On 1 September the Korean cabinet approved a package of measures for Chuseok. Most coverage of it was aimed at Korean households doing their holiday shopping, so the parts that matter to someone visiting or living here got buried.
I read the announcement in full and pulled out what actually applies to you. Two things are worth knowing up front: the discounts have already started, and four days of the holiday are free at a surprising number of places.
What this package is, and what it is not
Every year before Chuseok the government announces measures to keep prices down. This year's was approved at the cabinet meeting on 1 September, and the ministry behind it is the Ministry of Economy and Finance — note that its Korean name changed recently, which makes searching for it confusing.
What it is not: a cash handout. In 2025 there was a scheme called the Livelihood Recovery Consumption Coupon that put money on people's cards. Koreans have been searching for it again this week, but this package contains nothing of that kind. It works entirely through discounts, refunds and waived fees.
That distinction matters for you because discounts and waived fees generally do not ask who you are. There is no application, no residency check, no registration number to enter.
The discount calendar
| From | What |
|---|---|
| 3 September | Produce, beef and fruit, up to 40% off, online and in stores |
| 9 September | Seafood — pollock, mackerel, laver — up to 50% off |
| 16–20 September | Traditional markets: 30% back in gift vouchers, up to 20,000 won |
| 16–20 September | Digital Onnuri vouchers at 10% off rather than the usual 7% |
| 24–27 September | Highway tolls waived, KTX fares 10% lower |
Read every one of those percentages as a ceiling. The announcement says "up to", and it means it. Not every apple is 40% off.
The five days that matter most
If you take one thing from this, take 16 to 20 September.
During those five days, 300 markets for produce and 300 for seafood run a refund event. You buy something, and roughly 30% of what you spent comes back to you on the spot as Onnuri gift vouchers, capped at 20,000 won. Spend about 67,000 won and you hit the cap.
There is no sign-up. You buy, you get the vouchers at a booth. That is the whole mechanism.
The catch is that it runs at designated markets only — 300 of each, not every market in the country. If you are planning around it, confirm your market is on the list before you go.
What Onnuri vouchers actually are
This is where visitors get stuck, so it is worth a paragraph. Onnuri vouchers are a government-issued gift certificate that works at participating traditional markets and small shops. They are not cash and not a card — think of them as a voucher with a restricted list of places that accept it.
Which means the refund is only worth something to you if you will actually spend money at a traditional market again before leaving. For someone living here, that is easy. For a visitor on a ten-day trip, 20,000 won in vouchers you never spend is 20,000 won you did not get.
The same logic applies to the digital voucher discount in the same window. Buying 1.2 million won of vouchers at 10% off saves 120,000 won, but only if you have somewhere to spend 1.2 million won.
Four days when a lot of things cost nothing
From 24 to 27 September, admission is waived at the four grand palaces, Jongmyo Shrine, the Joseon royal tombs, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, and the national forest recreation areas.
Highway tolls are waived across the network for those four days, which is real money if you are driving a rental car between cities.
One correction people need: KTX is not free. It is 10% cheaper. Free and discounted keep getting mixed up in translated summaries of this announcement.
I have written separately about what closes during Chuseok and what stays open, including how the palaces normally operate. This piece is about what the new package added on top.
If you are driving instead
With tolls waived for four days, driving becomes noticeably cheaper than usual for intercity trips. Two things to sort out first.
One is the licence. Driving here on a foreign licence has a hard time limit that catches people out — the rules on using an international permit or exchanging your licence are worth reading before you book a rental, because the one-year clock runs from your entry date, not from when the permit was issued.
The other is traffic. Tolls being free does not make the road empty; it makes it fuller. The two peak days are typically the start of the holiday outbound and the last day returning.
If you were counting on the train
The 10% KTX discount sounds better than it is, for the reason above: the seats are mostly gone by the time the holiday arrives. Korean rail tickets for major holidays are sold in a dedicated advance round rather than trickling out, and that round happened weeks ago — I wrote up how the Chuseok booking rounds work and when they open separately.
If you missed it, cancellations do appear as the date approaches, but planning around them is a gamble.
How much food is being released
The supply side is where the numbers get large. The government is releasing 183,000 tonnes of holiday staples, about 1.6 times normal volume, which it describes as the largest ever.
| Item | Volume |
|---|---|
| Vegetables (cabbage, radish) | 18,000 tonnes |
| Fruit (apples, pears) | 32,000 tonnes — over 3× normal |
| Beef and pork | 90,000 tonnes |
| Chicken | 17,000 tonnes |
| Eggs | 2.4× normal supply |
| Chestnuts, jujubes | 2,480 tonnes — about 9× normal |
| Six seafood species | 20,000 tonnes from reserves, up to 40% below market price |
Eggs stand out. Everything else moves by 1.3 to 1.6 times; eggs go to 2.4. That is usually a sign the price was under real pressure.
