Foreign direct investment reporting and the foreign-invested company registration

A foreign founder incorporating in Korea files two things with roughly the same name at opposite ends of the process. InvestKOREA''s own sequence keeps them apart, and so should a reader planning around them.

Notification comes first, immediately

InvestKOREA''s incorporation procedure page opens with foreign direct investment notification. The notified body is KOTRA''s Foreign Investor Support Center, or a foreign exchange bank. InvestKOREA describes this step as processed immediately.

Notification is not a formality that happens after the money moves. It is the first published step, ahead of remittance of funds, court registration and business registration.

Registration is the last step, within 60 days

Foreign-invested company registration is step seven of InvestKOREA''s sequence, after the corporate bank account opens. InvestKOREA states this registration must complete within 60 days of the investment payment.

The registering body is KOTRA, or the foreign exchange bank where notification first happened. InvestKOREA describes this final step as processed immediately once the earlier steps close.

Existing shares and mergers run on the same 60-day clock

InvestKOREA''s "Foreign Investment Procedures by Type" page separates new-share investment from existing-share acquisition and merger-based acquisition. For a listed company''s existing shares, InvestKOREA states the registration follows within 60 days afterward.

Merger-based acquisition, covering capital increases, corporate mergers, share exchanges, inheritance and bond conversions, carries the same 60-day notification window after the transaction completes.

Long-term loans follow a different order

InvestKOREA''s page describes a separate sequence for long-term loans: foreign-invested business registration first, then the loan agreement, then FDI notification, then the loan proceeds move.

That order puts registration before notification, the reverse of the equity route. A founder financing through a shareholder loan should not assume the equity sequence applies.

What the published pages leave open

Neither InvestKOREA page fetched for this post states a minimum investment amount for a partial or staged registration, and neither lists every excluded or restricted business sector by name. InvestKOREA''s page for those sectors sits in a separate appendix under Article 5 of the Foreign Investment Promotion Act.

A founder in a restricted sector should read that appendix directly, rather than assume the general sequence in this post applies without change.

For the registration steps between these two filings, see the guide to registering a business in Korea as a foreigner. For visa questions this registration feeds into, see our visa guide.