How Many Americans Live in South Korea
South Korea registers its Americans with unusual precision, and the register grows steadily on work and teaching visas. Permanent settlement stays rare; most stays are built to end.
The American Emigration Revue counts US citizensPeople holding United States citizenship, as counted by South Korea's own official records. A separate population from US-born residents; the two are never added. Definitions ›, US-born residentsPeople born in the United States living in South Korea, whatever citizenship they hold today. A separate population from US citizens; the two are never added. Definitions ›, naturalizations and long-term permits from official government sources, with every figure cited. This page sets out what South Korea publishes, what it does not, and how far the published record can be trusted.
Why South Korea's Records, Not Washington's
The ContextThe context every page needs: who counts Americans abroad, and who doesn't.
The United States publishes no count of its own citizens abroad. Its best federal figure, 3.3 million Americans worldwide, is a statistical model built to size the overseas electorate, and the same model said 4.4 million two years earlier. The Census Bureau decided in 1976 to exclude private Americans abroad from the decennial enumeration (overseas federal employees and military are still counted). What Washington publishes instead is fragments: Social Security checks mailed to foreign addresses, tax returns claiming foreign income, quarterly lists of people who gave up their citizenship. See what each federal source actually counts ›
So this project counts from the receiving side. Every figure on this page comes from records South Korea itself publishes, read under the same rules applied to every country in the project. Where South Korea publishes, it is counted and cited. Where it does not, the gap is shown rather than filled: no estimates, no models. How openly each country reports ›
How South Korea Counts Americans
The One CountOne "US presence," one official count. The other measures on this page answer different questions.
What the Research Found
The FindingsFindings from the South Korea research, drawn from the official record.
The Figures as Data
The EvidenceMachine-readable copy of the figures on this page, each with the year its source published it. Free to download and reuse with attribution.
| Figure | Value | Vintage | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| US citizens (2024) | 34,886 | 2024 | KOSTAT |
| US citizens | 47,746 | — | KOSTAT |
| US-citizen arrivals | 2,354 | 2024 | — |
| Naturalizations of US citizens | 7 | 2024 | — |
Vintage is the year the publishing authority reported the figure. A dash means the year or publisher is not yet recorded in our dataset for that figure; the Sources and Datasets section below names every publisher behind this page. The free CSV covers the years shown to readers without an account.
How Far to Trust These Figures
The Publishing RecordWhat South Korea publishes, how often it publishes, and the sources behind every number on this page.
The gaps: Published as a regular series: resident US citizens, annual arrivals, naturalizations. Not published: US-born residents, residence or work permits: those gaps set the grade; they do not make the published figures wrong.
This page counts 7 ordinary naturalisations (귀화, gwiwha) to stay comparable with the residence-based naturalisation other countries report. A far larger figure, 2,298, sits in a separate nationality-restoration series (국적회복, mostly people reclaiming Korean citizenship) and is flagged on this page rather than mixed into the naturalisation count.
Every figure on this page comes from one of the publishers below. Links go to the authority and, where stable, straight to the dataset.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick AnswersEvery answer is drawn from the official record, from the same sources cited across this page.
How many Americans move to South Korea each year?
How many Americans become citizens of South Korea?
Does South Korea recognize dual citizenship with the United States?
Where do the figures for Americans in South Korea come from?
News stories our newsroom has published about this country.
The full series, every year, every country
The public view shows a limited year window for each series. Researchers and journalists can request access to the complete annual record for every country in the project.