A Bangladeshi passport holder needs a visa for South Korea, and the tourist category is the C-3-9 short-term visit visa, allowing a stay of up to 90 days. Since 4 May 2025, the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Bangladesh requires every applicant to fill in the visa application as an e-Form on the Korea Visa Portal (visa.go.kr), print the barcoded form, and then submit it in person at the Embassy’s consular section in Dhaka. In the Embassy’s own words, “in order to complete the application process, you must print the e-form and visit the Korean embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh.” There is no fully online route, and no visa application center standing in for the Embassy.
The rest of this page is about the two questions people actually ask: how realistic this is, and how much money you need to show.
The process, as the Embassy publishes it
| Step | What is required |
|---|---|
| 1 | Complete the visa application e-Form on the Korea Visa Portal at visa.go.kr |
| 2 | Print the completed e-Form with its barcode |
| 3 | Attend the Embassy’s consular section in Dhaka in person |
| 4 | Submit the printed barcoded form, your passport, a photograph in natural color at 3.5 cm x 4.5 cm, the visa fee, and the documents specific to your visa type |
Source: the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Bangladesh’s own notice on e-Form applications, effective 4 May 2025, checked August 2026.
Two details from that notice are worth repeating because they are where applications go wrong. The form must carry the barcode generated by the portal, so a handwritten or retyped form is not accepted. And the submission is in person, so budget a working day in Dhaka for it. The consular section operates on a Sunday to Thursday week. We could not load the Embassy’s own page to confirm its current counter hours, so check them on the Embassy website before you travel to submit.
About K-ETA, so you do not waste time on it
K-ETA is South Korea’s electronic travel authorization, and it applies to nationals of countries that can enter Korea without a visa. Bangladesh is not one of them. If you hold a Bangladeshi passport, K-ETA is not your route and the K-ETA site is not where your application belongs. You need the C-3-9 visa.
This gets confused constantly because Korea has run K-ETA exemption campaigns for various nationalities, and the news coverage does not always make clear that the whole scheme sits on top of visa-free entry.
The documents, and the honest limit of what we can tell you
The Embassy publishes document lists per visa subtype, including separate pages for the tourist visa (C-3-9), short-term business (C-3-4), short-term visit for seminars and events (C-3-1), and family visit (F-3). Those pages did not render content to our direct read for this article, so we are not going to reproduce a checklist and present it as the Embassy’s.
What a Korean short-term visit application is structurally built from, and what you should expect to prepare:
- The barcoded e-Form from the Korea Visa Portal
- Passport, plus copies
- One photograph in natural color, 3.5 cm x 4.5 cm
- Evidence of your travel plan: round-trip flight booking, accommodation or host details, and a day-by-day schedule
- Financial evidence, typically a personal or company bank statement covering a recent period, with the bank’s name and contact details legible on it
- Evidence of your ties to Bangladesh, such as employment or business documentation
Get the actual subtype checklist from the Embassy’s own visa issuance pages before you assemble anything. Korea distinguishes sharply between C-3 subtypes, and submitting a C-3-9 tourist file when your trip is really a business trip, or the reverse, is a self-inflicted refusal.
The bank balance question, answered honestly
Search this and you will be handed a number. BDT 3 to 5 lakh is the figure that circulates most often for a Korean tourist visa from Bangladesh, sometimes with “or more” attached, sometimes with a six-month consistency rule.
We could not trace that figure to any Korean government or Embassy source. The pages carrying it generally describe it as a recommendation rather than a rule, and at least one states outright that there is no official minimum. That matches what the Embassy publishes, which is a requirement for financial documents rather than a threshold.
So here is the useful version of the answer:
- There is no published minimum balance. Anyone quoting one as an official requirement is not quoting the Embassy.
- What is assessed is coherence. A statement showing regular salary or business income over several months, a balance proportionate to the trip you have described, and no sudden unexplained deposit shortly before applying, is a stronger file than a large number that appeared last week.
- The trip you describe sets the bar. Ten days across Seoul, Busan and Jeju implies a cost. Your evidence is read against your own itinerary, not against a universal figure.
- Ties to Bangladesh matter as much as the balance. A short-term visit visa turns on whether the consular officer is satisfied you are visiting and returning. Employment, business ownership, family and property evidence carry weight that a bank balance alone does not.
Is a Korean tourist visa realistic on a Bangladeshi passport?
