If you have been reading older guides, you may believe you need a K-ETA to enter Korea. For most of the people who ask me, that is currently wrong — and it is wrong in a way that has an expiry date on it.
Here is the state of play as of early October 2026, from the Ministry of Justice's own pages, and the two rules almost nobody mentions.
The short answer
One form people constantly mistake for this one: the e-Arrival Card. It is free, separate, and mandatory for more travellers than the K-ETA is — and the rule connecting the two runs backwards from what most people assume. → e-Arrival Card for Korea 2026: Who Must File It, and Why It Is Not the K-ETA
K-ETA is Korea's electronic travel authorisation. If you come from a country that lets you enter Korea without a visa, you would normally need one before boarding.
But since April 2023 Korea has suspended that requirement for a group of countries as a tourism measure, and the suspension has been renewed each year. The current extension runs 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026 (KST).
So if you hold a passport from one of those countries and you are flying before the end of this year, you almost certainly do not need to apply or pay anything.
The countries on the temporary exemption
The measure launched on 1 April 2023 with 22 countries and regions. The extensions have been announced without re-publishing the list, which is why so many guides disagree with each other. This is the original group.
| Region | Countries and regions |
|---|---|
| Asia | Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau |
| Americas | United States (including Guam), Canada |
| Europe | United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Austria |
| Oceania | Australia, New Zealand |
Do not take my word for it, and do not take a travel blog's word for it either. There is an official self-check that takes a minute: start an application on the K-ETA site and scan the photo page of your passport. If your nationality is covered, a "K-ETA exemption" pop-up appears before you pay anything. That is the Ministry of Justice telling you directly.
The age rule nobody mentions
This one is separate from the country list and it is permanent. Regardless of nationality, you are exempt from K-ETA if, on the date of entry, you are:
17 or younger, or 65 or older.
That quietly covers a lot of family trips. Grandparents and children do not need one even when the parents in the middle do.
The other permanent exemptions
The full list on the official site is short and worth scanning, because people buy authorisations they never needed.
| Exempt | Note |
|---|---|
| Diplomatic and official passport holders | |
| SOFA personnel on active duty | US forces stationed in Korea |
| Aircrew and ship crew | |
| APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC) holders | |
| Transit passengers | Not entering the country |
| Registered foreign residents and visa holders | Your visa or ARC takes precedence |
| UN passport holders | |
| Aged 17 and under, or 65 and over | As of the date of entry |
Why you might pay for one anyway
Here is the part that surprises people. Being exempt does not stop you applying — and there is a concrete reason to.
A K-ETA approval exempts you from filling in the paper arrival card at immigration. The official notice says so explicitly: exempt nationals may still apply "if they wish to receive the benefits associated with K-ETA approval, such as exemption from completing an arrival card upon entry", and in that case the fee is charged.
Is it worth about eight dollars to skip one form? For most people, no. For a family of four landing at Incheon at the end of a long-haul flight, filling in four cards while holding passports and boarding passes, it is at least a real question. The authorisation also lasts three years, so one payment covers several trips.
That is the honest trade-off. Nobody needs to be sold on it either way.
If you do need one, the numbers
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Fee | KRW 10,000 (roughly USD 7-8), plus a 3% online payment fee |
| Refundable? | No — the fee is for the assessment, so a rejection is not refunded either |
| Processing time | Usually within 72 hours, sometimes longer |
| Expedited service | Does not exist. Applications are processed in order received |
| Validity | 3 years, or until your passport expires if that comes first |
| Entries | Multiple, within the validity period |
| When to apply | Before you board. Applying after boarding, or once already in Korea, can lead to refusal |
One thing to keep straight: the three-year validity is the authorisation, not your permitted stay. How long you may stay visa-free depends on your nationality and is listed country by country on the official site. Korea does not treat an approved K-ETA as permission to overstay.
The site is down on 8-9 October
If you are applying in the next week, note this. The Ministry of Justice has announced a system shutdown for maintenance:
8 October 2026, 18:00 KST to 9 October 2026, 02:30 KST. All K-ETA services are unavailable during that window — the website, the application, result lookups and enquiries.
Two practical consequences. Any draft application you have not paid for by 18:00 on 8 October will not be retrievable afterwards. And since assessment can take up to 72 hours, anyone flying around that period should apply well before it rather than after.
Things that invalidate one you already have
An approval sitting in your inbox is not permanently safe. You need to apply again if:
Your passport has been reissued — a new passport means a new application, even with time left on the old approval. Or your criminal record or infectious-disease information has changed.
And separately from re-applying, you must update your travel details on the site if any of these change after approval: purpose of entry, your address in Korea, contact details, planned entry and exit dates, departure flight number, companion information. The official guidance is blunt about the consequence of not doing it — you can be refused entry.
Only two places are real
K-ETA applications are accepted on www.k-eta.go.kr and the official K-ETA mobile app. Nowhere else.
The Ministry's own homepage carries a warning about lookalike agency and phishing sites charging large fees for "application assistance" or "express processing". Since express processing does not exist, any site offering it is lying to you by definition. The real fee is about eight dollars; if you are being asked for fifty, you are on the wrong site.
What a K-ETA is not
It is not a visa. The official wording is that it satisfies some of the requirements for entering without one, nothing more.
It does not guarantee entry. An immigration officer at the border makes that call, and a valid approval does not override it.
And if you hold a Korean visa or an alien registration card, those take precedence over a K-ETA at the counter — the status and period attached to them is what you get.
What happens after 31 December
The exemption has been extended twice, each time announced late in the preceding year. Whether it is extended again for 2027 had not been announced as of early October 2026.
So the sensible position is this. If you are travelling in 2026, you are almost certainly fine without one. If you are travelling in January 2027 or later, check the official site in December before you book rather than assuming it will roll over — or assuming it will not.
The short version
| You are... | What you need |
|---|---|
| From one of the 22 exempt countries, travelling in 2026 | Nothing. Optional if you want the arrival-card waiver |
| Aged 17 and under, or 65 and over | Nothing, any nationality, any year |
| Transiting without entering | Nothing |
| Visa-free nationality, not on the exempt list | K-ETA, approved before boarding |
| Travelling January 2027 or later | Check the official site in December |
Before you travel, two other things worth having sorted: what the month you are arriving in actually feels like, and the holiday calendar that decides what is open.
November, including the one Thursday that reshapes the country, is here. The 2026 public holidays and the long weekends they create are here.
Apply, or check your exemption, at the official site only.
Sources
All details are from the Ministry of Justice K-ETA site: the application guide (fee, processing time, validity, arrival-card exemption, re-application and travel-update rules), the eligible-countries and exemption pages, the extension notice of 23 December 2025, and the maintenance notice of 30 September 2026. The 22-country list is from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs notice of 1 April 2023. Checked on 2 October 2026.
