If you hold a passport from one of 22 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, you do not need a K-ETA for a short visit to Korea until December 31, 2026. You still file the free e-Arrival Card in the three days before you land (or at the airport before immigration). Paying ₩10,000 for a K-ETA is optional: it lets you skip the arrival card for three years. Nothing has been announced for 2027 as of October 21, 2026.
Before you start
- Find your passport in the table below
- The exemption is by passport, not by where you live. It covers visa-free short visits for tourism, visiting family, events or business meetings, not paid work.
- Use only the official sites
- K-ETA: k-eta.go.kr or the K-ETA app (₩10,000, about $7 to $8). e-Arrival Card: e-arrivalcard.go.kr (free). Both sites warn about look-alike agencies that charge extra.
- Travelling in January 2027 or later?
- Check k-eta.go.kr in December. The exemption has been extended one year at a time, each time in December, shortly before the old period ended.
Who is exempt until December 31, 2026
K-ETA (Korea Electronic Travel Authorization) is the online pre-approval that visa-free travellers normally need before boarding a flight to Korea. In April 2023 the Ministry of Justice suspended it for 22 countries and regions to support tourism, and it has extended that suspension twice: through 2025, then, in a notice posted on December 23, 2025, through December 31, 2026 (Korean time). The notice says exempt travellers see a pop-up when they scan their passport on the K-ETA site, and that they may still apply and pay if they want the benefits of an approval.
All 22 get a 90-day visa-free stay, except Canada (6 months) and New Zealand, the Netherlands and Belgium (3 months).
| Passport | Visa-free stay |
|---|---|
| United States (incl. Guam) | 90 days |
| United Kingdom (British Citizen) | 90 days |
| Canada | 6 months |
| Australia | 90 days |
| New Zealand | 3 months |
| Japan | 90 days |
| Taiwan | 90 days |
| Hong Kong | 90 days |
| Macao | 90 days |
| Singapore | 90 days |
| Germany | 90 days |
| France | 90 days |
| Italy | 90 days |
| Spain | 90 days |
| Netherlands | 3 months |
| Belgium | 3 months |
| Sweden | 90 days |
| Norway | 90 days |
| Denmark | 90 days |
| Finland | 90 days |
| Austria | 90 days |
| Poland | 90 days |
The 22 names come from the Ministry of Justice list attached to the 2023 embassy notices; the stay lengths are from the K-ETA eligibility page on October 21, 2026. Other UK passport types get 30 days and are listed separately on the K-ETA site, whose passport check tells you whether yours is exempt. If your passport is visa-free for Korea but not in this table, you need a K-ETA before you fly, unless one of the exemptions below applies; the K-ETA eligibility page lists about 110 visa-free passports in all.
Separately, some people never need a K-ETA regardless of passport: diplomatic and official passport holders, US military under the SOFA agreement, aircraft and ship crew, APEC Business Travel Card holders, transit passengers, people with a Korean residence card or visa, UN passport holders, and anyone aged 17 or younger or 65 or older on the day of entry.
What you still file: the e-Arrival Card
The exemption removes the K-ETA, not the arrival card. Foreign visitors who would have filled in a paper arrival card can file the e-Arrival Card online instead (paper is still available at the airport), and the official FAQ names travellers exempt from K-ETA among the people who file one. The exceptions are Korean citizens, people with a valid residence card, group e-visa holders and K-ETA holders.
- Cost: free. The official site is e-arrivalcard.go.kr; any site that asks for payment is not official.
- When: from three days before your arrival date, counting Korean time. For a January 31 arrival, the window is January 29, 30 and 31. You can also submit it after landing, any time before you reach the immigration desk.
- What you need: an email address, your passport, and your travel details (arrival flight, departure, and the address where you will stay).
- Forgot it: you can still enter. Fill it in on your phone in the arrival hall, or ask for a paper card before immigration. Our Incheon Airport arrival guide shows where that happens in the sequence.
Families. The individual form lets you submit up to nine travellers together in one session.
