Guides
Doing business with Korean companies
Korean business registration, tax invoices and supplier checks, explained for people who do not read Korean and have no reason to know how the National Tax Service works.
Verifying a Korean supplier before you pay a deposit
A practical checklist for overseas buyers: what to verify, in what order, what each check does and does not prove, and where the real risks sit.
휴업 and 폐업: what a suspended or closed supplier means for you
The National Tax Service reports every Korean business as trading, suspended or closed. Here is what each state means commercially, and what to do when a supplier changes.
일반과세자, 간이과세자, 면세사업자: which supplier can invoice you
Korean businesses fall into VAT categories that decide whether they can issue you a tax invoice. The thresholds, what each type means, and why it affects your VAT reclaim.
The Korean tax invoice (세금계산서), for foreign buyers
What a 세금계산서 is, how it differs from a 계산서, when your Korean supplier cannot issue one, and what that means for your accounts.
How to read a Korean business registration certificate
A field-by-field guide to the 사업자등록증 — what each line means, which fields can be verified independently, and what a certificate cannot prove.
The Korean business registration number, explained
What the ten digits of a 사업자등록번호 mean, how the check digit works, and what the middle two digits tell you about the company you are dealing with.
Your Korean supplier has closed mid-contract. Now what?
A practical sequence for when a check comes back 폐업 and you have already paid, ordered, or received an invoice — including which invoices are still valid.
How to ask a Korean supplier for their registration documents
What to request, why it is a routine ask rather than an insult, and Korean phrasing you can paste into an email.
주식회사, 유한회사 and the rest: reading a Korean company name
The suffix on a Korean company name tells you what kind of entity it is and who carries liability. A guide to the forms you will actually encounter.
법인등록번호 vs 사업자등록번호: which number is which
Korean companies have two official numbers — a 13-digit corporate registry number and a 10-digit tax number. What each is for, and which one you actually need.
영세율: zero-rated exports, and why they are not the same as exempt
When you buy goods for export from Korea the supply is usually zero-rated, not exempt. The distinction looks trivial in English and changes your paperwork entirely.
How supplier fraud actually works, and which checks catch it
The patterns that recur when buyers lose money on Korean suppliers — and honestly, which of them registration checks catch and which they do not.
Paying a Korean supplier: what to check before the transfer
What you need for an international transfer to Korea, why the account name matters more than anything else, and the checks that survive a compromised email thread.
Is this Korean supplier actually an exporter?
A trading business and an exporting business are not the same thing. What to ask for, and what a company that has never shipped abroad will struggle to produce.
업태 and 종목: what a supplier is actually registered to do
Every Korean business registration carries an industry classification. Reading it tells you whether a supplier is registered for the work you are buying.
Korean addresses: why your supplier has two of them
Korea runs two address systems, and a supplier may give you either. How to tell them apart, and why the address on a registration is not always where the work happens.