Check Korean F-6 sponsor income before organizing the application
A Korean sponsor preparing an F-6 marriage-migrant visa needs to compare recognized income against the household-size threshold before deciding which evidence to collect and when to apply.
An unsupported or insufficient application can require more documents and, after refusal, delay the planned start of married life in Korea.
This calculator separates past-year pre-tax income, debt-adjusted qualifying assets and pooled direct-line family resources.
It estimates the additional net assets needed and compares sponsor-only resources with family pooling at the same household size.
Unverified evidence produces a pending conclusion alongside the numerical comparison, so a calculated amount is not confused with an accepted application.
Korea-based rules and scope
Uses Korean 2026 rules in Ministry of Justice Notice 2025-534, effective 2026-01-01 and verified on 2026-10-04.
The calculation covers income review and exemption candidates; it does not guarantee visa issuance or replace consulate evidence review.
2026 household-size income thresholds
A sponsor with no cohabiting direct-line relatives still forms a two-person household with the foreign spouse.
Add qualifying direct-line relatives in the same resident-registration household, including parents or children from a previous marriage where applicable.
Siblings are excluded, and the couple must not be counted twice.
Korean 2026 F-6 annual pre-tax sponsor income thresholds by household size| Household size | Annual threshold (KRW) |
|---|
| 2 people | 25,195,752 |
| 3 people | 32,154,216 |
| 4 people | 38,968,428 |
| 5 people | 45,340,314 |
| 6 people | 51,335,712 |
| 7 people | 57,090,900 |
| 8 people | 62,846,088 |
Eight or more people
Add KRW 5,755,188 for each person beyond seven.
The formula is 57,090,900 + (household size − 7) × 5,755,188.
Adding a parent to pool their income also increases household size and the required threshold, so check both effects together.
The 30-person software limit is not a statutory household cap.
What past-year income means
The notice compares annual pre-tax income for the year before the visa application date.
A newly contracted salary or expected future pay is not automatically income for that completed period.
Match the application date to the evidence period and avoid counting the same income appearing on several certificates more than once.
Six recognized categories
- Employment and business income, including agriculture, forestry and fisheries
- Property rental income
- Interest and dividend income
- Pension income
Common input mistakes
Other irregular income is excluded.
Do not substitute business turnover for recognized business income or monthly take-home pay for annual income.
Reconcile tax income certificates, withholding records, employment documents and bank transactions against consulate requirements.
Pension income is listed, but not every transfer or benefit automatically qualifies as pension income.
Acceptance of overseas income, alternative evidence and income inferred from health-insurance premiums requires separate guidance; this calculator does not estimate income from insurance premiums.
Convert qualifying net assets at 5%
Subtract debts and verify ownership
Enter documented values for deposits, insurance, securities, bonds, real estate or other accepted assets.
Deduct related debts and use only assets continuously held for at least six months from acquisition.
Net assets = assets − debts; asset income = eligible net assets × 5% = eligible net assets ÷ 20.
When debts exceed entered assets, this model uses zero net assets.
A large asset balance without verified holding history is not immediately added to recognized income.
The form distinguishes confirmed six-month ownership, ownership shorter than six months and unverified ownership.
Confirmed recent assets are excluded while other confirmed resources are compared; positive unverified assets are excluded and the conclusion remains pending.
If holding periods differ, enter only the qualifying documented group and the debts related to that group.
Additional assets are not immediately usable cash
Additional net assets means the amount beyond assets already recognized.
A new deposit or temporary borrowing does not immediately satisfy six-month continuous ownership or debt-adjusted net value.
Enter only the relevant ownership share and never count the same joint deposit both as sponsor and family property.
Pool direct-line family income and assets
When sponsor resources are insufficient, income or property from direct-line relatives in the same registered household can supplement them, and sponsor and family resources may be combined.
Verify the registered household and relationship and prepare evidence for the family income as well.
A relative who helps with living costs is not automatically an eligible pooling member.
Prepare the pooled records
Include the relative in household size before enabling pooling.
Enter the total of the same six recognized income categories for the past year, then apply debt deduction and holding-status checks separately to family assets.
