they must enter Korea because of an itinerary change or to reclaim baggage. The pages do not say whether Chinese visa-free group entrants need K-ETA. For direct flights to Jeju, the Singapore page's table sends nationals of K-ETA-eligible countries to "Apply for K-ETA" (unless their nationality is exempted from K-ETA) and lists "All other nationalities" under "Enter Jeju Island without visa or K-ETA", but it does not name China. Ask through the K-ETA "Ask Us" form, or ask the travel agency.

Which should you choose?

The first four rows summarize the Wuhan guide; the last two come from the Ministry of Justice release and the Hi Korea page. The table is not an official decision tree, and your own mission's list may differ. Go down the first four rows in order and stop at the first that fits.

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