Working as a physician in South Korea
What official sources say about working as a physician in South Korea: what the occupation group earns and how foreign qualifications are recognised.
In South Korea, the occupation group "Professionals", which includes physicians, earns ≈ 3,416 EUR/month (gross, 2022). Physician is a regulated profession in South Korea. Foreign qualifications go through: A physician is medical personnel holding a Minister of Health and Welfare licence; Article 5 requires specified qualification and passing the relevant national examination, including a route for qualifying foreign-school graduates with a foreign licence.
- Earnings of the occupation group "Professionals"
- ≈ 3,416 EUR/month (gross, 2022)
- Regulation
- Regulated
- Recognition route
- A physician is medical personnel holding a Minister of Health and Welfare licence; Article 5 requires specified qualification and passing the relevant national examination, including a route for qualifying foreign-school graduates with a foreign licence.
Pay
Earnings of the occupation group "Professionals" in South Korea: ≈ 3,416 EUR/month (gross, 2022), from ILO. An occupation group is wider than one job title: it is the pay of everyone the group holds, not of physicians alone.
Regulation and recognition
Physician is a regulated profession in South Korea.
- Recognition route
- A physician is medical personnel holding a Minister of Health and Welfare licence; Article 5 requires specified qualification and passing the relevant national examination, including a route for qualifying foreign-school graduates with a foreign licence. A foreign medical-school graduate first needs the school recognition review, then must pass the Korean physician preliminary examination and national examination before licence issuance.
- Recognition authority
- Ministry of Health and Welfare; Kuksiwon conducts the foreign-school recognition review; MOHW sets/approves the recognition standard and result.
Compare this profession
See every country with a regulation or shortage-list record for physician.
Compare physician by countryCite this page
Open a format to select or copy this ImmigrationDB compilation citation. The native disclosure and text fallback work without JavaScript.
APA citation
ImmigrationDB. (2026, October 16). Physician in South Korea: salary and recognition [ImmigrationDB compilation; version afa08c6c3c6c76fad4b04965c3a4c9d0]. ImmigrationDB. https://immigrationdb.com/move-as/physician/south-korea/ Retrieved 2026-10-16. Compilation license: CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/BibTeX citation
@misc{immigrationdb_immigrationdb_physician-in-south-korea-salary-and-recognition_09c1691a587a,
author = {ImmigrationDB},
title = {Physician in South Korea: salary and recognition},
publisher = {ImmigrationDB},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-16},
version = {afa08c6c3c6c76fad4b04965c3a4c9d0},
url = {https://immigrationdb.com/move-as/physician/south-korea/},
note = {Retrieved 2026-10-16. ImmigrationDB compilation. Compilation license: CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/},
}Markdown citation
[Physician in South Korea: salary and recognition](https://immigrationdb.com/move-as/physician/south-korea/) — ImmigrationDB; ImmigrationDB; version afa08c6c3c6c76fad4b04965c3a4c9d0; retrieved 2026-10-16; built 2026-10-16.This citation identifies the ImmigrationDB compilation/page. Underlying source publishers and datasets retain their own terms; inspect the Sources section and cite those records separately. View the underlying source records.