Divorce in Korea on an F-6 Visa: Can I Stay After the Marriage Ends?

Divorce is painful in any country. But if you live in Korea on an F-6 marriage visa, it arrives with a second question that most people are completely unprepared for: after the marriage ends, can you stay? Many F-6 holders assume the answer is an automatic no — that divorce means packing up a life, a job, sometimes a child's school, and leaving. That assumption is wrong, and acting on it too quickly can close doors that Korean law actually leaves open.

I am Jaewon Lee, an attorney in Seoul. A significant part of my practice is family and immigration matters for foreign residents, and this guide walks through what actually happens to an F-6 visa when a marriage ends in divorce.

Does divorce automatically end my F-6 status?

Not on the day of the divorce, no. Your permission of stay runs until the date printed on your residence card. The real question arrives at your next extension: an F-6 visa exists because of the marriage, and once the marriage is gone, the original basis for the visa is gone with it. Extensions of stay are not automatic — they are granted at the discretion of the immigration authority under Article 25 of the Immigration Act — so what matters is whether you still fit one of the F-6 categories, or can move to a different status.

Here it helps to know how the law actually defines the F-6 visa. The Enforcement Decree of the Immigration Act sets out three groups of people who qualify: first, the spouse of a Korean national; second, a parent who is raising a child born from a marriage (including a de facto marriage) with a Korean national; and third, a person who was living in Korea in a marriage with a Korean spouse but can no longer maintain a normal marital relationship for reasons not attributable to them — the spouse's death or disappearance being the named examples, but not the only ones. In practice these are often called F-6-1, F-6-2 and F-6-3. Divorce ends the first category. The second and third are precisely where a divorced F-6 holder may still belong.

Can I stay if I am raising my child in Korea?

If you have a child from the marriage and you are the one raising that child after the divorce, the second category is built for your situation. What immigration looks at is the reality of care: that the child was born from your marriage with a Korean national, and that you are actually bringing the child up. This is one of several reasons why the custody and child-rearing arrangements in your divorce are not just family-law questions but immigration questions. How custody is recorded in the divorce judgment or agreement, where the child lives, who takes the child to school and to the doctor — the paper trail of everyday parenting becomes the evidence base for your stay.

If this is your situation, do not leave the custody terms vague in order to finish the divorce faster. A clear, documented arrangement protects both your child and your status.

What if the divorce was not my fault?

This is the category that generates the most anxiety and the most misinformation. The third F-6 group covers a person who cannot maintain a normal marriage for reasons not attributable to them. For years, the practical dispute was what happens when a marriage collapses because of the Korean spouse's conduct — abuse, abandonment, an affair — and who has to prove what.

The Supreme Court of Korea answered this in a landmark decision of July 4, 2019 (case No. 2018Du66869). The Court held that this category includes a foreign spouse whose marriage broke down mainly through causes attributable to the Korean spouse, and — critically — that when the immigration authority refuses an extension on the ground that the foreign spouse was at fault, it is the authority that bears the burden of proving that the main responsibility for the breakdown lay with the foreign spouse. In other words, the law does not start from the assumption that a divorced foreign spouse must leave.

But a burden of proof rule in litigation is cold comfort if you have no records at all. In practice, what decides these cases is evidence created during the marriage and the divorce itself: what the divorce judgment or court mediation record says about why the marriage ended, counseling and medical records, police reports, messages, the testimony of people who knew the marriage. This leads to the single most important practical warning in this article: an uncontested divorce by agreement leaves no official record of why the marriage ended. Finishing quietly and quickly can feel like the dignified choice, but if nothing anywhere records what happened, proving later that the breakdown was not your fault becomes far harder. Before you agree to a fast consensual divorce, think about what the file will say about you in an immigration review a year later.

What are my options if neither category fits?

Not every divorce leaves a path to keep the F-6. If there is no child you are raising and the breakdown cannot be said to be mainly the other side's responsibility, the realistic conversation becomes a change of status: employment-based visas if your qualifications and job fit one, study, or other residence tracks depending on your circumstances. Which of these is available is a fact-specific question, and the timing matters — options are widest while your current permission of stay is still valid, and they narrow sharply once it lapses. If your extension date is approaching and your marriage is ending, get advice before the date, not after.

One last point. Everything above concerns your right to stay; it says nothing about property division, child support or the divorce itself, each of which has its own rules and deadlines. In an international divorce these two tracks — the family case and the immigration file — have to be planned together, because choices made in one quietly decide the other.

한국어 요약

저는 오늘 결혼이민(F-6) 비자로 체류하시던 중 이혼을 맞으신 외국인이 한국에 계속 체류할 수 있는 경우를 정리해 드렸습니다.
이혼을 하시더라도 체류자격이 그날로 사라지는 것은 아니지만, 다음 연장 심사에서 체류의 근거를 새로 소명하셔야 합니다.
국민인 배우자와의 사이에서 출생한 자녀를 양육하고 계신 분은 이혼 후에도 결혼이민 자격을 이어갈 길이 있습니다.
대법원은 2019년 7월 4일 선고 판결에서, 혼인 파탄의 주된 책임이 외국인 배우자에게 있다는 점의 증명책임은 연장을 거부하는 행정청에 있다고 판단하였습니다.
다만 협의이혼으로 아무 기록 없이 절차를 끝내시면 나중에 귀책 없음을 증명하기 어려워지므로, 이혼 절차 단계에서 미리 전문가와 상의하시기를 권해 드립니다.

If you are facing a divorce in Korea on an F-6 visa — or planning one — you can reach my office through lawyerseoul.com.

Jaewon Lee, Attorney at Law (Joye Law)

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