North Korea's Overseas Labour Earned Up to $800 Million Despite UN Ban, Monitoring Team Says

Thousands of workers abroad, most wages taken by the state

North Korea's overseas labour programme generated an estimated $450 million to $800 million for its government in 2025, despite a United Nations deadline requiring countries to send income earning North Korean nationals home by 2019. An investigation by the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) estimates that 35,600 to 101,280 workers remain deployed abroad, with at least 17 countries suspected of hosting them.

The MSMT's third monitoring report, released on September 16, 2026, places most workers in China and Russia. It says North Korean authorities confiscate 80 to 90 percent of their wages, sometimes more, while workers face long shifts, restricted movement and threats against relatives if they escape.

The findings will be discussed on November 17 at United Nations Headquarters in New York, where Yeji Kim, a researcher and adviser on North Korea at Global Rights Compliance (GRC), is scheduled to join an expert panel. The event, cohosted by the MSMT's 11 participating governments, will be streamed on UN Web TV.

GRC's March 2026 investigation, A Day in the Life of a DPRK State-Imposed Labourer in St. Petersburg, Russia, drew on 21 interviews with North Korean workers in Russia. The MSMT cites it twice. Together, the investigations describe a programme that supplies foreign employers with tightly controlled labour while directing much of the money earned towards North Korean state priorities, including nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

How the ban outlasted its enforcement

UN Security Council resolutions 2375 and 2397, adopted in 2017, targeted North Korea's access to income from workers abroad. Resolution 2375 prohibited new work authorisations for North Korean nationals, while Resolution 2397 required the repatriation of those earning income overseas by 2019.

China and Russia continue to host substantial workforces years after that deadline, according to the MSMT. The report describes employers, recruitment intermediaries, diplomatic offices and immigration arrangements that keep workers moving across borders and into jobs.

The monitoring system itself also changed. Russia vetoed the renewal of the UN sanctions Panel of Experts in March 2024, and the panel ceased operating the following month. Eleven governments established the MSMT in October 2024 as an independent mechanism to monitor sanctions implementation.

• 2017: The Security Council adopted resolutions restricting work authorisations and requiring the return of North Korean workers earning income abroad.
• 2019: The repatriation deadline passed.
• March and April 2024: Russia vetoed renewal of the UN Panel of Experts, followed by the end of its operations.
• October 2024: Eleven governments established the MSMT.
• March 2026: GRC published its investigation based on 21 worker interviews.
• September 16, 2026: The MSMT released its third report, examining overseas labour.
• November 17: The scheduled UN Headquarters panel will discuss the findings and enforcement.

The participating governments are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States. Their joint government statement urges countries to investigate those arranging prohibited employment and calls for the UN expert panel's restoration.

The 11 governments, speaking jointly as MSMT participants, made this request to the Security Council:

We urge the UN Security Council to reestablish the Panel of Experts in the same strength and structure it had prior to its disbandment.

Where the money comes from

The MSMT estimates that most of the $450 million to $800 million generated in 2025 came from overseas information technology workers. That finding gives digital work a central place in a programme also involving construction, seafood processing, clothing production, restaurants and manufacturing.

Information technology workers can earn money through software and other digital services supplied across borders. The report describes arrangements for collecting their proceeds, including cryptocurrency transfers directed by designated collection officers.

China also serves as a purchasing centre. According to the report, wages earned there are often transferred to North Korean authorities based in China and used to buy goods for North Korea. Earnings from workers in other countries are also channelled into China for procurement.

Some digital operations are adapting to tighter Chinese scrutiny. The MSMT describes a North Korean trading company that leased premises in Sinuiju, across the border from China, where workers could use Chinese internet connections to carry out overseas video production orders. Other companies allegedly sought to disguise IT staff as trading company employees or garment workers.

For enforcement agencies, this creates several places to investigate: the employer paying for the work, the intermediary receiving the money, the officer collecting it and the business buying goods with the proceeds. Following wages alone captures only part of that chain.

