Who qualifies
The tourist shopping-refund scheme is established by Article 107 of the Restriction of Special Taxation Act and its Presidential Decree. Eligibility also depends on non-resident status under the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act. Companies, diplomats stationed in Korea, and UN and US forces personnel stationed here are excluded. The main visitor categories are:
| You are | You stop qualifying when | So you qualify while |
|---|---|---|
| A foreign national | you work in Korea, or have stayed six months or more | your stay is under six months and you are not working here |
| A Korean national living abroad | you re-enter and stay three months or more | you have lived abroad two years or more and this visit is under three months |
A visa-free or K-ETA (Korea Electronic Travel Authorization, the online pre-screening a visa-free visitor files before flying) visitor on a normal holiday qualifies. Someone working in Korea should not assume eligibility from a short stay alone. Someone six months into a study or working-holiday stay does not, whatever their passport. Global Tax Free, the Korea Tourism Organization and Visit Seoul all print the same three lines, and the refund companies add: nobody overstaying, nobody earning in Korea.
This is the refund-afterwards (사후면세) system — pay the full shelf price in an ordinary shop and claim the tax back afterwards. It is not the duty-free halls at the airport or in Myeongdong (central Seoul's main shopping street, and its cosmetics district), where the price is already tax-free and there is nothing to claim.
What you can buy
Excluded categories include guns, blades and explosives; cultural and natural heritage items; habit-forming medicines; anything whose sale is restricted by law; tobacco; and anything under the minimum. Two further conditions apply:
- The shopping refund covers goods. A meal, a haircut, a taxi, a concert ticket and a
tour are outside the scheme. Hotel stays of 30 nights or less at designated hotels have a separate refund running to 31 December 2028, and cosmetic surgery had its own, which ended at the start of 2026 — “What's excluded from the tourist tax refund”.
- Keep the goods new, unopened and unused.
Incheon Airport's instructions say customs will only confirm unopened and unused (미개봉·미사용) items. Wearing the jacket for the flight home is the classic way to lose the refund.
Where you can buy it
Only a shop the district tax office has designated as a tax-refund store may issue a slip. Department stores, the big cosmetics chains and most tourist-facing shops in Myeongdong and Hongdae (the nightlife and student district around Hongik University) are designated; traditional markets, small independents and street stalls generally are not. Look for the TAX FREE sticker at the door or the till, usually carrying an operator's name — Global Tax Free, NICE Tax Free, Global Blue, CubeRefund or eTAX FREE. Confirm the shop’s participation before paying; spending more does not make an unregistered shop eligible.
Show your passport at the till. The shop must check it before issuing a slip, and for an immediate refund it scans it and sends an electronic record to customs at your departure airport. Whether a photo of the passport is accepted instead of the booklet varies by shop; carry the booklet.
The floor: ₩15,000, tax included, per receipt
The minimum is ₩15,000 including VAT (value-added tax) in a single transaction — since 1 January 2024, when it fell from ₩30,000, a figure much English-language guidance still repeats. It is per receipt, not per day or per shop: two ₩10,000 receipts from the same shop are two ineligible purchases; one ₩20,000 receipt is one eligible one. How to arrange a basket around that is on “Splitting purchases to get a bigger tax refund”.
What actually comes back
The refund is not a flat 10% of the purchase price. Korean prices include the tax, so the tax inside a ₩110,000 price tag is ₩10,000 — 10/110, about 9.1% — and the refund company then deducts a fee approved by the National Tax Service. Global Tax Free's rate table:
| You spend | You get back | In effect |
|---|---|---|
| ₩15,000–29,999 | ₩1,000 | 6.7% down to 3.3% |
| ₩30,000–49,999 | ₩2,000 | 6.7% down to 4.0% |
| ₩100,000–124,999 | ₩7,000 | 7.0% down to 5.6% |
| ₩1,000,000–1,099,999 | ₩75,000 | 7.5% down to 6.8% |
| ₩6,000,000 and over | 90% of the tax | about 8.2% |
Ask the operator on your receipt for its applicable table. The refund is banded, so a receipt just under a band edge pays badly: ₩29,999 returns ₩1,000, a third of the tax in the price; ₩30,000 returns ₩2,000.
