Use Seoul Bike’s visitor option
Some Korean apps require 본인인증, an identity-verification process that short-term visitors may be unable to complete. Seoul Bike, or Ttareungi (서울자전거 따릉이), Seoul’s public bike scheme, offers a separate process for visitors. Its own usage guide describes a separate foreigner path: on the opening screen of the app you choose Foreigner instead of logging in, and the interface switches to English, with Chinese and Japanese also available under Menu → Settings → Language. This option does not require a Korean phone number or a member account.
Check that you have a suitable payment card before starting. Seoul Facilities Corporation (서울시설공단), which runs the scheme, states that a foreigner pass must be paid for with a credit card issued outside Korea, and that one card buys one pass. Two people who want to ride together need separate payment cards. The alternative it names is the Discover Seoul Pass, whose voucher number the app accepts — but only for a single pass type.
Prices, from Seoul's own transport pages:
| 1 hour | 2 hours | 3 hours | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day pass (member or not) | ₩1,000 | ₩2,000 | ₩3,000 |
| 7-day pass (members) | ₩3,000 | ₩4,000 | — |
| 30-day pass (members) | ₩5,000 | ₩7,000 | — |
| 180-day pass (members) | ₩15,000 | ₩20,000 | — |
| 365-day pass (members) | ₩30,000 | ₩40,000 | — |
The hour headings in the table show how long each ride may last. A one-hour day pass lets you ride as often as you like that day, as long as each ride ends within sixty minutes; dock the bike and take another one out and the clock resets, free. Go over and it costs ₩200 per five minutes, charged automatically, and an unpaid excess blocks your next rental. Keep a bike out for more than four hours and it is treated as stolen.
Non-members can buy only the one- or two-hour day pass. Riders must be at least 13 years old. Renting is by QR code — press rent, scan the code on the bike, and the lock releases. Support runs 24 hours a day, every day, on 1599-0120.
The Climate Card is a flat-fee transit pass for eligible services in and around Seoul. Its former 30-day prepaid option offered a Seoul Bike add-on, but new top-ups for that option ended on 31 August 2026. The short tourist passes continue; check whether the product you are buying includes bicycle use.
Outside Seoul, most large cities run their own scheme. Daejeon's Tashu (타슈) is app-and-QR based, open to anyone aged 15 or over, and carries English and Chinese on its site. Busan, Sejong, Goyang, Suwon, Yeosu and others each run something similar under a local name — expect the mechanics to be familiar and the foreigner path to be less well marked than Seoul's.
Electric scooters have separate rules and changing availability
First, the law. A shared electric scooter is a personal mobility device (개인형 이동장치) in Korean law — defined by the Road Traffic Act, article 2(19)-2 (도로교통법 제2조제19호의2), in a statute whose full text is public, as a moped-class vehicle that cuts its motor at 25 km/h and weighs under 30 kg. Being a moped, it needs a moped licence, and the rules are enforced with named penalties:
| Rule | Where it lives | Penalty |
|---|---|---|
| A driving licence is required (a moped licence, 원동기장치자전거, or higher) | Road Traffic Act, art. 43 (도로교통법 제43조) | ₩100,000 |
| A helmet is required | art. 50(4) (도로교통법 제50조제4항) | ₩20,000 |
| No riding on the footpath | art. 13-2 (도로교통법 제13조의2) | ₩30,000 |
| No carrying a passenger | art. 50(10) (도로교통법 제50조제10항) | ₩40,000 |
| Riding after drinking (0.03%+) | art. 44(1) (도로교통법 제44조제1항) | ₩100,000 |
| Refusing a breath test | art. 44(2) (도로교통법 제44조제2항) | ₩130,000 |
| Ignoring a signal | art. 5 (도로교통법 제5조) | ₩30,000 |
Those figures come from the Road Traffic Act Enforcement Decree, schedule 8 (도로교통법 시행령 별표 8), the national schedule of on-the-spot penalties.
A foreign permit counts — if it has the moped category on it. The unlicensed-riding offence, art. 156(13) (도로교통법 제156조제13호), is written out in full, and it expressly recognises a foreign permit: the offence is committed by someone who rides without a Korean moped licence and without "국제운전면허증 또는 상호인정외국면허증 중 원동기장치자전거를 운전할 수 있는 것으로 기재된" — that is, without an International Driving Permit marked as covering mopeds. Check with the issuing authority and rental operator that your permit explicitly covers the scooter you intend to ride. Do not infer that entitlement from a car-hire booking or the app accepting your registration.
