🇨🇦 Canada vs 🇰🇷 South Korea: Digital Nomad Visa Compared

Canada has no visa officially called a "digital nomad visa". South Korea offers Digital Nomad (Workation) Visa - F-1-D. Every figure below comes from each country's own sourced, dated fiche - compare income, duration, tax, family rules, fees and processing time before you decide. South Korea's initial visa period runs longer than Canada's: 12 months versus 6.

🇨🇦 Canada🇰🇷 South Korea

Minimum income

TBD

Canada has no digital nomad visa and visitor status carries no published minimum income - officers require proof of 'sufficient funds' for the trip plus evidence you will leave (ties to your home country), assessed case by case rather than against a fixed threshold. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-11: IRCC published an operational update, 'Temporary residents: Digital nomads' (2026-05-26), tightening the documentation burden - visitor-visa applicants and border officers must now affirmatively confirm income is earned ENTIRELY outside Canada (reversing 2023 guidance that no extra documentation was needed), and accompanying family members must each hold their own independent status rather than being automatically covered. Corroborated by CIC News and other specialist outlets; the underlying canada.ca bulletin could not be fetched directly this pass. Does not change the 'no fixed income figure' fact, only the proof required. A separately-circulating claim that visitor stays were extended from 6 months to 1 year (dated 2026-01-05) could not be traced to any IRCC/canada.ca source - treated as unverified, not incorporated.

105,000,000 KRW / year

Per the 2026-07-07 Ministry of Justice announcement (visa relaunched as permanent 2026-06-30, replacing the pilot's flat 2x-GNI rule with this tiered formula). The rule is denominated in WON, not dollars: it keys off the Bank of Korea's published prior-year per-capita GNI (KRW 52.41 million for 2025), so 2x = ~KRW 105 million and the relaxed tier = ~KRW 52.4 million. This resolves the USD 65,800-vs-73,926 split tracked here since 2026-07-29: both were conversions of the SAME KRW 105 million rule at different exchange rates (~1,596 and ~1,420 KRW/USD respectively), not competing thresholds - which is why neither could ever be sourced to a distinct official figure. Publishing the won amount removes that FX artifact; any dollar equivalent drifts with the rate (the site's own FX table, used only by the eligibility shortlister, was itself found stale during this same pass and refreshed - see lib/matcher.ts). RE-CHECKED 2026-08-03/05: Korea Herald's post-launch visa Q&A independently corroborates a third tier - ages 18-34 intending to live in Greater Seoul need 1.5x GNI (~KRW 78.6 million) - and notes holders who relocate into Greater Seoul after approval must meet the higher threshold at renewal or move back out within 6 months. Not marked 'official' - hikorea.go.kr, immigration.go.kr and mofa.go.kr all still 403 on direct fetch, so no primary Korean-government page has been read. The full official multiplier table for other intermediate age/region combinations remains unpublished anywhere found - treat the three tiers above as the load-bearing ones, not a complete table.

source · verified 2026-08-06

Visa duration

6 months

Most visitors are authorized up to 6 months per entry at the border officer's discretion (sometimes less, occasionally more); the day you must leave by is stamped in your passport or shown in your eTA/visa record. Staying longer requires applying to extend visitor status from inside Canada before the authorized period ends - not a renewal in the country-hopping sense. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-23: IRCC's own digital-nomad-specific operational bulletin ('Temporary residents: Digital nomads', 2026-05-26) states a digital nomad 'only needs visitor status to relocate to Canada for up to 6 months at a time' - directly corroborating this 6-month figure from what appears to be the bulletin's own language (search-indexed excerpt; canada.ca itself blocked to direct fetch). A separately-circulating claim that CBSA officers now have general discretion to grant visitors up to 1 year per entry (dated 2026-01-05) remains reported only via immigration-consultancy sources, not a primary IRCC/CBSA page or mainstream press - stays unpromoted, and this finding argues against it applying to digital-nomad status specifically even if true for other visitor categories.

source · verified 2026-07-25

12 months, renewable

1-year initial grant, renewable annually, extended from a 2-year to a 3-year total cap per a 2026-07-07 Ministry of Justice announcement - corroborated across 5+ independent secondary sources (incl. a EY Global tax alert and an immigration law firm), not yet read on an official Korean government page directly (hikorea.go.kr/immigration.go.kr/mofa.go.kr all 403 on direct fetch).

source · verified 2026-07-25

Tax regime

Under 183 days in Canada in a calendar year, without significant residential ties, keeps you a non-resident for tax purposes - taxed only on Canadian-source income, not your foreign remote salary. Reaching 183 days in the year makes you a deemed resident, taxed on worldwide income.

source · verified 2026-07-25

Remote income earned for a non-Korean employer or client - the only kind the F-1-D visa permits - is not taxed by Korea for the common case (physical presence under 183 days/year). Employees who do qualify as tax resident can elect an optional 19% flat tax rate instead of Korea's progressive brackets; freelancers and sole proprietors are not eligible for that flat rate.

