Yes, and the annoying part is that Korea rewards doing things in the "official" order even when that order wastes weeks. While waiting, I would focus on housing admin, transit, local clinic registration, and any bank tasks that can at least get you a passbook started. The things tied to full identity verification usually stay blocked until the ARC is live, so it helps to separate "can start now" from "do not bother yet."

A realistic first-month split is usually “things that only need your passport plus housing docs” versus “things that need the ARC number to fully work.” In practice in Korea, transit, hospital visits, and basic bank setup can often start earlier, but full phone contracts, easy app verification, and some online banking features lag until the card is live. Making that two-column checklist helped me stop wasting afternoons on offices that were always going to say no.