You get the 10% VAT back on most things you buy in Korea, in one of three places: at the shop till, at a counter in town, or at the airport before you fly. The shop is the easy one and covers most people. The other two share a single point of failure, which is the customs check on departure day, and this page is mostly about not failing it.
Rules come from the Korea Tourism Organization’s tax refund page (updated 20 October 2025), the finance ministry’s announcement of the current limits, and Incheon Airport’s own refund page, all read on 1 September 2026.
Who and what qualifies
You qualify if you have been in Korea under six months. Overseas Koreans qualify if they have lived abroad two years or more and are in Korea three months or less. People who work in Korea, diplomats and US military personnel do not.
The shop has to be a 사후면세점 (sahu-myeonse-jeom, “refund-after tax-free shop”), which means it shows a Tax Free sign at the door or the till. Most department stores, chain clothing shops and big cosmetics shops are one. Small restaurants are not, and food you eat in Korea is never refundable anyway.
Per receipt the minimum is 15,000 won. It was 30,000 until 1 January 2024, and some refund companies’ own pages still print the old figure. The goods must leave Korea within three months of purchase, unused and, for anything sealed, still sealed.
Duty-free shops with “Duty Free” in the name are a different system: you pay tax-free at the counter and collect the goods at the airport after immigration. Nothing on this page applies to them.
Route one: the price drops at the till
Hand over your passport when you pay. If the receipt is under 1,000,000 won and your total of these instant refunds for the trip is still 5,000,000 won or less, the shop deducts the tax on the spot and you walk out with the lower price. Both caps were doubled on 1 January 2024.
That is the whole procedure. No forms, no counters, nothing at the airport. For a normal shopping trip this is the only route you will use.
Route two: a counter in town, with your card as hostage
Above the instant-refund caps, or if the shop only issued a refund voucher instead of deducting the tax, you can be paid in town. Staffed refund centres and self-service kiosks sit in the main shopping districts; each refund company runs its own, so match the logo on your voucher to the counter.
You need the passport, the voucher, and a credit card. The card is the catch. A downtown refund is provisional: the money is paid to you now, and the claim is confirmed only when customs registers the goods leaving the country on your departure day. If that never happens, the refund company charges the amount back to the card you gave. So a downtown refund does not save you the airport step. It only moves the cash forward.
Route three: the airport
Incheon’s procedure has three steps, and the order matters.
At check-in, if the refund goods are in a bag you are checking, say so. The airline tags the bag so customs can confirm the goods before it goes into the hold. If the goods are in your hand luggage, keep walking.
Before immigration, scan your passport and each voucher at a refund kiosk. The kiosk either clears the receipt electronically or sends you to the customs desk beside it, where an officer looks at the goods and the paperwork. Bigger purchases are more likely to be sent to the desk, so keep everything unopened and reachable, not at the bottom of a checked bag.
After immigration, collect the money. In Terminal 1 the counter is on the third floor airside near gate 28, open 07:00 to 22:00, with 24-hour refund machines beside it and another set on the third floor of the boarding concourse next to the pharmacy. In Terminal 2 the counter is on the third floor airside opposite gate 250 and near gate 253, open 07:00 to 21:30, again with 24-hour machines. Refunds go out in cash or to a card, and the machines run when the counter is closed.
Thirty minutes is a fair allowance for the kiosk and customs before immigration when the queue is short, and it is not always short.
The parts nobody tells you
The refund is not the full 10%. Each refund company deducts a fee, and they differ, so the same 100,000 won receipt can pay out different amounts depending on whose voucher the shop printed.
Vouchers are paper. Losing them is losing the refund; there is no reprint at the airport.
If you fly out of a different airport from the one you assumed, the same three steps apply at Gimpo, Gimhae or Jeju, but check that airport’s own page for where the counters are and when they close before relying on a late flight.
And the six-month rule is about your stay, not the shopping date. A visitor at month seven of a long stay is no longer a tourist in customs’ eyes, however the visa reads.
