Seoul's Climate Card Ends October 1, Not August. And Not the Pass You'd Buy.

If you have read that Seoul's Climate Card is being discontinued, that is about a third true — and the dates attached to it are mostly wrong.

Seoul is retiring the 30-day pass and the postpaid card. The short-term passes — 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 days — continue as normal. Those are the ones nearly every visitor buys. If your trip is under a week, none of this affects you.

The dates are the second problem. Seoul extended the shutdown schedule on 28 July, after most of the English coverage had already been written. Some of that coverage now tells readers a deadline has passed when it has not.

The current schedule

WhatDate
Last day to recharge31 August 2026
Prepaid card — last day of use29 September 2026
Postpaid card — last day of use30 September 2026
Service ends completely1 October 2026

These come from the Seoul Metropolitan Government's own shutdown FAQ, which is the only source worth trusting on this right now.

Two details on that page are worth knowing, and neither appears in any English coverage we found. First, on the last charging day — 31 August — you can no longer choose a start date for the pass; the charge simply runs from that point. Second, the FAQ's own text describes the postpaid card as valid for "usage from 1 to 31 September." There is no 31 September. The table further down the same page says 30 September, which is the date to go by.

What to do if you are holding one

  • Travelling in August: recharge as normal. You have until the 31st.
  • Travelling in September: a card you already loaded still works — until the 29th for prepaid, the 30th for postpaid. You cannot top it up.
  • Travelling in October or later: the 30-day pass is gone. Use a short-term Climate Card, or a plain T-money card.

Where the wrong dates came from

The Korea JoongAng Daily, 7 July: prepaid cards “can be used until Aug. 29,” and “the last day to recharge them is July 31.” That was published three weeks before the extension, and is still uncorrected at the time of writing.

The Korea Times, 21 July: prepaid until “the end of this month,” postpaid until “the end of next month.” Also written before the change.

Two English travel guides, FlipKorea and Kowork, still list 31 July, 29 August and a 1 September shutdown — with no update date shown on the page at all.

None of these were wrong when they were published. They were overtaken. That is the recurring failure with Korean transit policy in English: the revision never travels as far as the original announcement, and there is rarely a dateline to tell you which one you are reading.

What we could not confirm

  • The refund procedure for an unused balance after 1 October
  • Whether mobile cards are handled differently from physical ones
  • Whether any automatic migration to another pass exists

Seoul's FAQ does not address these, and we did not find a source solid enough to state an answer. If you are holding a significant balance, ask at a station office rather than relying on any English guide — this one included.

Sources

Verified 10 August 2026, re-checked against the Seoul FAQ on 12 August 2026.

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