Jeju Island to Launch "Jeju Style" digital nomad visa after a successful pilot
Jeju Island, a popular destination in South Korea, is taking steps to launch a dedicated digital nomad visa to attract remote workers seeking a "workcation" experience.
Announced on November 14, 2024 by the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, this initiative seeks to allow remote workers to live and work on the island without the constraints of traditional visa requirements.
Since 2002, Jeju Island has operated a visa-free system under the Special Act on the Establishment of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province and the Development of a Free International City. This system allows foreign nationals from most countries to stay on the island for up to one month without a visa. The proposed "Jeju-style" visa would expand on this foundation, integrating workcation benefits to attract digital professionals and make the island even more accessible.
To gauge interest and gather feedback, the province hosted a "Jeju Workation with Global Digital Nomads" event from October 31 to November 7, 2024, which welcomed over 30 digital nomads from 14 countries, including the United States, France, and Australia. Participants worked from shared office spaces and engaged in local activities such as hiking the Olle Trail and tangerine picking.
Feedback from the event was overwhelmingly positive:
- 100% of participants expressed interest in returning to Jeju.
- 77% of participants hoped to stay for extended periods exceeding three weeks.
Kim In-young, director general of Jeju’s Economic Vitality Bureau, stated:
"In line with the national government’s policy to attract foreign talent, we plan to ease visa issuance criteria and actively recruit global digital professionals. Workation, as a new lifestyle in the digital age, will become a growth engine for Jeju."
Jeju Island joins Asian countries like Japan, Thailand, and Malaysia in offering digital nomad visas. More notably, this initiative aligns with South Korea's broader efforts to attract digital nomads, highlighted by its new Digital Nomad (Workcation) Visa introduced on January 1, 2024.
However, the requirements for the national visa are more stringent and the proposed Jeju-style digital nomad visa aims to alleviate some of these strict criteria by leveraging their existing visa-free system, making this permit more accessible to foreigners.
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