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Korea Seasonal Worker Program Requirements: How Filipino Workers Are Chosen Through Their LGU, What a Season Involves, and Why No Agency May Charge You

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By iStart Editorial Team·Published October 3, 2026

Korea Seasonal Worker Program Requirements: How Filipino Workers Are Chosen Through Their LGU, What a Season Involves, and Why No Agency May Charge You

The news reaches you from the municipal hall, or a cousin, or a stranger online: South Korea needs farm hands for the season. The pay sounds real. So does the risk.

The program is real, legal and run between governments, and every rule here comes from its authorities, so you can tell a real offer from a sold one.

What the Korea Seasonal Worker Program Is

Korea's Ministry of Justice, through the Korea Immigration Service, describes it as allowing the "legal hiring of foreign workers for short period to address chronic labor shortages during the busy farming and fishing season." Korean local governments introduce the workers, for agriculture and fishery, and allotment runs twice a year.

A foreign seasonal worker enters on one of two stay statuses: C-4, a 90-day short-term stay, or E-8, for a period of up to eight months, as Korea's Ministry of Government Legislation lists them as of April 15, 2026. Other non-professional work in Korea runs through a separate system, the Employment Permit System.

Who Can Join: The Requirements for a Seasonal Worker

For a Filipino at home, the door is being a farmer or fisher in a Philippine LGU that has signed a memorandum of understanding with a Korean local government. A separate channel invites relatives of Filipinos married to Koreans.

Korea's government lists these requirements:

  • You farm or fish in your own locality.
  • Your age falls inside the range the inviting local government sets, typically 30 to 55.
  • You are in good health; the rules exclude active tuberculosis and other contagious diseases, drug use, pregnancy, and a birth in the past year.
  • You have no criminal history.
  • You meet any extra requirements of the inviting local government.

If you stop meeting them, disobey legitimate work orders or neglect the work, you can be deported whatever the contract's length.

How Local Governments Choose, and Why Your Application Goes Through Your LGU

You apply through your LGU, not to Korea online on your own. The Korean Embassy's 2020 notice says local governments on both sides sign the agreement and select workers.

The Korea Immigration Service lists the steps:

  1. The Ministry of Justice allots workers to local governments.
  2. The local government selects the workers.
  3. The local government, not you, files the application for a Confirmation of Visa Issuance.
  4. The immigration office issues it.
  5. The Embassy in the Philippines issues the visa.

Five steps in Korea's Seasonal Worker Program, each done by a government: allotment to local governments by Korea's Ministry of Justice, selection by the local government, the application filed by the Korean local government, the Confirmation of Visa Issuance from Korea's immigration office, and the visa from the Korean Embassy in the Philippines; no agency, group or private person may handle recruitment.

On the Philippine side, a Joint Memorandum on the program was signed on November 4, 2025, at the DMW with the Departments of Agriculture, Foreign Affairs, the Interior and Local Government and Justice, and the Bureau of Immigration. The Bureau says it sets "clear guidelines to prevent the involvement of illegal intermediaries."

No Agency, No Recruitment Fee: The Rule That Protects You

No agency, group or private person may handle recruitment for this program, and no one may charge you for a place. The Embassy's notice of August 5, 2020, still posted, says only the local governments involved may recruit, select or deploy workers, and that "no one can take compensation in any form of fees." Official costs, such as the Embassy's own visa fee, are separate.

The DMW's Advisory No. 54, Series of 2026, states that the "involvement of brokers in the recruitment and deployment of seasonal workers is expressly prohibited," and warns LGUs off private companies offering partnerships, recruitment, screening or training.

The tell we watch for is simple. Anyone who asks you for money to reserve a slot, or promises a place without your LGU, is outside the program. Walk away, confirm with your municipal or provincial office or the DMW, and learn how to file a complaint against an illegal recruiter.

What a Season Pays and Asks of You

No single salary applies to every Filipino seasonal worker in Korea; the law sets a floor: the minimum wage, paid at least once a month on a fixed date. That floor is KRW 10,320 an hour in 2026; for 2027, Korea's Ministry of Employment and Labor set it in August 2026 at KRW 10,700 an hour, or KRW 2,236,300 a month on 209 hours. Farm and fishery hours may fall outside the Labor Standards Act's usual rules, so get your hours, housing, meals and any deductions in writing, and read your contract before you sign.

You must be covered by industrial accident insurance or the Farmers and Fishers Safety Insurance. You work only where your employment agreement says; a change needs the immigration office's permission and happens only in exceptional cases, and side jobs are not allowed.

The program's first requirement is the work you already do. Your qualification is built in your own fields and boats, not in an agency's papers. A season ends on a date, and under current rules it is not a ladder into a longer stay. What it can build is what you carry home: savings, a contract kept, and skills your own farm can use.

Before You Say Yes to a Seasonal Offer

  • Confirm with your municipal or provincial office, or the DMW, that your LGU has an agreement with a Korean local government.
  • Pay no agency, group or private person for a slot, a reservation or "processing."
  • Read your contract's wage, hours, housing and deductions before you sign.
  • Leave copies of your contract and visa papers with your family.

The Questions Filipinos Ask Us Most

Can I apply for the Korean seasonal worker visa online? Not on your own. You apply through your LGU; a Korean local government selects you and files the application for your Confirmation of Visa Issuance, and only then does the Korean Embassy issue the visa.

Is there an age limit for seasonal workers in South Korea? Yes. The inviting Korean local government sets it: typically 30 to 55, or 19 and older for relatives of marriage migrants, according to Korea's government.

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