South Korea visa and entry requirements

Decision flow

1. Are you visa-free? Most European, North American and developed-Asian passports enter for tourism without a visa, for 30 to 90 days depending on nationality. Check your own on the official K-ETA portal, which tells you both whether you are visa-free and whether you need the authorisation.
2. Are you exempt from K-ETA? A large group of countries and territories is temporarily exempt until 31 December 2026 - the UK, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macao among them. If you are on it, you file the free e-Arrival Card instead.
3. Not exempt but visa-free? Apply for K-ETA at k-eta.go.kr before you fly. 10,000 KRW, non-refundable even if refused, valid 3 years or until the passport expires, whichever comes first. Holding one exempts you from the e-Arrival Card.
4. Not visa-free, or staying over 90 days, or working? A visa from a Korean mission before departure. There is no route at the border.

Entry formalities

• e-Arrival Card - the online replacement for the paper arrival form, at e-arrivalcard.go.kr, free, in several languages. Submission is accepted within three days of your arrival, Korea Standard Time. Holders of a valid K-ETA, a residence card or an e-Group visa are exempt from it. You get a QR confirmation, but you do not have to present it: the record is linked to your passport number.
• The Korean phone number field trips people up. The form wants a Korean contact number and rejects foreign ones. Enter the reception number of your first hotel, without an international dialling code.
• Q-Code health declaration - required only if you are arriving from a designated quarantine-inspection area. The list is maintained by the KDCA and revised quarterly, and it has covered parts of China, parts of the United States, several Gulf states and a number of countries in South Asia and Africa at different times. Check the current list at cov19ent.kdca.go.kr rather than relying on any published snapshot. Travellers from areas not on it do not need it at all.
• Customs declaration - only if you exceed the allowances. Either the paper form or the "Korea Customs Declaration for Travelers" app.

Duty-free allowances

• Goods - up to USD 800 in total value.
• Alcohol - 2 bottles, up to 2 litres combined and USD 400 combined, counted separately from the USD 800.
• Tobacco - 200 cigarettes.
• Perfume - 100 ml.
• Under 19s get no duty-free allowance for alcohol or tobacco.

Smart Entry Service

The e-gates cut immigration to seconds and are open to short-stay visitors, not only residents.

• Foreigners aged 17 or over from the 42 eligible countries can register and then use the automated gates on that visit and on every future one.
• US, Hong Kong and Macao nationals are covered by mutual agreements with Korea.
• Registration means enrolling your fingerprints and face; after that the gate reads the passport, the fingerprint and the face and lets you through.

What matters in practice

• The commonest mistake is paying for a K-ETA you are exempt from. The portal blocks the application with a pop-up, and travellers then arrive without having filed the free e-Arrival Card, which is the form they actually needed.
• Airlines, not Korea, enforce six months of passport validity. Korea asks only that the passport cover the stay; the carrier's conditions of carriage are what stop you at the check-in desk.