Money, Customs and Tax Refunds in South Korea

Paying in Korea: cash or card?

Card, by a wide margin. Korea took to card payment early, and the habit runs deeper than in most countries our readers come from. The useful question is not whether your card works. It is where the small, cash-shaped gaps remain.

Where your card will simply work

Department stores, restaurants, cafes, convenience stores, pharmacies, cinemas, museums, taxis and almost all accommodation take Visa and Mastercard without comment. Contactless is common. You will rarely be asked whether you would rather pay cash, and in some places you will struggle to.

Where cash still matters

The exceptions cluster in the places you came to see. Traditional markets, such as Gwangjang in Seoul, Jagalchi in Busan and Seomun in Daegu, still run on cash at stall level. A stall ladling tteokbokki into paper cups is unlikely to have a card reader. The same goes for most street food, some temple donation boxes, coin lockers, older coin laundries and the occasional family-run guesthouse outside the big cities.

So think of cash another way. It is not a fallback for when the card fails. It is the currency of a particular kind of transaction: small, fast, face to face and often food. Those are often the ones worth having, so carry cash as an entry ticket to the markets rather than as insurance.

Transport is its own system. Buses and the subway do not take your foreign bank card at the gate. They run on a stored-value card, T-money, or Seoul's Climate Card for unlimited travel. Getting around South Korea explains how they work and which one to buy.

Getting and moving money

You do not need won before you arrive. Exchange rates at home are usually poor, and the airport gives you better options within minutes of clearing customs.

Withdraw at an ATM in the arrivals hall. Not every Korean ATM accepts foreign cards: many serve domestic accounts only and reject you without explanation. Look for machines marked Global ATM or International Cards. Bank ATMs in the airport terminals and the machines in 7-Eleven branches are the reliable choices. 7-Eleven is dense enough in Korean cities that topping up later is rarely a problem.

Always choose to be charged in won

Card terminals and ATMs will often offer to bill you in your home currency instead. It is presented as helpful, as if it removed uncertainty. It does, at a price: the terminal operator sets the rate, not your card network, and that rate is worse. Decline it and pay in won every time.

T-money on an iPhone

Since 19 March 2026, visitors with iPhones can add a T-money card to Apple Wallet through the Mobile T-money app. They can top it up with a foreign Mastercard, American Express or UnionPay card. Visa was not supported at launch and, on the reports we found, still is not. It is convenient but not free. T-money publishes no fee schedule we could find, and travel sources report a service charge of roughly 3.7% to 4.5% of each top-up. Check the figure in the app before you load a large amount.

Customs on arrival

For an ordinary holiday this takes no time at all: you declare nothing and walk through. The thresholds below matter only if you carry serious cash, serious shopping or certain medicines.

If you are over the allowance

Declare it. Korea makes the arithmetic favour honesty. A voluntary declaration earns a 30% reduction in the duty owed. Goods found undeclared attract a penalty of 40% of the tax payable, rising to 60% for a second offence within two years. Both figures come from the Korea Customs Service. You can declare on paper or through its mobile app, which also issues and takes payment for the assessment.

Cash and anything cash-like

If you enter or leave Korea with more than US$10,000 in cash, won notes or equivalents such as cashier's cheques, you must declare it. This one we can state without hedging. It is set out in the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act and appears in the same terms on the Korean and English customs pages.

Two points catch people out. The threshold is the combined total of everything you carry, not per currency. And officers may treat a couple's or a family's pooled money as one sum. Do not assume that splitting it across two passports puts you below the line.

Medicines

Ordinary prescription and over-the-counter medicine for personal use is not a problem. Keep it in its original packaging with the pharmacy label, and carry a copy of the prescription or a doctor's letter. You will usually not be asked, but it costs nothing and settles the question at once if you are.

Medicines containing controlled substances are different, and this is where visitors get into real difficulty. Opioid painkillers such as codeine, tramadol and oxycodone, and benzodiazepines, need a permit from Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety before you travel. That holds whatever your nationality and even though the medicine is legal and prescribed at home. You apply online, and the guidance is to allow at least two weeks. Quantities are limited to a personal supply, commonly described as up to three months or six containers.

Where our confidence sits: several Korean embassies and the US Embassy in Seoul state the permit requirement consistently, and we are confident in it. They describe the quantity limits and the application route in different terms, and we could not confirm one authoritative version. If you take a controlled medicine, do not rely on this page. Contact the Ministry or the Korean embassy in your country, and start early.

Tax refunds for visitors

Korea refunds value-added tax to non-resident visitors on qualifying purchases. It is worth doing, because the sums are real on any serious shopping. The mechanics are simple once you see that there are three routes, and that they suit different amounts.

The airport sequence, in order

1. Ask for the tax refund sales certificate when you pay. Not every shop issues it unasked, and it cannot be produced later.
2. Check in for your flight, but keep the goods in your hand luggage. This is the step people get wrong: customs may need to see the items, and once they are in the hold you cannot show them.
3. Get customs export confirmation before immigration. At a self-service kiosk, scan your passport and the sales certificate. Where there is no kiosk, or the kiosk selects you for inspection, go to the customs desk in the departure hall.
4. Clear immigration and security as normal.
5. Collect the refund airside. Counters and kiosks sit in the duty-free zone after immigration. Cash refunds are paid there; card refunds reach your account within a few weeks.

Is it worth the trouble? On a few thousand won of souvenirs, no: take the refund at the till or let it go. On cosmetics, clothing or electronics running to several hundred thousand won, yes. The deciding factor is usually time rather than money. If you are running late for a flight, the refund is the thing to abandon.

If it goes wrong

Four things go wrong often enough to plan for. Two can be put right if you act before you fly.