Korea is cheaper than its reputation in the places that repeat every day, and the reason is transport. A subway ride is 1,550 won and transfers are free. You can spend a whole day crossing Seoul for less than a coffee costs in most capital cities.
Everything below is built from published fares and the government’s own price survey. Where I could not check a number, I have left it out rather than estimated it.
Moving around
The subway takes 1,550 won with a transit card, 1,650 if you buy a single-journey ticket, and 1,240 if you tap in before 06:30. Those are the rates set on 28 June 2025. The fare covers the first 10 kilometres, then adds 100 won per 5 kilometres.
Buses run on a table set in August 2023 and still current: 1,500 won on the blue trunk and green branch routes, 1,200 on village buses, 1,400 on the yellow downtown circulators, 3,000 on the red buses out to Gyeonggi, 2,500 on the night owls.
Transfers between them are free inside that first 10 kilometres, which is the part that keeps a day cheap. Three legs across the city is one fare and change, not three fares.
Taxis are where the arithmetic changes. A medium taxi starts at 4,800 won for 1.6 kilometres, then 100 won per 131 metres or per 30 seconds when the traffic stops. From 22:00 the meter opens at 5,800, and from 23:00 to 02:00 at 6,700. Leave the city and 20 percent goes on top of that, up to a combined 60 percent.
Eating
The government runs a price survey, which is a better guide than anecdote.
On the Korea Consumer Agency’s figures for June 2026, a roll of gimbap in Seoul averaged 3,838 won. It was the fastest riser of the eight dishes tracked, up 5.9% in a year, because rice, eggs and seaweed all went up at once. The rest of the basket moved more gently: pork belly 4.3%, knife-cut noodles 3.6%, cold noodles and ginseng chicken soup 2.8%, bibimbap 2.7%, jajangmyeon 2.1%, kimchi stew 1.8%.
The useful shape is the spread rather than any single dish. A convenience store or a gimbap counter feeds you for around 4,000 won. A proper sit-down bowl of cold noodles is close to three times that. Both are ordinary, everyday Korean eating, and which one you pick several times a day is what actually sets your daily number.
The line I will not put a number on
Accommodation, and it is deliberate.
It moves with the season, the district, the day of the week and how far ahead you booked, and it swings further than every other line on this page put together. Quoting an average would be the least reliable sentence here and the one people would remember. Price your own dates and treat the rest of this page as the part that holds steady.
One thing that does affect the choice: the rules on licensed accommodation changed at the start of 2026, and they are worth reading before you book something informal.
Small things that quietly help
No tipping. The menu price is the whole price, which removes the 10 to 20 percent most visitors mentally add. The tipping guide covers the edge cases, of which there are few.
Tax refund on bigger purchases, which is real money if you shop, and has one step that cancels the whole thing. That is the refund guide.
Cash you do not need. Cards work nearly everywhere, so a single withdrawal usually covers the gaps rather than a wallet full of won. The ATM guide covers which machines take a foreign card and what they charge.
Free sights are genuinely good. Palaces cost a few thousand won, markets and riverside parks cost nothing, and a Han River evening is the cheapest good night out in the city.
Outside Seoul
Intercity travel is the line that jumps. Seoul to Busan on the KTX runs 54,400 won after the fare cut in September 2026, which is roughly a fortnight of city transport in one seat.
Plan those as separate events in the budget rather than folding them into a daily average. A day that contains a KTX ticket is not a normal day.
Subway fares, including the 1,550 won card fare, the 1,650 single ticket and the 1,240 early-bird rate, are from Seoul Metropolitan Government’s published fare table dated 28 June 2025; the bus fares are from the same source, set 12 August 2023. Taxi fares, including the 4,800 won base and the 5,800 and 6,700 won night rates, are from Seoul’s own taxi fare page, effective 1 February 2023. The gimbap price of 3,838 won for June 2026 and the year-on-year movements across the eight surveyed dishes are the Korea Consumer Agency’s price survey as reported in the Korean press on 17 August 2026. The KTX figure comes from this site’s Busan guide. All of it was checked on 14 September 2026, and prices move, so treat the structure as durable and the figures as dated.
