South Korea Transit B2 Visa

Question

I am holding an Indian passport and Australian permanent residency. I am planning to visit to Korea and Japan.

I have booked my flights to fly in and out from Seoul.

I am planning to obtain a Japan tourist visa. Then my plan is to fly from Australia to Seoul and gain entry on B2 Transit visit. I will be spending 4 Days in Seoul and the fly out to Japan. Based on my initial research this seems possible that I could enter Seoul on a transit B2 visa on the basis that I am flying from Australia to Japan via Seoul.

My plan then is to spend 4 days in Japan and fly back to Busan in South Korea and spend some time there and head back home (Australia).

So my questions are:

1. Since I will be coming back to South Korea from Japan can I rely to on B2 transit visa to re-enter?
2. whether this transit visa in only applicable while transiting through Seoul. Whether I can fly to Busan from Japan?

My flights are already locked in and then I decided to include Japan.

Any insight regarding the above will be appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

There are several transit-related visas with different conditions, but there's one which actually works for you.

The rules are (from Timatic via Emirates):

Passengers with a residence permit issued by Australia do not need a visa for a maximum of 30 days. They must:

• arrive from a third country and have a confirmed onward ticket for a flight within 30 days to the country that issued the permanent residence permit; or
• arrive from the country that issued the permanent residence permit and have a confirmed onward ticket for a flight to a third country within 30 days.

If passengers have a transit point before arriving in Korea (Rep.) or after leaving Korea (Rep.), the maximum stay in that transit country must be within 3 days.

For the outward flights, you are doing Australia-Korea-Japan, so you're in the second case. For the return flights, you are doing Japan-Korea-Australia, and you're in the first case.

You must have direct flights between Australia and Korea (and vice-versa), or if you stop somewhere in between it must be les than 3 days.

You can stay in Korea up to 30 days in each direction.

There is no restriction on the airport for this programme (there are other cases which are indeed limited to ICN and staying in the Seoul area, but they are not relevant here).