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South Korea is visa-exempt, so a Korean student flies on an electronic travel authorization and applies for the study permit separately, both arranged before departure. Korea was not part of the Student Direct Stream.

Beyond tuition, a study-permit application is assessed against a set living-cost amount. For applications made on or after 1 September 2026, a single applicant outside Quebec must show CAD 23,448 for a year of living costs, up from CAD 22,895, separate from tuition and travel, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada updates it each year.

Korea's foreign-exchange system runs through designated foreign-exchange banks under the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act: a resident designates a bank through which cross-border payments are made. Payments for current transactions, which include school tuition, are allowed once the payer gives the bank documents certifying the reason and amount, such as a school fee notice, rather than against an annual purchase quota.

Reporting thresholds apply above certain amounts: a bank must notify Korea's National Tax Service when it sells more than US$10,000 of foreign currency to one person in a day, and a traveller may carry up to US$10,000 out of the country without declaring it.

In the 2021 census, about 218,000 people in Canada were in the Korean population group. The two largest communities are in the Toronto area (about 74,200) and the Vancouver area (about 63,500), together roughly two-thirds of the national total.

Within Metro Vancouver the community is especially concentrated in Coquitlam, where about 8 percent of residents are Korean. Most private schools listed on MapleRank are in Ontario and British Columbia, the two provinces where most Korean families in Canada live.