One in Four South Korean Applicants Denied U.S. Visa... Refusal Rate Higher Than in China and Japan

Visitor visa refusal rate hit 24.73% last year
Up 9.76 percentage points from 14.97% the previous year

One in four applicants for U.S. visitor visas was denied a visa last year, according to the data. This was the opposite of the trend in major countries such as Japan and China, where visa refusal rates fell.

According to data submitted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the office of Kim Dae-sik of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, and statistics from the U.S. Department of State, the adjusted refusal rate for U.S. visitor visas (B1/B2) for South Korean nationals stood at 24.73% in fiscal year 2025, which ran from October 2024 to September 2025. That was up 9.76 percentage points from 14.97% the previous year and the highest rate since the relevant statistics were first made public in 2020.

People seeking visas line up in front of the U.S. Embassy in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Reporter Cho Yongjun.

U.S. visitor visas are divided into B1 visas for short-term business visits and B2 visas for tourism, medical treatment, and visits to family and friends. They are mainly sought by people and business travelers who intend to stay in the United States for more than 90 days or are ineligible to use the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA). The adjusted refusal rate is calculated based on the total number of visas issued and refused, while accounting for cases in which the reasons for refusal were resolved.

The U.S. visitor visa refusal rate for South Korean nationals rose from 8.46% in 2020 to 18.03% in 2021, then remained in the mid-to-high teens at 17.38% in 2022, 14.44% in 2023, and 14.97% in 2024. It then jumped sharply last year.

Over the same period, visitor visa refusal rates for Japan and China, among others, fell. The refusal rate for U.S. visitor visas for Japanese nationals declined by 0.08 percentage points, from 5.76% in 2024 to 5.68% last year. The rate for Chinese nationals also fell, from 25.37% in 2024 to 20.21%. The adjusted refusal rates for U.S. visitor visas were also lower than South Korea’s in countries with ESTA programs, including the United Kingdom (20.44%), Germany (12.22%), and France (9.67%).

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs believes that tighter U.S. immigration policies may have contributed to the higher visa refusal rate. A ministry official said, “The U.S. side does not disclose the reasons for visa refusals, making it difficult to determine the precise details. However, we suspect that the intensification of immigration issues as a contentious domestic political issue in the United States may have led to stricter visa screening policies.”

Some observers say U.S. immigration authorities may have designated South Korea as a kind of “country of interest” and tightened visa issuance standards. They speculate that the detention of more than 300 South Korean workers at construction sites for Hyundai Motor and LG Energy Solution battery plants in Georgia in September last year may have occurred in the same context.

Kim said, “We need to closely examine whether changes in our government’s diplomatic and defense policies toward the United States, as well as changes in South Korea-U.S. relations, have influenced U.S. visa refusals.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.