Where
Buy one at a participating convenience store. The Korea Tourism Organization's transport-card page names GS25, CU and 7-Eleven and says "nationwide"; in practice Emart24, Ministop, StoryWay and the smaller banners stock them too, but stock varies by branch. The ticket windows at Seoul subway stations on Lines 1–8 sell them as well, and so do the kiosks in the airport arrivals hall.
What it costs
An empty card usually costs ₩3,000–5,000, depending on the shop and design — check the displayed price before buying. A decorative design does not by itself change the ordinary transit function.
Loading it — cash only at the counter
Hand your card over, say the amount, and the clerk rests it on a small pad while you pay. Pay in won notes. The reload is cash only — a foreign Visa or Mastercard is refused for this one transaction even in a shop that has just taken it for your groceries — so bring won for the top-up.
The self-service alternative is a supported station ticket machine, which reloads with cash up to ₩500,000 a time. A supported self-service machine lets you reload without a cashier. So land with some won for this step; “How much Korean won cash should I carry?” says how much. What a foreign card can do at the newer machines is on “Can I top up a Tmoney card at a subway station?”.
What it needs, and what it does not
Buying an ordinary unregistered card requires no Korean phone number, identification, app or account. Once you add money, you can tap it to pay eligible fares. A physical card does not need a phone’s NFC setting, data connection or battery. The flip side is that it is as anonymous as cash: money on a lost unregistered card may not be recoverable, so keep the balance modest and reload often.
What a plain card does not include
- Discounts. A plain Tmoney card carries no attraction or shop discounts.
Those came with the Korea Tour Card, now discontinued, and now come with its successor, the Tmoney Travel Card, for a few thousand won more and the same cash-only mechanics — “Korea Tour Card (now Tmoney Travel Card) or a plain Tmoney card?”.
- Regional coverage varies. Tmoney and other transit cards work across many of the same networks, but check your operator if you are travelling on a less common regional service — “Will my Tmoney card work in Busan and outside Seoul?” says where.
Getting the balance back
A leftover balance is refunded at a convenience-store counter or a subway Tmoney service desk, minus a service charge of about ₩500. “Getting my Tmoney or WOWPASS balance back before I fly” covers the limits, the deadlines and what is forfeited if you skip it.