China remains the largest destination

China hosts an estimated 20,000 to 70,000 North Korean workers, according to the MSMT. Between 10,000 and 20,000 returned home during 2023 to 2025, but about 10,000 new workers entered China between January 2025 and January 2026. The report says deployments continued to grow during 2026.

Liaoning and Jilin provinces are major centres, particularly Dandong and Hunchun near the North Korean border. Workers process seafood, sew clothing and make other manufactured goods. The report also identifies employment in electronics and North Korean efforts to secure work involving electrical appliance assembly.

The arrangements can be highly organised. The MSMT says intermediary companies designated by local authorities receive applications from North Korean dispatch companies and Chinese employers, coordinate placements and manage workers. Some factories receive workers on visas describing their purpose as training, while restaurant employees reportedly use student visas.

The report gives several examples of deployments: more than 2,900 workers sent through Dandong Customs to garment factories since September 2025, and approximately 4,600 dispatched by O-il Trading Corporation to Kaishantun Industrial Park in Longjing over the same period. These figures describe different locations and periods within the wider programme.

Reporting based on unnamed sources also describes about 500 workers sent to China in September and October, mainly women assigned to wigs, artificial eyelashes, clothing and seafood processing. The same reporting describes more than 900 workers sent to Russia during those months.

Russia offers higher wages and military factory work

Russia hosted an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 North Korean workers at the end of 2025. The MSMT identifies 70 to 80 affiliated North Korean companies and a regional management structure involving diplomatic offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok and Khabarovsk.

Workers in Russia generate average annual wages of about $7,500 each, the report estimates. Depending on the industry, monthly wages can be as much as five times those available in China. Higher earnings give North Korean authorities a financial reason to favour Russian placements.

The report describes approximately 300 workers previously repatriated from China who were preparing in August 2025 for deployment to Primorsky Krai, including agricultural, forestry and fisheries jobs. Other placements involve construction, shipbuilding, steel processing and manufacturing.

Military production is another part of the programme. The MSMT says North Koreans work in military drone factories in Alabuga, Tatarstan. Its findings connect overseas labour revenue for Pyongyang with production supporting Russia's war in Ukraine.

GRC's recruitment investigation also describes placements in food production supplying armed forces and industrial facilities connected to military supply chains. Its visual investigations linked North Korean embassy personnel to workplace inspections, while interviews described wage payments passing through brokers based in Russia.

The financial attraction for the state is very different from the worker's reward. An employer may pay substantially more in Russia, yet quotas, fees and wage confiscation determine how much reaches the person doing the job.

Student visas provide a route into workplaces

Russia issued 36,413 visas to North Korean nationals in 2025, including 35,839 student visas, according to figures cited in reporting on the MSMT findings. Student visas therefore represented about 98.4 percent of the total. Official Russian figures cited in that reporting recorded no work visas issued to North Koreans since 2020.

The MSMT says Russia has created a student visa scheme that disguises workers as students. GRC describes nominal university enrolment followed by transfers to employers, allowing workers to retain student status on paper while spending their days at industrial or construction sites.

Recruitment intermediaries allegedly charge employers between 100,000 and 150,000 rubles per worker. GRC's investigation describes placements involving shifts of 12 hours and typically just two days off each month.

China uses related routes, according to the MSMT. Some factory workers receive training visas lasting six months, with renewals reportedly possible without returning to North Korea. Immigration records can therefore describe education or training while the person's daily activity is paid production.

Checking university attendance, actual work locations and employer payrolls would address the gap identified by these investigations. The MSMT specifically recommends stronger screening at embassies and border entry points, alongside measures to prevent student visas being used for prohibited employment.

Why volunteering can lead to forced labour

North Koreans may seek overseas work because it offers food, income or opportunities unavailable at home. The MSMT and GRC nevertheless describe conditions amounting to labour imposed by the state, including for people who initially volunteered to leave.