Multiple independent tax-focused outlets (Greenback Tax Services, Bright!Tax, krinsider, Nomad Tax Guide) converge on Korea not taxing foreign-sourced remote income while the visa's own ban on Korean employers holds. Several of the same sources flag that guidance on the >183-day resident-status threshold is still evolving/unsettled - noted here rather than presented as resolved. Not marked 'official': hikorea.go.kr/immigration.go.kr/mofa.go.kr still unreachable on direct fetch, so this is search-result-synthesized secondary reporting, not a primary Korean-government page read.

source · verified 2026-08-16

Family (spouse / children)

Spouse + children admitted

Spouse and children can accompany you as visitors, but each family member generally needs their own visitor visa or eTA and must independently show sufficient funds and ties.

source · verified 2026-07-25

Spouse + children admitted

Independent secondary coverage (Y-Axis, Bright!Tax, VisasUpdate, SharedHomies, Trenity Consultants) consistently reports that a spouse and minor children may accompany the primary F-1-D applicant as dependents, that only the primary applicant must meet the income threshold (dependents are not separately income-tested), that dependents cannot work in Korea, and that each dependent needs their own private health insurance. No source reports a distinct per-dependent income uplift for this program, so upliftPerDependent is left unset rather than guessed. Not marked 'official' - hikorea.go.kr/immigration.go.kr/mofa.go.kr still unreachable on direct fetch.

source · verified 2026-08-16

Application fees

100 CAD

CAD 100 visitor-visa (TRV) fee applies to nationals who need a visa, plus a CAD 85 biometrics fee (CAD 185 total). Nationals of visa-exempt countries arriving by air instead need only the eTA, CAD 7. Which route applies depends on nationality - confirm on the IRCC eTA/visa-exempt country list.

source · verified 2026-07-25

90 USD

USD 90 for the initial 1-year multiple-entry visa application, plus 60,000 KRW (~USD 41) per annual extension up to the 3-year total cap. Three independent secondary sources converge on this figure (Korea Herald's post-launch visa Q&A, an EY Global tax alert, an Envoy Global news alert), replacing the previously-scattered range (~USD 45-100 depending on nationality/fee type) - a materially more specific and better-corroborated figure than before. Not marked 'official' - hikorea.go.kr/immigration.go.kr/mofa.go.kr still 403 on direct fetch, so no primary Korean-government page has been read; by-nationality fee variance may still apply and is not ruled out. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-19: no comprehensive by-nationality fee table found this pass either - the general pattern (USD 90 default; USD 45 flat reciprocity fee applying to ALL Korean visa categories for US nationals, not F-1-D-specific; CAD 121.50 via the Canada consulate's F-1-D page) is reconfirmed, not contradicted. No material change.

source · verified 2026-08-06

Health insurance

Not required

source · verified 2026-07-25

Required - Private health insurance covering medical treatment AND repatriation, minimum KRW 100,000,000 (~USD 75,000-76,000) coverage, for the full duration of stay.

Graduates out of TBD this pass: the KRW 100,000,000 figure, previously only a search-snippet-level lead, is now traceable to a consulate-level MOFA page (Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Seattle, F-1-D program page) plus 5+ independent secondary guides (Seoulstart, HaniSeoul, krinsider, koreaplus-lifes, americanvisitorinsurance.com) converging on the same figure for medical treatment AND repatriation - several sources warn 'repatriation' must be explicitly named on the policy or the application is rejected. Not marked 'official' - hikorea.go.kr/immigration.go.kr/mofa.go.kr root pages remain 403 on direct fetch, so this rests on a consulate sub-page plus secondary corroboration, not a primary ministry page read.

source · verified 2026-08-19

Processing time

eTA (visa-exempt nationalities): typically minutes, occasionally up to a few days. Visitor visa/TRV (other nationalities): reported roughly 4-12 weeks, varying widely by country of application

IRCC publishes current country-specific TRV processing times on its own processing-times tool; the range above is a general reported guide, not a guarantee.

source · verified 2026-07-25

TBD

Figures marked TBD are not yet verified and are never shown as facts. Last full review: Canada 2026-09-05, South Korea 2026-09-05.