JAKARTA - South Korea has shortened the processing time for short-term visit visas filed in Manila, cutting regular C-3 visa processing from 18 to 15 working days from May 18, according to a notice published by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the Philippines.
The latest adjustment is the second reduction this month. In a separate April 29 notice, the embassy said processing would fall from 20 to 18 working days effective May 4. The May 18 change brings the wait down by another three working days, making it the shortest posted C-3 timeline in Manila since February.
The change affects travellers applying through the Korea Visa Application Center in Manila, including Filipino tourists, business visitors and other short-term applicants.
Manila’s Korean visa queue had moved in the opposite direction earlier this year. The embassy has previously cut processing to 14 working days from January 12, then raised it to 18 working days from February 25 and to 20 working days from March 17.
At the time, the embassy warned that longer waits were linked to heavier demand. “Please understand that the extension of the visa issuance processing period is an inevitable temporary measure due to the surge in Korean visa applications,” it said in a March 19 update.
Express processing remains unchanged at 5working days, the May 13 notice said. Applicants are also told not to collect passports immediately after the counted processing period, but to visit the Korea Visa Application Center only after receiving an SMS notification from the center.
The change also comes as Seoul continues to court visitors from Asia. Separately from the Manila processing timeline, South Korea has extended its C-3-2 group tourist visa processing fee waiver for travellers from six countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia, until the end of June 2026, according to The Korea Times. That policy applies to eligible group tourists, not all individual C-3 applicants.
For scale, Filipino travel demand to South Korea remains strong. Korea Tourism Organization data cited by Aju Press showed 153,393 Filipino visitor arrivals in the first quarter of 2026, while KTO market reporting put the latest full-year total at 615,141 arrivals in 2025.
