E-7 Visa for a Cook in Korea: Can Your Restaurant Sponsor?

A Japanese restaurant in South Korea can sponsor a chef from Japan on the E-7 visa, occupation "chefs and cooks" (now code 451, formerly 441), if it has at least 60 m² of floor area, paid at least ₩3 million of VAT last year, and has two or more Korean staff on employment insurance. Those three figures also set how many foreign cooks you may employ. The 2026 salary floor is ₩25.89 million a year.

1. Five minute check: can your restaurant sponsor?

We read the Ministry of Justice manual published on HiKorea (visa manual dated 1 September 2026, residence manual dated 18 September 2026). The chefs and cooks occupation is classed as semi-professional (E-7-2). Japanese cuisine chefs and cooks are named as eligible. Korean cuisine, snack, coffee and traditional tea cooks are not.

Eligible employers are tourist hotels, tourist restaurants, restaurants specialising in foreign tourists, airline catering divisions, and foreign cuisine restaurants without a tourism designation that meet all of the minimums below. A Japanese restaurant counts as a "general restaurant" in the manual's table.

Tick all three and you pass the entry test. Two further points can still sink a file. First, the manual says immigration may refuse even a restaurant that meets the minimums on paper if it has no realistic foreign customer base and appears to want cheap foreign cooks. Second, a business with a designated tourist facility status (관광편의시설업) needs only 50% of the floor area minimum, so 30 m², provided VAT and Korean staff tests are met.

2. How many foreign cooks you may employ

The allowance is the average of three separate allowances (floor area, VAT, Korean staff), and it may never exceed the Korean staff allowance. The first six columns of the manual's table for general restaurants:

The table continues to 12 cooks at 700 m², ₩50 million VAT, ₩1.2 billion sales and 12 Korean staff. VAT paid is the primary test; the sales column is used where refunds or exemptions make VAT unreliable.

Worked example. A 100 m² Japanese restaurant that paid ₩8 million VAT last year and has six Korean staff on the register: floor area gives 3, VAT gives 4, Korean staff give 6. The average is 4.3, below the Korean staff cap of 6, so the allowance is about 4. The manual does not print a rounding rule for this table, so plan on the lower whole number.

Two deductions apply. Any foreign worker who left your employment irregularly, or switched status after unpaid wages, is deducted from your allowance for one year. And wedding halls, outside catering and event businesses are restricted because the work is not continuous.

3. New openings: what the rules allow

Older summaries of the rules, including an earlier version of this page, say a new restaurant cannot get round the three month insurance rule. The current manual says otherwise. Where the opening date is within three months of the application, the employment insurance period is not applied, and the same goes for a restaurant that already meets the Korean staff minimum and is applying for an additional or replacement cook.

For VAT, a new business with no history may be assessed on the average VAT of similar businesses of similar size, or on its monthly VAT to date converted to a year, or on the sales tax base. So a new opening can file, but it is capped by its Korean headcount: with two Korean staff, the answer is one foreign cook, whatever the floor area.

4. What the chef must prove

The routes open to a Japanese cuisine chef trained outside Korea:

Experience counts from the date the licence was obtained. Licences, employment certificates and training certificates must carry an apostille (Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues these) or a Korean consulate's confirmation. Five-star hotels that select the chef themselves may skip that step.

Start collecting employment certificates from former employers in Japan while you are still interviewing. Our guide to employment certificates and translation has templates.

5. The salary floor

The contract must state monthly pay against working hours, and both the hourly and monthly amounts must meet the minimum wage. At renewal, immigration checks last year's income record against the wage floor, so a chef paid below it can lose the right to stay.

In practice the floor is not your offer. The 2026 floor is almost exactly the minimum wage for a full time year, and the 2027 minimum wage alone comes to about ₩26.8 million. Pay bands for Japanese cuisine chefs, and a method for setting the offer, are on our Seoul page.

6. Timeline from decision to first shift

The manual does not publish processing times. The durations below are planning allowances, not official times. Confirm them with your immigration office.

7. Hiring a chef already on an E-7

Chefs and cooks are one of the occupations where a change of workplace needs prior permission, not just a report. The residence manual allows it mainly where the original employer closed, had wage arrears or business decline, or consents to the move. Consent is not needed where the chef completed the contract term or the employer broke the contract. A chef who was dismissed or quit through their own fault and has no release from the original employer must apply afresh.

Your own restaurant must still pass the tests above and have room in its allowance. A cook may also work at an additional workplace, but hours there cannot exceed a third of the hours at the main workplace.

8. What to do this week

1. Measure the floor area as the documents show it, not as you remember it.
2. Get last year's VAT tax base certificate from the tax office.
3. Print the employment insurance register and count Korean staff paid at least the minimum wage.
4. Work your allowance from the table in section 2.
5. Ask immigration or your agent, in writing, how a Japanese 調理師免許 is graded.
6. Tell shortlisted chefs to request dated employment certificates from every former employer.

Send this, in Korean, to the immigration office that will handle your file or to your agent, and keep the written reply:

General information from the Ministry of Justice manuals as published in September 2026, not legal or immigration advice. The manuals change several times a year and immigration officers apply discretion; confirm with the immigration office or a licensed administrative agent before acting.