Criminal record checks for E-2 visa: which countries need FBI clearance vs. local police

"Just get a background check from the police" is the advice that sends teachers down the wrong road. Korean immigration does not want whatever your local station hands you in twenty minutes. It wants the national record, and the agency that issues that record is different in every one of the seven E-2 countries.

Here is the short version: citizens of Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, or the USA need a clean national-level criminal record check. A city police report, a county sheriff's letter, a provincial check, none of those clear the bar on their own.

Why national, not local

Korean immigration is checking one thing: has this person ever been convicted anywhere in their home country. A local police certificate only knows what happened in that town. If you lived in three states or three provinces before you packed for Korea, a local check misses two of them. The national-level agency is the only one with the full picture, which is why it's the only one Korea will take.

Who issues what

The US case, in plain terms

American teachers ask this more than anyone, because the US is the one country where "local vs. national" maps onto an everyday choice. Plenty of jobs back home only ask for a state police check, so people assume that's enough here. It isn't. State police checks, county background checks, and city-level reports are not accepted by Korean immigration. The only document Korean immigration accepts for the E-2 teaching visa is the FBI Identity History Summary. The reason is simple once you see it: a Secretary of State can only certify documents issued inside that one state, and a state record only covers that state. The FBI's is a fingerprint-based federal search, which is what the apostille office and Korean immigration are both built to recognize.

The UK is the one with no single answer

This is the genuinely annoying part, and we'll say so plainly: which body you need in the UK depends on where in the UK you are, so do not copy a friend's steps unless they processed theirs from the same region. Confirm with the Korean consulate handling your application before you request anything.

Timing, because it bites people

Whichever document you get, it has a shelf life. Korean immigration expects the criminal record check to have been issued within the last six months at the time of application. And it needs an apostille on top, which is a separate stamp from a separate office in your country, not something Korea applies for you.

One wrinkle worth knowing: F-visas

If you're moving to an F-4, F-5 or F-6 rather than applying fresh for E-2, the record check rules shift. For F-5 permanent residency and naturalization applications, Korean immigration requires checks from every country where you have lived for 1 year or more within the past 5-10 years, while initial work visa applications like E-2 typically only require your home country check. If you've lived abroad before landing in Korea, ask your placement coordinator whether that applies to you before you start collecting documents.

The agency changes by country. The rule behind it doesn't: national record, apostilled, inside six months of your application. Get those three right and this is one box you check once and never think about again.