Travel Essentials: Visas, Arrival & Emergencies
A handful of things matter more than everything else before you fly and in your first few days here. Each one comes with the official link, because the general rule and your own situation are not always the same thing. That holds for the arrivals hall too - customs and quarantine both run on published figures, and the expensive mistakes there are the ones nobody meant to make. Still working out the trip itself? Start with when to visit, where to stay, and your budget.
Before you board: K-ETA and the e-Arrival Card
Most short-stay visitors can enter visa-free, but a lot of passport holders still have to get a K-ETA (Korea Electronic Travel Authorization) online before they board. Do it on the official K-ETA site a few days out - leaving it until the airport is asking for trouble. The permit that lets you drive here has to be settled before you fly as well, and it is stricter: only the country that issued your licence can issue one, so no airport counter can fix it.
If you're coming visa-free without a valid K-ETA or residence card, there's one more form to line up before you land: the e-Arrival Card. It's free, and you submit it within 72 hours of arrival - do it too early and it lapses, so aim for the last three days before your flight. Filing it ahead saves you filling in a paper card at the immigration desk. Stick to the official e-Arrival Card portal; paid lookalike sites charge for what the government hands out free. Anyone holding a valid K-ETA, a residence card, or working as airline crew can skip it.
- Get your K-ETA sorted at least 72 hours before you fly.
- Submit the e-Arrival Card in the last three days before departure - earlier and it lapses.
- Save a printed or offline copy of your approval and accommodation address - you may be asked for both.
Do you need a visa?
Whether you need a visa at all comes down to your nationality and why and how long you're staying. A lot of passport holders can come visa-free for short tourist trips; some nationalities are temporarily exempt from K-ETA, and a few can't enter visa-free at all.
The lists shift around, so check your status on the official visa portal close to when you actually travel. Coming to work, study, or be with family is a different story - you'll need a matching visa, such as the D, E, or F categories. Apply through a Korean embassy or consulate before you arrive, and look up what's required on HiKorea, the government immigration portal.
- Check your passport's status on the official visa portal close to your travel dates.
- Make sure your passport stays valid for your whole trip.
At the customs desk: what comes in duty free
Immigration, then baggage claim, then customs. That last desk stands between you and the trains and buses into the city, and it is the only one where a figure you never looked up can cost you money. The allowance follows the traveller, not the bag: two suitcases and a parcel shipped separately come to one calculation against one limit.
Alcohol, tobacco and perfume are counted separately and sit outside that combined figure. Alcohol is where people go wrong most, usually because they turn up braced for a bottle count. There is no bottle count. What customs checks is volume and value, and a bottle has to clear both.
Age is counted by birth year, not by whether your birthday has come round yet. Under 19 the alcohol and tobacco allowance is zero, not simply smaller.
Going over the allowance is not the problem. Going over quietly is.
- Shipping a parcel separately does not buy you a second allowance - it lands inside the same US$800.
- Carry two kinds of tobacco and only one of them comes in exempt.
| Category | Allowance |
|---|---|
| Basic allowance | US$800 or less in customs value, carried and shipped goods together |
| Alcohol | 2 litres or less, and US$400 or less |
| Tobacco | 200 cigarettes. E-cigarettes: 200 heated sticks, or 20ml of nicotine liquid. Bring more than one kind and only one is exempt |
| Perfume | 100 millilitres |
| Farm, forest and marine produce | 5kg per item, 40kg overall, and up to 100,000 won of the overseas purchase price (inside the US$800) |
| Under 19 | No alcohol or tobacco allowance, counted by birth year |
Declaring: what it costs, and the form you can file before landing
What happens at that desk is a price, not a judgement. Declare and the duty drops; keep quiet and get caught and it climbs, further still if customs has caught you once inside the past two years. The figure to memorise is the ceiling on the reduction: the 30% is capped at 200,000 won per person. Past a certain price tag it stops behaving like a percentage at all.
The form itself can be filled in before you land. It sits on the customs service mobile site - a web page, nothing to install - and runs in Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese. Doing it early spares you the fields nobody wants to fill in on a bumpy descent: occupation, arrival date, flight number, length of trip, countries visited. If there is duty to pay, the bill can be issued and settled on your phone.
