Your Visa Application and Your School's Hiring File Need Different Paperwork
The apostilled diploma, sealed transcript and criminal record check that E-2 applicants dread are immigration requirements, not universal ones — F-visa holders skip most of them but usually still need a background check for the school itself.
Park English2026-09-093 min read
Teachers moving from E-2 talk get confused fast. Someone on an F-4 posts in a group chat asking where to get their transcript apostilled, and three people tell them three different things, because half the group is thinking about the immigration pile and half is thinking about the school's hiring pile. They are not the same pile.
The immigration pile exists to prove you qualify for a work visa in the first place. If you're applying for E-2 from outside Korea, or renewing it for the first time with a new employer, this is the bundle: apostilled (or consular-authenticated) degree, sealed transcript, a criminal record check dated within roughly six months of your application, and sometimes a health statement. Korean immigration cares about this pile because your visa status is tied to your nationality and your qualifications. F-series visa holders — F-2-7, F-4, F-5, F-6 — generally don't touch this pile at all when they take a teaching job, because their right to live and work in Korea doesn't come from the job. It comes from the visa category itself: marriage, ethnic Korean heritage, permanent residency, or the points-based F-2-7.
The school's pile is different and it applies to almost everyone, E-2 or not. Hagwons and public schools have to register foreign staff with their local education office, and under Korea's child protection rules that registration usually needs a recent criminal background check on file regardless of visa type. So an F-4 teacher who skipped the immigration document run may still get a request from HR for a criminal record certificate a month into the job — not because immigration wants it, but because the school's registration does. This is the part almost nobody explains up front, and it trips up F-visa teachers who assumed they were done with paperwork forever.
Here's roughly how it breaks down. Confirm specifics with your school and your local immigration office, because education office rules can vary by district and do get updated.
| Requirement | E-2 (new or first renewal) | F-4, F-5, F-6 | F-2-7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apostilled degree | Usually required | Not required for visa; school may still ask to see it | Rarely required for teaching itself |
| Sealed transcript | Usually required | Not required | Not required |
| Criminal check for immigration | Required, dated within ~6 months | Not required | Not required |
| Criminal check for the school | Often still required | Often still required | Often still required |
| Employer visa sponsorship | Required | Not applicable | Not applicable |
The other thing worth saying plainly: degree verification and criminal record checks are two separate documents with two separate purposes, and schools sometimes run their own verification through a private service on top of whatever immigration asked for, especially after a few well-publicised fraud cases in the hagwon industry. That's the school protecting itself, not a visa rule. If HR asks you for something after you've already assumed you were finished, it's usually this, not a sign anything's wrong with your visa.
One more honest note: we've seen education offices in different cities interpret the background-check requirement slightly differently for F-visa holders, and the paperwork your school's admin person hands you may not match what a friend at another hagwon two subway stops away was asked for. When in doubt, ask the school directly what they need for registration, not what a forum thread from three years ago says.