Vietnamese arrivals in Korea surpass Chinese for first time

Tourists crowd the streets of Myeong-dong in central Seoul on June 29, 2026. AJP Yoo Na-hyun

SEOUL, July 09 (AJP) - Viet Nam overtook China as the largest source of foreign arrivals in South Korea last year as Vietnamese workers continued to enter the country while more Chinese nationals left, government data showed Thursday.

Figures released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics showed 98,000 Vietnamese nationals arrived in South Korea in 2025, edging past 94,000 arrivals from China. A year earlier, China still led by a wide margin, with 112,000 arrivals compared with Viet Nam's 88,000.

China, long South Korea's largest source of foreign arrivals, also posted a net outflow of migrants in 2025 after recording a net inflow the previous year.

Visa data suggest the shift was largely driven by employment migration. Nearly half of Vietnamese arrivals entered on work visas, and that share continued to rise. Chinese arrivals, by contrast, relied more heavily on overseas Korean and student visas, while the share entering on employment visas declined.

 

Tourists gather at a street food stall in Myeongdong, Seoul, as a vendor prepares a snack on a griddle. Myeongdong's night market draws large crowds of foreign visitors seeking Korean street food. AJP Yoo Na-hyun

The shift also came as overall migration into South Korea slowed.

Foreign arrivals fell from a year earlier while departures increased, reducing the net inflow of foreign nationals to about half the previous year's level. The sharpest decline came in short-term visits, with visa-free entries dropping by nearly half. Combined with a smaller net inflow of South Korean nationals, net population growth from migration fell by more than 40 percent from a year earlier.

Elsewhere, Nepal and Uzbekistan continued to post solid net inflows, while Thailand's net outflow widened for a second straight year, reversing a trend seen in 2022 when it ranked among the countries with the largest net inflows.

South Koreans also showed a clear generational divide in migration patterns. People in their 20s, along with children under 10, remained more likely to leave the country than return. From their 30s onward, however, the pattern reversed, with people in their 50s recording the largest net inflow of any age group. Although the gap narrowed slightly from a year earlier, overall cross-border movement among South Korean nationals declined in 2025.