Renew visa, outgoing flight cancelled?
 

I have never stayed in a country long enough where I've HAD to leave to get my visa renewed. My outbound flight is on the 22nd of December which is 2 days before my visa expires. I was just wondering, what would happen if my outbound flight was on the 24th and say, all flights were cancelled that day for some reason like weather or a KE pilots strike. Who knows but in any case, I wouldn't be able to leave Korea. Just curious.

The wisest thing would be to proactively go to immigration before your visa expires and explain your predicament; you'll probably get an extension of a few days on the spot. Talking your way out of it after it's already expired may be more difficult, especially if Korea's attitude to overstaying is anything like Japan's...

Thanks for the response. I figure with 2 days to spare, I'm cutting it okay but someone brought it up in a conversation so I was curious. Hopefully, I won't have to use your advice but thanks for it!

I thought customs give people with less than 6 month expiration the 3rd degree. How did the OP slide by with 2 days left?

The OP is talking about his visa, not his passport. He's already in Korea, the Southern one I supposed. ;)

There may be exceptions to this, but usually a visa only has to be valid when you enter a country, not when you leave it. When you enter a country, your passport gets stamped "admitted until xx/xx/xx". Your "admitted until" date can be after the expiration of your visa. As long as you don't overstay your "admitted until" date, you're fine.

It's not clear to me from the original post whether the poster is already in-country, or whether the date that's about to pass is the visa expiration or the "admitted until" date. If you're already in-country and the "admitted until" date is about to pass, I'd go to immigration and explain the situation before the "admitted until" date passes. If you're not in-country, a cancelled flight won't give you any leeway as to a visa expiration date for entering.

Disclaimer: I'm not an immigration lawyer anywhere, certainly not in Korea. I'm sure the above is usually the case, but you should verify that it applies in Korea in particular before you rely on it.

Get Out.
 

I've been bouncing in and out of Korea for the last ten years. There is a great deal of difference between what should be done and what is done.

You can go to Immigration and have your stay extended for circumstances such as flight cancelations.

Don't do it.

The wait may be incredible, and you may find that Immigration doesn't care that KE or OZ is on strike. It depends entirely on the mood of the official, it seems, whether you are quickly extended, or placed into the higher tiers of hell.

If your flight is canceled and the duration of stay is up, leave the country, cycle to Fukuoka in Japan, come back in, and you'll have either 90 or 30 days to get things straightened out.

Under no circumstances assume that because of a strike Immigration will understand the problem and ignore an overstay. There is a great push on now in Korea to solve the "immigrant" problem, with guest workers and illegal teachers heading the list. If you are on a 90 day visa and overstay, it will be assumed that you have been working illegally, and then the real fun starts.

I clear Korea Immigration on a weekly basis, and have found them to be amazingly nice, fast, courteous, but once something goes wrong, they tend to follow the rule book exactly. It's best to make sure that they never have a reason to look at you closely.

Don't take this as legal advice, merely based on the two hundred or so trips I've made into Korea.

M