Korea Customs Limits: The Official English Page Is Wrong

I went looking for Korea's arrival duty-free allowance on the Korea Customs Service website, in English, because that is what a visitor would do.

The page told me the limit is US$600, that I could bring one bottle of liquor up to one litre, and that perfume was capped at 60ml.

All three numbers are out of date. I checked the page myself on 2026-08-05 and it was still showing them.

What the page says, and what is actually true

KCS English page Current rule Changed
General goods US$600 US$800 6 September 2022
Alcohol 1 bottle, ≤1L, ≤US$400 No bottle limit, ≤2L, ≤US$400 21 March 2025
Perfume 60ml 100ml 1 January 2024

Verified 2026-08-05. The general allowance has been wrong on that page for nearly four years.

The alcohol rule changed twice, and almost everyone stopped at the first change

This is the one worth understanding properly, because the guides that updated still got it wrong.

In September 2022 the allowance went from one bottle to two. A great many English-language pages caught that and now confidently say "two bottles."

Then on 21 March 2025 Korea removed the bottle count entirely. What remains is two conditions, both of which must hold: total volume no more than 2 litres, and total value no more than US$400.

So four 500ml bottles is fine. Six small cans is fine. One 1.5-litre bottle plus a 350ml one is fine. The number of containers stopped mattering; only litres and dollars do. If a guide tells you "maximum two bottles," it is a year out of date, and it may cost you a purchase you were entitled to make.

The allowances stack, and that surprises people

Alcohol, tobacco and perfume are counted separately from the US$800, not inside it.

A traveller can arrive with US$800 of general goods plus 2 litres of wine under US$400 plus 200 cigarettes plus 100ml of perfume, and still be within the duty-free allowance. Guides that describe the US$800 as an all-in cap understate what you are allowed.

Tobacco is a pick-one, not a total

The tobacco allowance is per category and does not combine. You may bring 200 cigarettes, or 50 cigars, or 200 heated-tobacco sticks, or 20ml of nicotine e-liquid — one of those, not a set of them.

Travellers under 19 get no alcohol or tobacco allowance at all, regardless of everything above.

What happens if you get it wrong

The undeclared-goods penalty

Failing to declare goods above the allowance draws an additional levy of 40% on the duty owed, rising to 60% for anyone with three or more violations in two years.

Declaring voluntarily cuts the duty by 30%, capped at ₩200,000. That cap matters: the incentive is designed for ordinary shoppers, not for someone bringing in a suitcase of watches.

The one that costs far more than customs duty

Undeclared meat, sausage, dairy, fresh fruit and other agricultural or livestock products fall under quarantine law rather than customs allowance, and the fine runs up to ₩10,000,000.

This is not a duty calculation. A single undeclared packet of jerky sits in the same legal category as a commercial shipment, and enforcement on some routes has been intensified because of animal disease risk. It is the most expensive mistake on this page and it is usually made by someone who packed a snack.

Cash is a separate regime

Carrying more than US$10,000 in combined cash and monetary instruments requires a declaration in either direction. Under-declaring by up to US$30,000 draws an administrative fine of 5% of the undeclared amount; above US$30,000 it becomes criminal, with up to a year's imprisonment or a fine of up to ₩100 million.

Filling in the form, or not

Most arrivals no longer file anything

Since 1 May 2023, only travellers who actually have something to declare must complete a declaration. If you are under every allowance and carrying nothing restricted, you walk through without a form. The paper card handed out on arriving flights is no longer a universal requirement.

If you do have something to declare

You have two options and both are accepted. Fill in a paper form, or declare electronically through the Korea Customs Service mobile service. Electronic declaration is offered, not compulsory.

One practical note: "nothing to declare" is a judgement you are making about quarantine items as well as value. Food is where people get this wrong, because it does not feel like the sort of thing a customs form is asking about.

Quick summary

  • The general arrival allowance is US$800, not the US$600 still printed on the Korea Customs Service's English page. Verified 2026-08-05.
  • Alcohol: no limit on the number of bottles since 21 March 2025 — the rule is 2 litres total and US$400 total, both conditions. "Two bottles" is out of date.
  • Perfume is 100ml, raised from 60ml on 1 January 2024.
  • Tobacco is one category only: 200 cigarettes, or 50 cigars, or 200 heated-tobacco sticks, or 20ml of e-liquid.
  • Alcohol, tobacco and perfume are additional to the US$800, not counted inside it.
  • Travellers under 19 get no alcohol or tobacco allowance.
  • Not declaring costs a 40% levy, or 60% with three violations in two years; declaring voluntarily takes 30% off, capped at ₩200,000.
  • Undeclared meat, dairy or fresh produce is quarantine law, with fines up to ₩10,000,000 — far worse than any duty.
  • Cash over US$10,000 must be declared in both directions.
  • Since May 2023, travellers with nothing to declare file nothing.

Before you go

There is a habit worth taking from this, and it is slightly uncomfortable.

An official government page in your own language feels like the end of the search. It is usually where a search should start. Translated pages are maintained by smaller teams than the original, they are updated later, and sometimes they are not updated at all — and the reader who most needs them is the one least able to check the original.

If a figure matters and you can find the local-language page, it is worth the machine translation. On this particular topic that difference was US$200, a litre of wine and 40ml of perfume.

The same thing happens with the tourist tax refund, where the minimum is ₩15,000 and much of the internet still prints ₩30,000 — the current threshold, and how people lose the refund at the till.

This article was verified on 2026-08-05. If the English customs page has been corrected by the time you read this, that is good news and I would like to know, through the contact page.

Sources and last verification

Prices, fares and hours in Korea change often. Everything above was checked against these sources on the dates shown. If you spot something out of date, please tell me via the contact page.

About the author — H.I. Kang

I was born in Korea and still live here. Travelling abroad, I have been the person stuck at a ticket machine in a language I could not read, holding up the queue and guessing — and I know how small a thing it takes to ruin an afternoon. This site exists so that visitors to Korea do not have to guess. Every price, route and rule here is checked against an official source before it is published, and dated so you can see how current it is.

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