Forced labour means work extracted through coercion rather than freely chosen employment. A worker's ability to refuse tasks, leave a job, move freely and keep earnings matters throughout the employment relationship, not just when accepting an offer.

The MSMT describes shifts lasting 12 to 18 hours, six or seven days each week. Workers surrender 80 to 90 percent of their earnings or more, then face charges for travel, accommodation and food. Sending money to relatives can carry an additional fee of up to 30 percent of the amount remitted.

GRC testimony also describes fixed monthly state quotas rising from $600 to $700 for some workers, with payments reaching $850 in other testimony. The increase from $600 to $700 is about 16.7 percent. Unpaid shortfalls can roll into the next month as debt, keeping pressure on workers even when their earnings fall.

Surveillance extends beyond the workplace. The MSMT says workers live collectively, face restrictions on outside contact and are generally allowed out in pairs for essential activities so they can monitor each other. Reporting based on unnamed sources describes one party affiliated monitor for every five workers in recent deployments.

Workers who escape risk reprisals against relatives in North Korea. The report also records allegations of sexual harassment, rape and trafficking affecting women workers in China and Russia. These conditions leave workers with little room to challenge managers or demand payment.

A fatal collision exposes gaps in worker protection

Six North Korean nationals reportedly died and another was seriously injured when a train collided with a van in Russia's Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Russian security and law enforcement sources identified the victims' nationality, while subsequent reporting described them as workers employed locally.

RT SAVE, a civil society organisation tracking North Korean overseas labour, said the victims might have belonged to a subcontracting crew on a Russian construction site. It was investigating a possible connection to the First Construction Company in Khabarovsk.

The victims' exact employer, contractual arrangements and reason for travelling remain unconfirmed, as do arrangements for compensation or support for their families. Those details matter because responsibility can be spread between the workplace operator, a subcontractor, a recruitment broker and the North Korean dispatch organisation.

GRC's findings describe workers whose earnings pass through intermediaries rather than directly into their hands. When injury or death occurs, that same layered structure makes it harder for families to identify who holds the wage records, insurance arrangements or compensation obligations.

The collision brings a concrete human cost into a debate often dominated by sanctions revenue. Workers need safe transport and workplaces, medical care after injuries and a means for their families to seek payment when something goes wrong.

What the November panel will examine

Yeji Kim's November 17 appearance will bring GRC's worker interviews into a discussion centred on the MSMT's third report. The scheduled panel will examine working conditions, methods used to evade sanctions and steps governments can take to strengthen enforcement.

The MSMT recommends that countries implement the relevant Security Council resolutions, end labour dispatch arrangements, prohibit work authorisations covered by the sanctions and prevent new recruitment channels. It also calls for information sharing about intermediaries, student visa abuse and the growing role of IT work.

The 11 participating governments urge domestic action against those responsible for sanctions violations. Their demand to restore the UN Panel of Experts addresses another practical issue: collecting information across countries when the employment, payment and procurement stages occur in different jurisdictions.

For employers and investigators, the findings point towards examining who recruits workers, where they actually work, who receives their wages and whether they can speak privately about conditions. For workers, the immediate stakes are their freedom of movement, the money they retain and protection when they are injured or threatened.

Key Points

• The MSMT estimates that overseas labour generated $450 million to $800 million for North Korea in 2025, mostly through IT workers.
• An estimated 35,600 to 101,280 workers are deployed abroad, with China and Russia hosting the largest numbers.
• The report describes wage confiscation of 80 to 90 percent or more, long shifts, surveillance and threats against relatives.
• Student and training visas help conceal employment, according to the MSMT and GRC investigations.
• The 11 MSMT governments want stronger enforcement and restoration of the UN sanctions Panel of Experts.
• A November 17 panel at UN Headquarters will discuss the findings, with GRC researcher and adviser Yeji Kim participating.