This is the map question, and it deserves a straight answer rather than encouragement.
It is a genuine, documented, available route. Bangladeshi nationals apply for and receive C-3-9 visas. It is also a discretionary consular decision made on an individual file, and South Korea does not publish approval rates by nationality that we could verify, so anyone quoting you one is guessing. No page, no agency and no consultant can tell you that your application will be approved, and any service that promises approval is selling something it cannot deliver.
What you can influence: submitting the correct C-3 subtype, a complete and internally consistent file, a realistic itinerary you can afford, and clear evidence of why you are coming back. What you cannot influence: the decision.
Two practical guards. First, do not buy non-refundable flights before the visa is issued, because processing this visa is not fast and reported timelines run into weeks rather than days. Second, be careful with agencies that offer to “arrange” documents. A fabricated bank statement or employment letter is a refusal you cannot appeal your way out of, and it follows your passport.
On the fee
Korean missions publish a standard short-term visa fee schedule, and the figure most commonly listed for a single-entry short-term visa of up to 90 days is USD 40, collected at the Embassy in the local currency equivalent. We could not load the Dhaka Embassy’s own fee page to confirm the current taka amount or whether any adjustment applies, so treat that as the figure to verify rather than the figure to budget. Ask the consular section, and note that Korean missions generally state that the fee is non-refundable if the application is refused, if you cancel, or if a single-entry visa is issued after you applied for a multiple-entry one.
Compare before you choose
East Asia asks for three different things from a Bangladeshi applicant. Korea wants an in-person submission and a coherent financial file. Our Japan visa guide for Bangladeshis covers a process with no visa fee at all for Bangladeshi nationals but a heavier financial-documents burden, and the China tourist visa from Dhaka is a visa-center process with a fee schedule that has quietly expired. Singapore’s application cannot be filed by you at all. For a much lighter first trip while you build a travel history, Thailand’s e-visa and the first international trip from Bangladesh checklist are the practical starting points.
FAQ
Do Bangladeshis need a visa for South Korea?
Yes. A Bangladeshi passport holder needs a visa, and for tourism the category is the C-3-9 short-term visit visa, which allows a stay of up to 90 days. K-ETA does not apply, because it is only for nationalities that can enter Korea without a visa.
How do Bangladeshis apply for a South Korea tourist visa?
Since 4 May 2025 the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Bangladesh requires the application to be completed as an e-Form on the Korea Visa Portal at visa.go.kr, printed with its barcode, and submitted in person at the Embassy’s consular section in Dhaka with your passport, a 3.5 cm x 4.5 cm natural-color photograph, the fee and the subtype-specific documents.
How much bank balance is required for a Korean visa from Bangladesh?
No official minimum is published. The BDT 3 to 5 lakh figure that circulates is a recommendation appearing on agency and guide pages, not an Embassy requirement. What is assessed is whether your financial evidence is consistent, proportionate to the trip you have described, and free of unexplained last-minute deposits.
How long does a South Korea visa take from Dhaka?
Reported timelines run to roughly two to three weeks of working days, but that figure comes from non-official sources and processing time is at the Embassy’s discretion. Confirm with the consular section, and do not book non-refundable travel around it.
What is the South Korea visa fee for Bangladeshi applicants?
Korean missions publish a standard short-term visa fee schedule, commonly listed as USD 40 for a single-entry short-term visa of up to 90 days, collected in local currency. We could not confirm the current Dhaka taka amount from the Embassy’s own page, so verify it with the consular section. Korean missions generally state the fee is non-refundable, including if the visa is refused.
Checked August 2026. Sources named inline: the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, for its notice on e-Form visa applications effective 4 May 2025, which sets out the Korea Visa Portal step, the printed barcoded form, the requirement to submit in person at the Embassy in Dhaka, and the photograph specification; and the Korea Visa Portal (visa.go.kr) as the application system. The Embassy’s per-subtype document pages and its fee page did not render content to our direct read, so no checklist and no taka fee are quoted from them here; the document families described are the standard structure of a Korean short-term visit application and are explicitly subordinate to the Embassy’s own current lists. No minimum bank balance is stated, because no Korean official source publishing one could be found, and the widely circulated BDT 3 to 5 lakh figure is identified as a non-official recommendation. Korean visa requirements change by notice; the Embassy is the authority, not this page. Review interval: 90 days. This is documented process, not immigration advice, and no one can promise an application will be approved.