It does not buy a guaranteed fast lane, though. An electronic declaration channel may be operated, but customs says plainly that it works whichever lanes suit conditions on the day. Treat the form as paperwork already done, not a queue skipped. Cash is a separate threshold entirely: Money & Tax Refund carries that figure, and the refund you claim on the way out.
- The 30% reduction is capped at 200,000 won per person, so it is worth most on mid-priced goods.
- The pre-arrival declaration is a web page, not an app, and it runs in Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese.
Food, plants and pets
Quarantine is a different authority with a different desk, and none of its rules turn on what something cost. Meat, and anything processed from meat, has to be declared on arrival and inspected. However little you are carrying.
The fines are steeper than most people expect, and what pushes them up is how often it has happened, not how much you were carrying. Plants, fruit, vegetables and seeds run the same course - declare, then inspect - with up to 3 million won for saying nothing. Soil is refused outright, and so is a plant with soil still on its roots.
Which items and which countries are barred is set by ministerial rule and changes often, so a list copied into a travel page ages badly. Carrying something you are unsure about? The quarantine desk answers that in seconds, for free. Pets need a health certificate from a government body in the country you flew from, handed to the animal quarantine officer before you reach customs; without one the animal goes back.
- Meat, plants, fruit, vegetables and seeds all have to be declared, whatever the quantity.
- A pet arriving without a government health certificate from the departure country is refused and sent back.
| Not declared | First | Second | Third+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pork or pork products from a country with African swine fever | 5 million won | 7.5 million won | 10 million won |
| Other animal products | 1 million won | 3 million won | 5 million won |
Staying past 90 days
On a short visit, clearing immigration is usually the end of it. Stay beyond 90 days, though, and you'll generally have to register with immigration and pick up a Residence Card. That is the name printed on it now; the old one, Alien Registration Card, is why everyone still says ARC. The card becomes your main ID here - the thing banks, phone shops, and public services all ask for.
Foreign registration generally requires an advance appointment through the HiKorea portal; without one, the immigration office will not normally accept the application. Bring your passport, proof of your address in Korea, one 3.5 × 4.5 cm passport-style photo taken within the past six months, and any documents required for your status of stay. The full resident setup - ARC, bank, phone, and housing - is covered in Living in Korea, and health insurance in Healthcare & Support.
- Foreign registration generally requires an advance HiKorea appointment. If no date is available before your statutory registration or reporting deadline, visit the immigration office responsible for your address before the deadline.
- With an ARC in hand, a Korean bank account and mobile plan become straightforward.
Emergencies and healthcare
Emergency services here are fast and reliable. Dial 112 for police and crime, and 119 for fire, medical emergencies, and ambulances. If your Korean isn't up to it, 119 operators can bring an interpreter onto the line.
Got a travel question, lost something, or just need help in your own language? Call 1330, the Korea Travel Hotline run by the Korea Tourism Organization. It's staffed around the clock in English, Japanese, Chinese, and more.
For small stuff, pharmacies (look for the green cross) can sort you out, and clinics are everywhere and cheap for a lot of treatments - both on weekday hours, so nights and public holidays need a different plan. Do get travel insurance, though - without it, you're paying every bill yourself.
- 112 for police, 119 for fire and ambulance, 1330 for travel help - the last one is 24/7 and multilingual.
- Add 1330 to your contacts before you land.
Everyday etiquette
A few small habits go a long way here. Hand over and receive things - money, cards, drinks - with two hands, or one hand supporting the other, especially around older people. And take your shoes off before you step into homes, plus a lot of traditional restaurants and guesthouses.
On public transport, those priority seats really do stay empty for the elderly, pregnant, and disabled, even on a packed train. Keep phone calls low, stand on the right of the escalator, and skip the tip - nobody expects one, and it tends to cause more confusion than goodwill.
- Use two hands when you give or receive - it reads as respect.
- Don't tip. The price on the tag is the price you pay.
Quick answers
How long can I stay without a visa?
Is tap water safe to drink?
Do I need to carry my passport everywhere?
How much can I bring into Korea duty free?
Can I bring food into Korea?
By Hyouk Seo · Last updated: 2026-09-03