Embassy of the Republic of Korea

I am a student studying in Cardiff. The last visit by the embassy staff was very welcome news for the Korean residents far from London. I would like to thank the embassy staff for kindly handling various administrative tasks. It takes a lot of time to visit London, but thank you for making it convenient for me to do business by implementing this on-site service. In the future, I hope that such a service will occur more frequently so that the residents can conveniently handle administrative tasks. If I have one wish, I hope that there will be a lounge service in the Korean Embassy building where Koreans can take a little rest. thank you.

I’ve been shouted at by the receptionist the minute I arrived here, a black lady very rudely approached me and told me to wait outside while I was only being politely and making sure I’m at the right place.

And all these people who have problems with their applications, there was only one member of staff dealing with all the enquiries.

As it was explained to me by a kind receptionist, this office is the office of the Ministry of foreign affairs. Despite the expectations coming from this name, the office that deals with visa enquiries is the Ministry of justice. The Ministry of justice's office is only in Berlin, where all applications are redirected by KVAC. So even though I had good experience visiting this embassy, it wasn't helpful. Save your time.
Perhaps my example would help to manage expectations for others.
I posted my passport on the 22 of July 2022 and I have sent total around 30 emails, always trying to be polite and formal, but with different degrees of emotional involvement anyway. I have received 6 replies overall, half of them were generic replies and 3 replies were mentioning my case, but I never received exact dates or status updates whatsoever.
So by my experience, I would recommend everyone else to reduce expectations as far as possible. After holding my passport for around 2.5 months, I have received a request for my detailed bank account statement which I posted the same day. After that, 8 days have passed when I asked for a status update, and 5 more days have passed till today. You could guess if I got any updates.
This is how it worked for me.
If you wonder whether my application is one from the risky category, I don't think so. I applied for tourist visa, my partner is Korean, and I work in one of the biggest tech companies.
My bottom line is, this system is just so much slow. I'd recommend to not repeat my experience and, if you can, refund all your tickets and accomodation quite in advance.
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My rating is for this office of the Ministry of foreign affairs; the visa service has definitely more room for improvement.

Hands down my worst experience in applying for a visa. No updates, total wait of >6 weeks but even so if you dont repeatedly email and ask for updates you’d get nothing. Pls pls pls korean embassy hire someone else than kvac to handle visa processing🤡 also that receptionist in dean street is awful. Never let anyone sit in the lobby. Despite no queue , she just make me stand outside in the cold

Id give 0 star if I could, That one star is for the super friendly staff especially the man in turtle neck who actually talk to me like a human being

Terrible service. Send your passport for visa in post and you won’t receive any updates for weeks on end. They won’t answer emails or pick up the phone. Apply at your own risk as you may not make the flight with visa in time. Worst embassy visa experience in all my travels.

Was having big problems with K-ETA and so rang and got through to a human very quickly. He pointed out to me that there was an app, which although still buggy, worked after 2 goes

So yeah 1 star for K-ETA but very pleasant service from the people at the embassy

How rude their responses. I sent an envelope that I paid to exchange my driving my license and they couldn’t find it or lost it. However it is somehow my fault Not just that, general response from driving license department lady is absolutely rude and unpleasant. I am so unhappy they response that rude way.

The worst experience ever. They are rude, ill informed and not very helpful in terms of finding a solution. She just kept repeating the same thing, didn’t listen and didn’t know anything.
Very disappointed, this should be zero stars.