Combine only values whose qualifying conditions are verified.
Read the comparison
Sponsor-only and pooled results use the same household-size threshold.
Unverified family eligibility excludes the family amounts from recognized resources and leaves the conclusion pending.
Disabling pooling removes stored family amounts from the calculation.
Applicant-spouse income and assets are outside this notice-based pooling model.
Some consulates may describe additional recognition routes, so ask separately about the foreign spouse’s Korean income or a repeat application involving the same spouse and earlier residence.
Three income-review exemption reasons
A child born to the couple
The child must have been born to the sponsor and invited spouse.
Check objective evidence such as the family relationship certificate issued in the child’s name.
Pregnancy alone or a child from a previous marriage is not automatically the same exemption; counting an earlier-marriage child in household size is a different check.
At least one year together abroad after legal marriage
The couple must have lived together abroad for at least one year after marriage, excluding de facto marriage, in circumstances preventing the sponsor from generating Korean domestic income in the past year.
The form requires legal marriage, at least 12 whole months of joint overseas living after marriage and the domestic-income condition.
Long overseas residence or difficulty proving income alone does not automatically qualify.
Special recognition by the Minister
This concerns cases specially recognized by the Minister of Justice as requiring an exemption.
An applicant’s belief that an exemption is needed is different from confirmed special recognition, so an unconfirmed claim remains pending.
All three reasons are evidence-based candidates; actual application and acceptance require consulate confirmation.
Step-by-step use and document preparation
- Confirm the intended application date and additional registered direct-line relatives.
This version applies income thresholds only to 2026 application dates.
- Organize past-year evidence by income category and eliminate duplicates.
Use annual pre-tax recognized amounts.
- Deduct related debts and verify at least six months of continuous asset ownership.
Keep unknown ownership pending.
- For pooling or exemption reasons, check household, relationship, period and special-recognition evidence.
Read numerical sufficiency and exemption applicability separately.
- Review the shortfall and additional assets, then save the assumptions as TXT or print them.
Ask the consulate about filing, additional evidence and timing, and check only tasks you have personally completed.
Calculations run on this screen; entered income and asset amounts are not sent to analytics events or a server.
The TXT includes financial inputs and confirmation states, so avoid adding personal identifiers and share it only with the intended reviewer.
Worked examples and additional asset calculation
The notice example: income plus assets
The two-person threshold is KRW 25,195,752.
Income of 20,000,000 plus 5% of eligible net assets of 120,000,000 gives asset income of 6,000,000 and total recognized income of 26,000,000.
The surplus is 804,248, so the numerical requirement is met.
Comparing the same resources against the three-person threshold of 32,154,216 changes the result.
No assets versus already eligible assets
For two people and income of KRW 18,000,000, the shortfall is 7,195,752 and total required net assets are 143,915,040.
If 100,000,000 of eligible net assets already exist, the conversion is 5,000,000, the remaining shortfall is 2,195,752 and additional assets needed are 43,915,040.
Do not confuse the total required assets with the additional amount.
One-KRW boundary and conservative display
Income of 25,195,751 and eligible assets of 19 produce only 0.95 KRW of asset income, leaving a shortfall.
Assets of 20 produce exactly 1 KRW and meet the threshold.
Recognized income and surplus are displayed rounded down to whole KRW, while shortfall is rounded up; fractional income is never rounded upward to create sufficiency.
Additional net assets use the exact remaining gap, rather than multiplying the rounded shortfall by 20, so the 19-KRW asset example needs one additional KRW.
This calculation convention does not replace consulate evidence acceptance or rounding review.
Reapplication after refusal and urgent exceptions
Article 9-5(3) of the Enforcement Rule of the Immigration Act generally allows another application after six months have elapsed from refusal.
Childbirth or another urgent need to enter Korea may permit an earlier application and must be discussed with the consulate.
Meeting the income threshold later does not automatically shorten that period.
Six calendar months at month end
A refusal on 2026-03-31 gives the ordinary reference date 2026-09-30.
A refusal on 2026-08-31 gives 2027-02-28, with a month-end adjustment.
