Nothing is wrong with your card. A plain T-money card is loaded with cash, in every convenience store in the country, and it always has been.
What changed this year is the phone. Since March 2026 a T-money balance on an iPhone can be topped up with a foreign Mastercard, American Express, UnionPay or JCB card. Visa is the one left out of that list, so if Visa is all you carry, cash is still your top-up method.
Buying one
The plain card costs about 3,000 won. GS25, CU, 7-Eleven and emart24 all sell it. So do the ticket machines and the information desks inside Seoul subway stations on lines 1 to 8.
Say “T-money card” at the counter. Nobody will ask for your passport, and there is no form. The card is a small purse with no name on it. That is why it works for anyone, and also why a lost one is simply gone.
The 3,000 won buys the plastic. It is not a deposit and you will not get it back.
Topping up with cash
Hand the card and the cash to the cashier and say 충전해주세요 (chungjeon-hae juseyo, “please top it up”). Each top-up is between 1,000 and 90,000 won, in 1,000 won steps. A card can hold at most 500,000 won.
Cash means cash. T-money’s own list of top-up methods names one bank card that works at a convenience store, a Woori Bank card at GS25. Everything else at the counter is notes.
Station machines take cash too. If you are short at the exit gate, do not go back out: there is a fare adjustment machine inside the gates (교통카드 정산·충전기, gyotong-kadeu jeongsan chungjeongi, “transit card settlement and top-up machine”). It usually has no queue.
The kiosk that says it takes foreign cards
You will see it: a newer ticket machine with card logos on it. Seoul put 440 of them into 273 stations on lines 1 to 8 on 17 March 2026, and they do take Visa, Mastercard and other foreign-issued cards.
What they sell for a foreign card is a single-journey ticket or a Climate Card tourist pass, the 1, 2, 3, 5 or 7-day kind. A 3.7 percent service fee goes on top. Topping up a plain T-money card with a foreign card is not on the menu, and the city’s announcement said as much: foreign card payment “applies first” to the Climate Card, with the longer pass to be looked at later.
So the machine is not broken and neither is your card. It is selling something else.
Putting it on your phone
This is the route for anyone who would rather not carry cash, and it is new enough that most guides still say it cannot be done.
iPhone. Install MobileTmoney, the app by Tmoney Co., Ltd. Its listing says “no sign-up required” and “now available for international users”. You top up inside the app through Apple Pay, and the listing names Mastercard, American Express, UnionPay and JCB. The developer’s own replies on that page repeat the same four. Visa is not among them.
Go through the app, not through the Wallet’s own “add a transit card” screen. Apple’s support page for transit cards, last updated 18 February 2026, still says a card issued in South Korea is required to buy or top up Tmoney from Wallet. Seoul had announced a direct Apple Pay arrangement for foreign cards and dropped it in early March after talks with Apple stalled. The app route is what shipped instead.
Tmoney’s announcement does not state the top-up fee. Read the total on the screen before you confirm.
Android. The app is KOREA TOUR CARD Tmoney. Its listing says it charges and refunds “with your credit or debit card (Master, VISA, Amex, JCB, Unionpay)”, needs Android 5.0.1 or later, and needs NFC switched to read and write mode. Mastercard’s April 2026 announcement names this app as the Android route for visitors. Note that the physical Korea Tour Card it was built around has been discontinued; the app is what remains.
A phone in Express mode taps like a card. It is still a separate balance from any plastic card you also bought.
Two people, one card
On a bus, yes. Tell the driver how many of you there are before you tap, wait for the driver to set the reader, then tap once. If you tap first, the reader charges one fare and the second person is not paid for.
On the subway, no. The gates process one person per card. Each of you needs your own.
For how tapping off and the 30-minute transfer window work, the public transport guide has the rules.
Getting the money back
The rule that matters is the threshold, because it decides where you can do it.
| Balance | Where | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Under 20,000 won | GS25, 7-Eleven, independent shops | 500 won |
| Up to 30,000 won | CU, emart24 | 500 won |
| Larger | Subway station information desk, or T-money’s office | Not stated for the desk. None at the office, up to 500,000 won a month |
The refund is cash on the spot. The 3,000 won you paid for the card is not part of it.
T-money’s office, called T-money Town, is on the ground floor of Seoul City Tower at Seoul Station, exit 10 of lines 1 and 4. Refunds there are free up to 500,000 won a month, but the official page asks for ID and a copy of a bank passbook, which is built for a Korean account. It lists an address and no opening hours. Do not plan your departure day around it.
The practical version: stop topping up two days before you leave and run the balance down under 20,000 won. Then any convenience store on the way to the airport hands you the rest.
Partial refunds, taking some money off while keeping the card, exist only at station information desks and T-money Town, in 10,000 won steps between 10,000 and 50,000 won.
Outside Seoul
The card is national. T-money’s usage list covers the subways in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon, Busan, Daegu, Daejeon and Gwangju, buses in every province and on Jeju, and taxis in the major cities, with a warning that some regions limit taxi payment. Korail ticket counters take it only if it is the 전국호환 (jeonguk hohwan, “nationwide compatible”) type, which is printed on the packet.
Top-up outside Seoul is the same story: cash at a convenience store.
The other cards on the rack
Next to the plain card you will see tourist versions. The T-money Travel Card is about 4,000 won at convenience stores and at the Incheon Airport bus counters, with a coupon book. The Travel Card Plus, 6,000 won since November 2025, is the same card with WOWPASS built in, so it can be loaded from the WOWPASS app or its kiosks without cash. The WOWPASS guide covers what that side of the card does and does not do.
At the airport bus counters there is also a 50,000 won AmazingPay pack, 46,000 won loaded plus the 4,000 won card, sold for cash only, which takes 10 percent off airport bus fares.
EZL is the other brand of plain transit card, from 4,000 won. It works the same way, and its convenience-store refund is capped at 20,000 won.
Children aged 6 to 12 and teenagers 13 to 18 pay less, and switching that on takes only the card number and a birth date at a convenience store or a station information desk. No Korean ID is involved.
Card price, sellers, the phone route, the cash-only top-up and the March kiosk scope are from Tmoney’s own guide for foreign visitors dated August 2026 and from the Korea Tourism Organization’s transport card page updated the same month, both read on 16 September 2026. Top-up amounts and the 500,000 won limit, the refund thresholds per chain, the 500 won fee, the T-money Town rules and documents, partial refunds, the child and teen registration, and the nationwide usage list are from T-money’s Korean guidance pages, read the same day. The kiosk launch of 17 March 2026, its 440 machines in 273 stations, its 3.7 percent fee and its limit to tickets and Climate Card passes are from Seoul’s announcement as reported on 16 March 2026. The iPhone details are from the MobileTmoney App Store listing, version 2.4.7 dated 1 September 2026; the Android details from the KOREA TOUR CARD Tmoney Google Play listing, last updated 15 April 2025; Apple’s Korean-card requirement from its transit card support page dated 18 February 2026; the dropped Apple Pay arrangement from a Korean technology newspaper on 2 March 2026. The bus and subway multi-rider rules are from Seoul’s transit card Q&A. Tmoney’s Threads post of 19 March 2026 announcing foreign-card top-up named Mastercard, Amex and UnionPay and no fee figure, which is why none is given here.
