Field note 06 · 현장 수첩

Is That Korean Job Offer Real? — What You Can Check From Abroad, and Where You Get Blocked

From the operator of 해결사, a fixer service in Korea. Free to use, no email required.

A bad purchase costs you the purchase. A bad job offer costs you a flight, a notice period, a lease you already broke, and sometimes your passport's next twelve months. So people ask the obvious question — can I look this employer up the way I'd look up a shop?

Mostly, no. And the honest version of this guide is shorter than you want it to be, because I'm not going to pad it with lookups I couldn't get to open myself. Here is the one check that works from anywhere, the walls you will actually hit, and the patterns that decide it when the registries can't.

0. Ask for the number — the refusal is the result

Before any website: ask them for the company's 10-digit business registration number (사업자등록번호), plus the registered company name and address exactly as they appear on that registration. Then watch what happens.

This is the whole trick, and it costs nothing. That number is not sensitive in Korea — it sits in the footer of company websites, on invoices, on the tax paperwork any new hire fills out in week one. A real HR contact sends it back in one line without thinking about it. What you're testing is not the number. It's whether asking for it makes the conversation strange: a delay, a deflection, a "we'll send all documents after the processing fee," a sudden change of subject. An employer who won't identify itself on paper has already answered you.

1. The one lookup that opens from anywhere — Hometax

If they give you a number, run it through the National Tax Service's Hometax status lookup. No login, no Korean phone number, no account. It returns one of three states: 계속사업자 (active), 휴업자 (suspended), 폐업자 (closed). A company recruiting today on a registration the tax office lists as closed is a contradiction you don't need to resolve — you just need to leave.

Be precise about what a green light here means, because this is where people over-read. It proves a registered business exists and is currently tax-active. It does not prove the person emailing you works there, that the role exists, that the pay is real, or that the visa story is true. Borrowing a real company's real number is a known move, and it survives this check perfectly. Step 0 and the flags in step 4 are what catch that — not step 1. Honest note: Korean government sites can be moody from foreign networks; if it won't load where you are, that's the network, not a verdict.

2. If they claim to be big — DART, in English

When the offer leans on scale — a listed company, a household name, "one of Korea's largest" — there is an English-language disclosure system: englishdart.fss.or.kr, run by the Financial Supervisory Service. Search the company and read whether it files at all.

Read the absence carefully, because it cuts one way only. DART holds companies with public disclosure obligations — listed companies and certain others. A small academy, a startup, a recruiting agency, a factory: legitimately not in there, and finding nothing means nothing. But a company claiming to be a large listed employer and filing nothing has a gap between the story and the paper. Use DART only to test that specific claim.

3. The walls — what I checked, and where my checking stopped

There are two registries that would answer your question properly. The first one I could not get open myself; the second I confirmed is shut to you. Those are not the same thing, and I'd rather tell you which is which than round both down to "blocked".

The corporate registry (인터넷등기소). Korea's court-run registry holds the real corporate record — incorporation date, capital, directors. Reading a record is reportedly a paid transaction, around ₩700 per view, and accounts differ on whether it also demands Korean identity verification. I'll be straight with you about the limits of my own checking: I could not get that site to open from outside Korea to confirm whether a foreign user can complete that flow. So treat it as unknown, not impossible — if it opens for you, it's a good record. I'm not going to tell you it's blocked when what I actually know is that I couldn't verify it.

The National Pension workplace lookup. This is the one you'd actually want. It would show whether a company enrolls employees in the national pension scheme at all — real staff, real payroll, the thing a paper-only shell can't fake. It is login-only, and the login demands a Korean electronic signature. I checked it directly: it does not open for you.

The pattern under both walls is worth understanding, because it explains most Korean government sites you'll bounce off. Access is gated on identity verification through a Korean mobile carrier or a Korean-issued certificate. There is a newer workaround — a certificate issued against an overseas phone number and an e-passport — but it is built for Korean nationals living abroad and runs on a resident registration number. If you're a foreign applicant, that route doesn't exist for you. It's not that you're being singled out. It's that the plumbing assumes you're already inside.

4. What decides it instead — the patterns

When the registries run out, you're reading behaviour. These are the recurring shapes, not anyone's particular story:

Money moving toward the employer before you start. Visa processing fee, training deposit, placement fee, housing deposit, "we'll reimburse it in your first paycheck." Whatever it's called, the direction is the tell — you paying them, before you've worked a day. This single pattern sits under most job offers that end badly, and it is the one flag that should stop the conversation outright rather than prompt more questions.

Nothing in writing before you fly. A Korean work visa is a paperwork exercise — documents, signatures, terms on a page. An employer who wants you on a plane on the strength of chat messages either doesn't have the paperwork or doesn't intend to be held to it. Ask for the contract with the job title, the pay figure, the hours, and the address of the actual workplace on it. Refusal is information.

The visa story doesn't match the job. "Come on a tourist visa, we'll convert it later" is not a shortcut; it's you arriving without the right to work and with no leverage. If the visa category they name doesn't match the work they describe, ask them to explain the mismatch. Vagueness here is expensive later.

The address won't hold still. The workplace address changes between messages, or the "office" is a building with no company by that name at it, or the itinerary for a job in Korea routes you through a third country first. Any of these deserves a hard stop.

They avoid a live video call. Not a photo, not a voice note — a video call with a person who can show you the workplace behind them. Recruiters who exist decline this for scheduling reasons; recruiters who don't decline it forever.

Only one channel, and it's a chat app. A free webmail address is normal for a small Korean business and proves nothing on its own — but a company describing itself as large, corresponding only from webmail, and refusing to move to a company domain is describing two different companies.