Processing order for E-2 documents: what you can do at the same time and what has to wait
Your criminal record check, apostille, and degree verification must happen in sequence—not parallel—or you'll redo them. Here's what actually starts the clock, which office waits for which piece of paper, and where people lose two months by starting everything at once.
Park English · 2026-08-26 · 4 min read
The single biggest document mistake is starting everything on the same day. Teachers order the criminal record check, request a degree copy, and book the apostille appointment in one caffeinated afternoon, then discover six weeks later that one piece of paper needed a different piece of paper attached before the government office would touch it.
We've walked about four hundred teachers through this since 2019. The order matters more than speed.
What has to happen first
Your criminal record check starts the whole chain. In the US that's an FBI Identity History Summary; in Canada it's an RCMP certified criminal record check; in the UK it's an ACRO Police Certificate. This is the one document that takes the longest—four to twelve weeks depending on country and whether you still live at your last registered address.
Do not apostille anything else until this is in your hands. The apostille is a certification that a document is genuine, and some authentication offices want to see multiple documents submitted together, while others process them separately but expect them all to arrive in a narrow window. You can't know which rule applies until you're holding the criminal record check and reading the specific instructions for your state or province.
The degree comes next
Once the criminal check is ordered—not finished, just submitted—request an official transcript or degree verification letter from your university. Most registrars' offices take one to three weeks and charge $10–30. You need the original or a certified copy, not a scan you printed.
Some US states let you apostille a diploma. Others require a transcript. Others accept either but the requirements changed in the past two years, so what worked for the teacher who posted in 2022 may not work now. Check your state's Secretary of State website under "apostille services" for the current year's requirements. If it says "notarised documents only," your diploma will be rejected and you'll reorder the transcript.
The apostille happens last
An apostille is a stamp or certificate attached by a government office in your home country—usually the Secretary of State or equivalent—that says "we confirm this document is real." Korea's immigration office will not accept your criminal check or degree without it.
You must apostille while you are still in your home country. Technically you can mail documents back, or have a family member handle it, or pay a service, but every one of those paths adds three weeks and at least one thing that goes missing. If you are in your home country now, do not leave until you are holding apostilled copies of both documents.
Processing time varies wildly. Some US states do it same-day in person or within a week by mail. Others take four weeks. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office currently quotes up to four weeks for postal applications. Budget a month unless your state explicitly promises faster.
What you can do in parallel
While you wait for the criminal check:
- Apply for your passport if it expires within six months of your planned arrival
- Request official transcripts (but don't apostille them yet)
- Get a health check if your recruiter says the school will ask for one—but note that most hagwons no longer require this and the visa office does not
The passport matters because Korea wants at least six months of validity remaining when you apply for the E-2. If yours expires in eight months and you wait to renew it until the criminal check arrives, you've just added six more weeks to a process that was nearly finished.
The actual timeline, from signature to visa
| Stage | Time | Can you speed it up? |
|---|---|---|
| Criminal record check | 4–12 weeks | No |
| Degree verification | 1–3 weeks | Sometimes, for a fee |
| Apostille (both documents) | 1–4 weeks | Yes, in person or by courier in some states |
| Visa issuance number (school applies in Korea) | 4–6 weeks | No |
| E-2 visa issued at embassy | 5–7 days | No |
Total if you do it in order: roughly three to five months from starting the criminal check to standing in Incheon. Teachers who try to save time by doing everything at once often hit month six, because they apostilled the wrong version of a document or sent things to the wrong state office and had to start over.
One other thing nobody mentions until it bites them: if you switch recruiters or schools midway through, the new school may request fresh documents even if yours are only two months old. Some documents are valid for six months from issue date, others for three, and the rules vary by visa office. Don't switch unless you're prepared to redo part of the stack.
When you have both apostilled documents in hand, scan them immediately and keep the scans somewhere other than your phone. Schools and visa offices lose papers. You may need to produce a copy while the original is in transit, and "it's on my laptop in Canada" does not solve that problem.