Student and exchange visas explain seven in ten of Korea's drop in US visa issuance

Four categories account for 5,659 of the 5,885 fewer visas, which is 96 percent of the fall, and students and exchange visitors alone account for 4,174 of it ^[3][2]. The E1 and E2 lines used by trading company employees and investors lost 765 visas, an 11.9 percent fall against a 7.95 percent average, so the investor channel did worse than the total ^[1][1]. Business and tourist visas fell 4.7 percent ^[4].

The monthly series cuts the other way. Twelve months at the 2024 monthly pace for B1 and B2 comes to 15,276. That is within one visa of the 15,275 reported for the year, so the two sets of figures are the same data seen from different angles ^[6]. In January and February the average ran 59 percent above that 2024 pace ^[5]. More than 300 Korean workers were detained in Georgia in September last year over their immigration status ^[7]. A Korea-US visa working group followed, and a dedicated visa window for Korean companies investing in the United States opened at the US Embassy in Seoul in December ^[8].

Hong's office did not publish a monthly E1/E2 series. The 2025 annual total works out to 472 a month ^[7]. Whether the Seoul window lifted the investor categories the way it appears to have lifted business travel will show up in that figure first.

Students kept falling. The F1 monthly average went from 1,195 in 2024 to 965 in 2025 to 273 in January and February 2026. On the comparison that strips out the seasonal trough, November to February, it fell to 482 from 679 two years earlier, down 29 percent ^[10][11][8]. The Department of Homeland Security published a rule on July 16 capping F1 stays at four years, with the same cap on J visas ^[12][17]. Judge Dennis Saylor of the US District Court in Boston suspended the rule on the 14th, a day before it was to take effect, according to Reuters ^[13].

"This is a global phenomenon occurring amid the anti-immigration stance declared by the Trump administration," Hong said. "And while the decline is smaller than in major countries, many students preparing to study in the United States will suffer serious harm if the situation is left unaddressed" ^[14]. The Korean government has told the National Assembly that the fall for Korea is smaller than the falls for India, China, Japan and other major countries ^[16].

In my view the 2025 numbers are a student and exchange story with an investor footnote. Seventy-one percent of the loss sits in F1 and J1, and the one category with fresh monthly data is being issued faster than it was under Biden ^[2][5]. The counter-thesis is that E1 and E2 are thin, slow categories, where a window opened in December cannot register in a calendar-2025 total. On that reading, an 11.9 percent fall in the year a bilateral working group had to be created is the friction cost showing up on schedule ^[8][1]. If the E1/E2 monthly average for early 2026 prints above 472, the window worked and 2025 was the damage. If it prints below, Korean firms are getting their visitors in and their transferees stuck ^[7].