South Korean Visa Free / Bebas Visa Korea Selatan

I just finished my Japan and Korea Trip last week. It was 21 days. 12 days in Japan, and 10 days in South Korea. I'm gonna write a long story about this trip later after I finished compiling my travel pictures.

First of all, the most important information that I want to share is how to get the South Korean visa free for Indonesian passport. You know that for Indonesian passport holder it is not easy to go to some places, because of the visa restriction. We have to apply for the visa to enter South Korea and Japan. Applying visa means we have to go to the embassy, provide bank account statement, recommendation letter from company (that I will go back to Indonesia without seeking for any job in the destination country), etc. Not very convenient, and collecting all the requirements is really taking time, that some people just gave up applying that.

But! if you're on transit (or stop over) and have some eligible visas that haven't expired yet to some of the listed countries, you don't need visa to enter South Korea! How nice is it?

Here's what i got from the web : http://www.hikorea.go.kr/pt/InfoDetailR_en.pt?catSeq=401&categoryId=2&parentId=385&showMenuId=375

Transit tourists bound for another country

Eligible countries

• Applicable to all countries (save for Macedonia, Cuba, Syria, Sudan and Iran) that are not granted visa-free entry into Korea.

Applicable to…

• Those with a visa (excluding Japanses Group Visa) or a re-entry permit for U.S., Japan, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand (5 countries) and traveling to any one of those countries through Korea.
• Those traveling from any one of the five countries mentioned above, whose final destination is not Korea.
• However, please note that the first bullet points are not applicable to those travelling to/from Guam and Saipan, which are unincorporated territories of the United States.

Requirements

• Must have a confirmed onward flight ticket for departure within 30 days after entering Korea, in addition to having no record of criminal offence in the five countries mentioned above.

So finally I tried that and it really worked! I called the Korean embassy, and the staff said about one of the requirements : I have to fly with any Korean-based airlines, which, as far as I know, there are only 2 Korean-based international airlines that fly from Indonesia : Korean Airlines and Asiana Airlines. So I chose Korean Airlines, because at first I didn't know that Asiana is Korean-based :p

My itinerary was : Jakarta (Soekarno Hatta Airport / CGK) --fly-->  Seoul (Transit @ Incheon Airport / ICN) --fly--> Tokyo ( Narita Airport / NRT) -----stay for 12 days in Japan, bus to Osaka----->  Osaka (Kansai International Airport / KIX) --fly---> Seoul ( Incheon Airport) ---stay 10 days in South Korea --fly--> Jakarta (Soekarno Hatta / CGK)

Didn't have any problems at the immigration. The Immigration officer just asked for the flight ticket and stamped my passport. Yayy!!

Please feel free to ask if you have any questions about this :)

Happy traveling!

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Since this is a useful information for Indonesian people, I write this in Indonesian too.

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Minggu lalu, saya baru saja menyelesaikan perjalanan ke  Jepang dan Korea Selatan, selama 21 hari : 12 hari di Jepang dan 10 hari di Korea Selatan. Detail perjalanannya akan saya post nanti ya, setelah saya kumpulkan foto- foto perjalanannya. :)

Informasi penting yang ingin saya sampaikan adalah mengenai bagaimana cara masuk ke Korea Selatan tanpa visa. Apabila kamu sedang dalam transit/ singgah di Korea dan memiliki salah satu visa yang masih berlaku  dari negara Amerika Serikat, Jepang, Kanada, Australia, atau New Zealand, kamu bisa masuk ke Korea Selatan selama 30 hari tanpa visa! menyenangkan kan!

Informasi lengkapnya bisa dilihat di website resmi kedutaan Korea Selatan : http://idn.mofa.go.kr/webmodule/htsboard/template/read/legengreadboard.jsp?typeID=16&boardid=13747&seqno=678849

• Berikut kutipannya dalam bagian "Bebas Visa":
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• "Dalam 2 tahun jika telah mengunjungi Korea lebih dari 10 kali dan tidak memiliki catatan kriminal termasuk tidak pernah melakukan pelanggaran izin tinggal, maka dapat masuk ke Korea untuk wisata dan kunjungan keluarga selama 30 hari tanpa visa.

• Transit ke dan dari negara-negara seperti Amerika serikat, Jepang, Kanada, Australia dan New Zealand(Pengecualian untuk WN Cuba dan Macadonia). Jika tidak ada kemungkinan untuk melakukan pelanggaran izin tinggal maka dapat masuk ke Korea selama 30 hari tanpa visa. (Tetapi harus menyertakan tiket pesawat terbang sebagai bukti perjalanan.)

• Orang yang akan bepergian dengan kondisi tersebut diatas, dapat melakukan perjalanan dan tidak perlu khawatir karena pegawai Imigrasi telah mengetahui peraturan tersebut selama tidak ada kemungkinan akan melakukan pelanggaran izin tinggal."