When paying for a K-ETA makes sense
The Ministry’s notice spells out the trade: exempt travellers “may apply for K-ETA” to get benefits “such as not having to submit an arrival card”, and the fee is charged as usual. An approval is valid for multiple entries for three years from approval; the Ministry of Justice extended the term from two years to three on July 3, 2023. It is tied to the passport you applied with, so a new passport means a new application.
Worth it if
You expect two or more trips to Korea in the next three years, or you simply want one form fewer each time. ₩10,000 plus a card fee of about 3% is roughly $8 once, against an e-Arrival Card every visit. Apply at least a few days before your first trip: assessment generally takes up to 72 hours.
Skip it if
This is a one-off holiday. The e-Arrival Card takes a few minutes on your phone and costs nothing, and you can do it at the gate or after landing. Note that the fee is non-refundable even if an application is refused, and an approval does not extend your allowed stay.
Not on the list? How to apply
If your passport is visa-free for Korea but not among the 22, apply on k-eta.go.kr or the K-ETA app. The official flow has seven steps: agree to the terms, sign up (or continue as a non-member), enter your passport details, enter your trip details, check, pay, done. You need a valid passport, an email address, a recent face photo and a card that works for overseas payments (Visa, Mastercard, JCB, American Express, Diners Club, Discover, UnionPay or Alipay+). Do not book a same-week flight on the assumption of instant approval: the site says assessment is “generally within 72 hours”. If your card’s overseas payment option is blocked, the payment fails; that is a card-issuer setting, not a K-ETA problem.
What happens on January 1, 2027
Nothing has been announced. As of October 21, 2026, the K-ETA site and the Korean embassies show only the extension through December 31, 2026. Some travel sites already state that K-ETA “becomes mandatory again” for Americans and others in 2027; that is a guess, not a government position. What the record shows is a pattern: the first exemption ran April 2023 to December 2024, the extension to December 2025 was announced in mid-December 2024, and the extension to December 2026 was posted on December 23, 2025. If you will land in Korea on or after January 1, 2027 (Korean time), or close to that date, check the K-ETA notice board in December, and if you want certainty, buy the ₩10,000 approval now. It will be valid either way.
At the airport: what to have ready
Have your passport out. The e-Arrival Card has the same legal effect as the paper card, so once it is submitted you do not fill in a paper one; if you did not submit it, you can complete it electronically or on paper before immigration (e-Arrival Card FAQ). Keeping the confirmation email or its issue number on your phone is a sensible backup, and it helps to know the address where you will stay, since that is what you entered on the card. If this is your first trip, our Start Here route lines up the next steps. If you need mobile data for the form in the arrival hall, our eSIM, SIM and pocket WiFi guide explains what to set up before the flight, and the subway and taxi guides cover the ride into Seoul once you are through.
Going on to Busan or another city by train? KTX seats open two months ahead; see how to book KTX tickets as a foreigner.
Useful Korean phrases
For the immigration desk and the first questions after it. Pronunciations are approximate.
Sources and update date
Updated October 21, 2026. Rules were read from the Ministry of Justice’s K-ETA and e-Arrival Card sites and from Korean embassy and consulate notices on that date. The 2026 exemption, fees, validity and stay lengths are as published there. We will update this page when the Ministry announces the position for 2027.
View sources and photo credits
- Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the USA: Notice on Extension of K-ETA Temporary Exemption (~12/31/2026), December 29, 2025.
- K-ETA (Korea Immigration Service): Notice on Extension of K-ETA Temporary Exemption, posted December 23, 2025, in the Notice list on the K-ETA home page.
- Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Chicago: K-ETA Requirement Exemption & Expansion of Validity Periods, June 30, 2023 (three-year validity from July 3, 2023).
- Embassy of the Republic of Korea to Canada: Temporary Exemption of K-ETA (list of 22 countries and regions), March 30, 2023.
- K-ETA: Eligible countries and applicants, Application fee guide and home page, read October 21, 2026.
- e-Arrival Card (Ministry of Justice): FAQ and home page, read October 21, 2026.
- Incheon International Airport Terminal 1 Arrival 2.jpg — ノボホショコロトソ · CC BY 4.0. Converted to WebP for display.
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