Shipping to Korea is not hard. But miss three things and the order either stops at customs or never gets paid for in the first place. The customs code, the de minimis threshold, and the billing currency. This chapter is not here to explain regulations. It is here to show that once those three are handled, the rest is ordinary international shipping.
One: the personal customs clearance code
Korea uses a dedicated number in place of a resident registration number when an individual receives goods from abroad. It is 13 characters, a P followed by 12 digits, and virtually every Korean shopper already has one. As the earlier chapter showed, only 10 people a month search for how to get one.
Your job is not to help them get it. Your job is to capture it at order time and pass it into the customs paperwork.
- ▸Format is P plus 12 digits
- ▸The old fallback of using a passport number was retired in January 2025
- ▸From 2 February 2026 verification tightened: recipient name, mobile number and postal code must match the registration exactly
- ▸One mismatch out of three puts the parcel on hold, and a hold runs 5-7 business days
The most common mismatch is the name, because Korean surnames romanise several different ways.
- ▸이 becomes Lee, Yi or Rhee. 김 becomes Kim or Gim
- ▸The code is registered under a Korean-script name while the order arrives with a romanised one
- ▸The code is tied to a home address and the order ships to an office
- ▸Anything not corrected within 7 days is returned to sender, at the buyer's cost
- 1Put a customs code field in checkoutShopify adds it automatically when you add Korea to Markets. On other platforms you build it yourself.
- 2Put one line of guidance next to it'Enter the name and mobile number exactly as registered to your customs code' is enough.
- 3Pass it through to the label and customs documentsStored on the order but never sent onward is the same as not collecting it.
Two: the de minimis threshold
There is a value band below which a Korean buyer pays no duty. Knowing where that line sits lets you design pricing and bundles around it.
The 200 USD figure applies to express carriers such as DHL, FedEx and UPS. Sent by international post, even US shipments fall back to 150 USD.
US sellers have a structural advantage here. On the same price list, your Korean customers clear duty-free across a band 50 USD wider than a European or Australian competitor's. It only applies on express shipments though, so carrier choice feeds directly into price competitiveness.
The excluded categories are things like health supplements, food, cosmetics and alcohol. Those sit at 150 USD even from the US.
- ▸Orders from the same seller arriving on the same day are assessed together
- ▸Splitting into several sub-150 USD orders on one day still gets combined
- ▸So do not advise customers to split orders to stay under the threshold
- ▸Design the bundle itself to land inside the limit instead
Three: the billing currency
An order can clear customs perfectly and still never exist, because the payment failed. Korean card issuers run a pre-emptive block on overseas charges billed in won (DCC). Paying in won at a foreign merchant adds a 3-8% conversion fee, so customers who want to avoid it switch the block on.
Charge those customers in won and the authorisation is declined. The more often somebody shops cross-border, the more likely they have it on, which means your best customers are blocked first.
Carriers and transit times
The third one matters more than it looks. A large share of Korean shoppers already use forwarding addresses. Which means Koreans buy from foreign sites that do not even offer Korean shipping. In that case you cannot tell the customer is Korean at all. It is one reason Korean demand goes unrecorded in a seller's own numbers.
Who pays the duty
Below the threshold there is little to decide. If your prices straddle it, DDP is the safer choice.
One check per category
Most products arrive fine once the three items above are handled. A few categories are worth checking once. This is not something for you to solve, just something to know in advance.
- ▸Health supplements: personal orders generally run up to 6 units combined, and a few specific ingredients are held at customs even for personal orders, so it is worth checking your ingredient list once
- ▸Cosmetics and food: excluded from simplified clearance, so the 150 USD threshold applies
- ▸Electrical goods and children's products: formal import distribution needs certification, but personal direct purchase works on different rules
- ▸If you later move to formal import distribution, a Korean importer handles that process. It is not the seller's task at the direct-purchase stage
The checklist
- 1Capture the customs code at order timeA field plus one line of guidance. Without it the carrier has to chase the customer, and orders die in that gap.
- 2Match name, mobile and postal code to the registrationAll three have to agree since February 2026. Guidance text prevents most failures.
- 3Design price points against the threshold200 USD express from the US, 150 USD otherwise, 150 USD for excluded categories.
- 4Do not force won billingCustomers with the DCC block get declined.
- 5State shipping method and duty termsShow how many days and whether anything else will be charged, before checkout.
Handle those five and shipping to Korea becomes ordinary international shipping. The next problem is not logistics. It is how a Korean finds you at all, which is covered with real examples in how Koreans actually bought it.
Frequently asked questions
What if the customer says they do not have a customs code?
They can issue and look it up through the Korea Customs Service e-commerce clearance portal with identity verification. In practice this question is rare. Most Korean shoppers already have one, and the search volume data shows it.
Does a long delivery time kill sales in Korea?
It depends on the category. Everyday necessities are hard to sell against same-day and next-day delivery. Brand products with no local substitute, taste-driven purchases and things people restock periodically are not blocked by a few days of waiting.
How do returns work?
Set the policy up front, because international returns are expensive. Korean shoppers check return terms before buying, so stating them clearly builds trust rather than costing you sales.
Do we need to find a Korean importer?
Not at the direct-purchase stage. An importer becomes relevant when you move to formal distribution inside Korea, holding stock and selling through Korean retailers, and at that point they handle certification and labelling. Choosing your entry route is covered in the platform map to Korean buyers.