How to invest in US stocks in Korea as an Expat

I went through sooo much so half of me want to just rant about it, but I will try to keep this concise.

**DISCLAIMER** This is my personal experience and you should ask the bank and broker to make sure it's applicable to you.

So what I wanted to do was invest in US stocks.

Before I go into the details of how I was able to open up a brokers acct and fund it from Korea, I will disclose some info about me. So you can get a sense if this would work for you, too.

I am a US-born Korean American, and work at a company in Korea with a F-4 visa. My tax residence is in Korea. I have an alien registration card.

Ok, with that, there are about two ways to invest:

1. Open up a Korean brokerage acct and buy Korean made etfs that follow US s&p, Nasdaq 100, etc. You can fund it with money from Korean bank.
You will not be able to invest in individual US stocks, for tax reasons (or so I was told).
I asked a brokerage called Mirae Asset, and they said they need me to bring in my stamp (that works like your signature), and my alien registration card.

2. Open up an international brokerage acct and fund it through US bank acct, or Korean bank. I went to Woori Bank, cuz I have an acct with them.
Below is the link to the Brokerage acct I opened (IBKR):
https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/home.php


For #2, there are countless blogs and youtube that goes step by step on how to open up an acct with IBKR, so I wont go into detail.

**Tip, when it comes to submitting docs for verification to IBKR in the States, you can translate the document by yourself. Just keep the regular format and structure of the document, and change all the Korean words into English.

Once you get your acct set up, you need to fund it as the last step. For funding, use one time bank wire and enter in the bank info (WOORI BANK in my case) and the exact amount you are about to fund.

Then, IBKR will give you the wire details for you to give to the bank teller.

This is what I brought to the bank:
1. bank wire info
2. passport
3. alien registration card
4. woori check card.
5. document that verifies your address and name (건강보험득실확인서 or Certificate of Korean Residence)

Oh and probably plan to stay at the bank for over an hour and a half cuz most likely it's the first time your teller will be processing this and will make a few mistakes along the way.

Once you get to the bank, state that you want to send funds to an overseas brokerage for investing purposes (투자) and just present the material you brought to the teller, when requested.

If everything goes as planned, the fund should be received the same day, and you can start investing!

It worked for me.
Hopefully it works for you!

🤓