The six seafood species are mackerel, pollock, squid, hairtail, croaker and dried anchovy. Mackerel and pollock, the two in highest demand, are being released at over three times normal volume.
Gift sets and packaged food
If you are buying a gift for a Korean host — and if you are invited to a family gathering, you should — the discounts are steep. Produce gift sets are up to 50% off, seafood sets up to 53%.
Packaged food is the biggest single line: 4,700 products at up to 64% off, including instant noodles and bread, arranged with food manufacturers.
Again, "up to". A handful of items carry the headline rate.
A note on how these markets work
If you have not shopped at a Korean traditional market before, the refund event is a reasonable excuse to try one, but a few practical points help.
Many stalls prefer cash, though card acceptance has spread a long way. Prices at produce and seafood stalls are often not marked, and quantities are sold by the pile or the box rather than by weight. Asking the price before you commit is normal, not rude.
For the refund itself, you keep your receipts and take them to the event booth in the market. That is the reason to shop at a single market rather than spreading purchases around — the cap is per person, and gathering 67,000 won of receipts in one place is easier than in three.
Four things that catch people out
The holiday is four days, not five. 24 to 27 September. Monday the 28th is an ordinary working day. There is no substitute holiday this year, because the rule that grants one applies when Chuseok falls on a Sunday, and this year it does not.
Free entry is not the same as open. The fee waiver does not override a site's regular closing day. Check the specific palace or museum before you plan a day around it.
Train seats sell out well before the fare cut helps. KTX holiday tickets are released long in advance and go quickly. A 10% discount on a seat you cannot buy is nothing. If you have not booked, assume the train is not an option and plan around buses or driving.
The markets will be crowded on exactly those five days. 16 to 20 September is when the refund runs, so that is when everyone goes. If you dislike crowds, the discount may not be worth the experience.
If you run a business here
Foreign residents who run a shop or small company are covered by the same measures as everyone else. The package includes a record 43.4 trillion won in holiday loans and guarantees, and maturities on 62.4 trillion won of existing loans and guarantees are being extended by one year.
Two items are worth checking if they apply to you: workplaces with fewer than 30 employees can defer employment and industrial accident insurance premiums, and small business owners can split electricity bills over up to six months and gas bills over up to four.
The insurance deferral connects to something I covered separately — industrial accident insurance covers every workplace that uses workers, with the employer paying the whole premium. Deferring payment does not change coverage.
Support for people having a hard time
A few items in the package are aimed at people under financial strain rather than at holiday shoppers.
Policy lending for low-income and young borrowers is being supplied at 480 billion won, more than four times last year. Interest on loans for clearing unpaid wages drops by 0.5 to 1.0 percentage points for two months. Catastrophic medical expense support rises from 150.4 billion to 233.4 billion won.
If you are owed wages by a Korean employer, that second one is the relevant line — it is aimed at the employer's ability to pay you.
What the government is watching
A cross-ministry price task force is checking prices and supply daily through the holiday period, with a stated commitment to act immediately where needed and to come down hard on unfair pricing.
There is also a small experiment worth mentioning: an AI-based price comparison app that shows prices and discounts at nearby supermarkets is being trialled in five regions during September. The regions have not been announced.
On the safety side, the emergency patient transfer pilot is being expanded nationwide with guidelines finalised before the holiday, and ministries and local governments are running a 24-hour monitoring system through the four days. Practically speaking, that means emergency services are staffed even when most other things are closed — which is the relevant fact if you fall ill during the holiday.
One thing I could not confirm
I could not find, in the announcement or the ministry material, an explicit statement on whether foreign nationals can receive the traditional market refund or buy Onnuri vouchers on the same terms. The documents simply do not address nationality.
My reading is that these are point-of-sale mechanisms with no identity check built in, so in practice they should not turn anyone away. But I am not going to state as fact something the source does not say. If it matters to your plans, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups traditional market division (044-204-7890) is the office that runs the market events.
The short version
No cash payment this year. Instead: produce cheaper since 3 September, seafood since 9 September, a 30% market refund from 16 to 20 September, and free palaces, tombs, the national museum, forest areas and highway tolls from 24 to 27 September.
The two dates to write down are 16–20 September if you are shopping and 24–27 September if you are going somewhere.
Sources
Chuseok Livelihood Stabilisation Measures, approved at the Korean cabinet meeting of 1 September 2026, as published by the Ministry of Economy and Finance through the government policy briefing service. Holiday dates under the Regulations on Public Holidays for Government Offices (Presidential Decree No. 36290, amended 30 April 2026), Articles 2 and 3.
Figures are as announced. Discount rates are stated maximums, and details of individual events are run by the participating ministries listed above.
