A mobile terminal and a method for searching for a home network for the mobile terminal are provided. The method includes performing a full scan for searching for the home network at a certain time after roaming to a visited network, initializing a count of a number of times a timer has expired when the home network is not found, initiating the timer, updating the count when the timer expires, scanning frequencies in a frequency list when the count is less than a certain value, and scanning all frequencies around the mobile terminal when the count is equal to the certain value.