The form compares this reference to the entered application date; confirm actual filing availability, refusal reasons and new evidence with the consulate.
A displayed 2027 reapplication date is calendar arithmetic, not an application of 2027 income thresholds.
Practical situations and result limits
Retirement, business income and remarriage
Reconcile recognized categories when wages decrease or income shifts toward pensions.
Business owners must separate turnover from recognized income and verify the finalized evidence period.
A remarried sponsor’s earlier-marriage child can increase household size, so review the higher threshold and pooling effect together.
Pending, shortfall and exemption candidates
Shortfall means entered recognized resources fall below the threshold; it is not a final entry refusal.
Pending means evidence or conditions have not been checked, so resolve missing items before relying on the amounts.
For an exemption candidate, comparison shortfalls are not amounts that must necessarily be covered if the exemption is accepted.
Marriage genuineness, earlier spouse invitations, communication, housing, health/criminal information and other requirements remain separate reviews.
Health-premium inferred income, foreign-spouse domestic income and same-spouse repeat-application exceptions are not decided automatically.
Each amount field supports zero to one trillion KRW; this is a software range, not a statutory monetary cap.
Recheck official rules for the intended filing date if regulations or evidence requirements change.
Frequently asked questions
Does meeting the F-6 income threshold guarantee a visa?
No: the numerical result assumes accepted evidence, while the consulate also reviews marriage genuineness, legal marriage, communication, housing, health and criminal information and other applicable requirements.
Why is a couple without other relatives a two-person household?
The sponsor and foreign spouse count as two people even before the spouse enters Korea; do not use a one-person threshold or add the couple again if they are already included in your count.
Should I enter my contracted salary or tax certificate amount?
Reconcile the recognized pre-tax income earned during the year before application against the relevant evidence; business turnover, monthly take-home pay and a different reporting period are not substitutes, and the consulate must confirm accepted documents and amounts.
Can a new deposit cover my shortfall immediately?
Only assets continuously held for at least six months qualify, so newly deposited funds do not immediately supplement income, and the additional-net-asset figure also assumes debt deduction, qualifying ownership and accepted evidence.
Can income from parents or siblings be pooled?
Direct-line relatives in the same registered household may contribute income and assets and must also be counted in household size; parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren can qualify, while siblings are excluded from this pooling model.
Is one year of living together abroad automatically exempt?
The notice requires joint overseas living after legal marriage, excludes de facto marriage, and requires that at least one year abroad prevented the sponsor from generating domestic Korean income in the past year; travel or premarital cohabitation alone does not satisfy those conditions.
Does pregnancy or a child from an earlier marriage qualify?
The child-based income exemption concerns a child born to the sponsor and invited spouse, not pregnancy alone or a child from an earlier marriage; a qualifying earlier-marriage child may still count in household size, while childbirth-related urgency is a separate early-reapplication consultation.
What should I do with a pending result or an earlier refusal?
Resolve missing income-period, ownership, family-eligibility or exemption-evidence checks before relying on the amount comparison; after refusal the ordinary rule is six calendar months, but childbirth or another urgent need to enter Korea requires separate consulate review.
Official sources, verification and your next action
Verified rule and notice
- Immigration Act Enforcement Rule, Article 9-5: Law ID 008494, MST 289833, current effective date 2026-09-15; paragraph 1 item 4, exemption proviso and paragraph 3.
- Ministry of Justice Notice 2025-534 PDF: administrative rule ID 73589, serial 2100000271652, effective 2026-01-01; pages 1–2 income/assets, page 3 evidence, page 4 income exemptions and page 6 evidence and commencement.
Current status and effective dates were checked through the Ministry of Government Legislation OPEN API, and the attachment returned by the API was read directly.
Verification date: 2026-10-04; income thresholds can change annually.
Recheck the applicable year, asset and exemption conditions and the latest local consulate document instructions before filing.
Keep the assumptions with the documents
Enter actual resources and confirmation states above, then keep the TXT or printed record with your evidence.
If short, review acceptable supplementary evidence and timing; if an exemption reason applies, ask the consulate with objective supporting documents.
Only you can confirm that an application or reapplication has actually been submitted.