Confirm that your permit covers the specific vehicle before renting a scooter.
Availability has also changed. A report from June 2026 described sharply reduced availability in central Seoul. Chosun Ilbo (조선일보), 27 June 2026 reports a journalist opening the market-leading Swing (스윙) app and then the number-two GCOO (지쿠) app in Gwanghwamun, City Hall and Jongno and finding not a single available scooter on either. The fleet in Seoul fell from over 43,000 in 2023 to about 18,000 by the end of 2025 — a 57.3% collapse in two years — and both operators have since withdrawn from the city.
Seoul’s towing rules are one factor affecting operators. Seoul was the first city in Korea to tow them, folding personal mobility devices into its illegal-parking towing ordinance — in force since 20 July 2021 — at a flat ₩40,000 tow fee plus ₩700 per 30 minutes of storage, billed to the operator. Six categories of location are immediate-tow zones: carriageways and cycle lanes, within five metres of a subway exit or a bus stop, on tactile paving or a traffic island, and within three metres either side of a crossing. Anyone can report a badly parked machine by scanning its QR code at Seoul's own reporting site. Incheon has introduced scooter-free streets, and Goyang and other Gyeonggi cities restrict them by ordinance. 197 local governments across Korea now have a personal-mobility ordinance of their own on the books.
The machines went to smaller cities — Chuncheon, Cheongju, Gyeongsan, Jeonju — where police figures show personal-mobility accidents rising sharply as Seoul's fell. Some campuses have banned them outright.
Practical answer: do not build a Seoul itinerary around a shared scooter. If you find one elsewhere, you need the moped category on your permit, a helmet you have brought yourself, and the road rather than the pavement.
Bicycles have rules too, and one of them surprises people
A bicycle is a vehicle (차) in Korean law, not a pedestrian aid, and Seoul says so on its own safety page.
- Where a cycle path (자전거도로) exists you must use it; where none exists, keep to the right-hand edge of the road (art. 13-2(1) and (2), 도로교통법 제13조의2제1항·제2항).
- The footpath is off-limits, except for children, older riders and registered disabled riders, or where a sign permits it.
- At a crossing you must get off and push. Article 13-2(6) (제13조의2제6항) requires a rider to dismount and walk the bike across a pedestrian crossing. Use a marked cycle crossing where one is provided, or walk across the pedestrian crossing.
- Riding two abreast on the carriageway is prohibited unless a sign allows it.
- Drink-cycling is an offence at the same 0.03% threshold as driving, penalty ₩30,000 — and refusing a breath test costs ₩100,000.
- A helmet is legally required of every cyclist under article 50(4) (제50조제4항), but there is no penalty attached for a bicycle rider — article 156(6) (제156조제6호) excludes them explicitly. Wear a helmet even though this particular bicycle rule has no fixed penalty.
Explore the riverside and long-distance cycle routes
The Han River (한강) paths follow both banks through Seoul, with bridges to cross on, riverside parks, convenience stores and bike-repair points. Rental shops cluster at Yeouido (여의도) and Ttukseom (뚝섬) for anyone who wants a better bike than a Seoul Bike (따릉이).
They are also the middle of something much larger. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (행정안전부) runs a national cycle network through the national cycling portal (자전거행복나눔) at bike.go.kr, which has a full English site. Thirteen signed long-distance routes make it up: the Ara path, the Han River path through Seoul, the Namhangang and Bukhangang paths, Saejae, the Nakdonggang, Geumgang, Yeongsangang, Seomjingang and Ocheon paths, both East Coast routes, and the Jeju circular path. The Ara-to-Nakdonggang traverse is the classic cross-country traverse (국토종주), coast to coast across the peninsula.
The network runs a certification system: stamp booths at intervals along each route, a certification passport to collect them in, and a formal completion record. Alongside the national routes are the local-government routes and a set of island cycle routes — Ganghwa, Deokjeok, Cheongsan, Geumo, Ulleung, and a long string of Sinan islands — with ferry access that may allow bicycles. Check the operator’s loading rules before travelling.
Check bicycle charges and loading deadlines with the ferry operator. Hanil Express publishes a ₩3,000 bicycle-loading charge for its Jeju services, but that is not a national flat fare. Bringing a bicycle on Seoul's subway is a weekend-and-holiday privilege, restricted to the first and last carriages — check before you rely on it.
