Korean Post Office Guide: Mail and Delivery in Korea 2026

Sending, Receiving, and Tracking Anything You Own in Korea (a plain English walkthrough for foreign residents, students, and visitors)

※ This article was first published on September 13, 2026, and last updated on September 13, 2026.

Cover image credit: Image generated by AI (ChatGPT, [2026]). AI-generated images are strictly for editorial purposes only, comply with free commercial-use licenses (Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels), and are not permitted for resale or standalone commercial use. Images do not depict actual people, places, or events.

Editorial & AI Assistance Notice: This article was prepared by HACKsKorea editors with AI assistance (Claude). All facts were verified against official government and institutional sources. This is general information only, not legal advice. Users must confirm the latest details through official government websites or authorized agencies. For official inquiries, please contact the Korea Immigration Service through HiKorea (Call Center 1345, multilingual support available).

Living in Korea Category Notice
This information reflects general experiences and does not constitute legal guarantees about housing, contracts, or services. Local regulations and service availability vary by region and change over time. Always verify current information with local authorities, service providers, and legal professionals when making important life decisions.

Summary at a Glance

Quick Answer Box. A Korean post office (우체국) is open for postal business from 09:00 to 18:00 on weekdays and is closed on public holidays, while its banking counter closes earlier, at 16:30. A tracked domestic parcel up to 3 kg and 80 cm in combined size costs 4,000 KRW, roughly 3 US dollars at mid-September 2026 exchange rates, at the counter and normally arrives the next day. International express mail (EMS) to the United States costs 39,000 KRW for a 0.5 kg non-document package. If you are a foreign resident buying from overseas websites, you must obtain a Personal Customs Clearance Code before your parcel can enter the country, because your residence card number and passport number are not accepted for customs clearance.

Korea runs a dense nationwide delivery network, and almost all of it is reachable without speaking fluent Korean once you know which counter to stand at and which button to press. The national operator, Korea Post (우정사업본부), handles letters, registered mail, domestic parcels, international shipments, savings accounts, and insurance from the same building. Alongside it, private couriers and convenience store networks cover the cheap, late-night, and weekend gaps that a government office cannot.

This guide walks through the whole system in the order you will actually meet it. You will learn how to read Korean addresses and five-digit postal codes, how to pick between an ordinary parcel and a registered parcel, what a door pickup costs, how to book online for a discount before you leave home, how to send documents abroad, what happens when a package arrives while you are at work, and what you are legally owed when something is lost or broken.

Every price, deadline, and size limit below comes from the operating institution itself rather than from secondhand summaries, and each figure carries the date it took effect. Korean postal tariffs changed on July 1, 2026, for letters and on June 1, 2025, for parcels, so older guides you may find elsewhere are almost certainly quoting withdrawn numbers. Treat this page as your starting map, then confirm the final amount at the counter or in the official rate calculator before you pay.

Eligibility and Conditions (who can use which service, and what you must have ready first)

Anyone physically in Korea can walk into a post office and send mail. There is no residency test, no visa condition, and no membership requirement for basic postal services. A tourist can post a letter on day one. What changes by status is not your right to send, but the paperwork you need for money-related and customs-related services.

The one thing foreign residents must obtain first: a Personal Customs Clearance Code. The Korea Customs Service (관세청) requires this code, called 개인통관고유부호 in Korean and commonly abbreviated PCCC, for goods imported through e-commerce. For foreigners, a Foreign Registration Number and a passport number are explicitly not accepted in its place. The code is free, is issued immediately online through the customs UNI-PASS system after identity verification, and is reused for every future shipment. Without it, an incoming parcel stalls in customs and is eventually returned to the sender at your expense. If you plan to order anything at all from abroad, do this before you place the order, not after the tracking number goes quiet.

Identity documents by service type. For ordinary and registered mail, no identification is required. For receiving a registered item or a parcel held at the counter, bring photo identification such as your residence card or passport, since the item is released against a signature. For post office banking, insurance, or a money transfer, expect a full identity check under Korean financial rules; requirements differ by product and by branch, so confirm with the specific office before making a special trip.

Physical limits you cannot negotiate. Korea Post accepts domestic parcels up to 30 kg in weight, with the sum of length, width, and height no greater than 160 cm and no single side longer than 100 cm. If the weight band and the size band disagree, the higher band sets the price. Anything beyond those limits must go through a commercial freight service instead.

Service-level conditions worth knowing before you choose. An ordinary parcel is cheaper but is not recorded, which means there is no tracking and no compensation if it disappears. A registered parcel is tracked and insured. A convenience store economy parcel is the cheapest option of all, but it travels only between two stores of the same brand, must be prepaid, and cannot be sent to a home address.

Address conditions. Korea has used road-name addresses since January 1, 2014, and replaced six-digit postal codes with five-digit codes on August 1, 2015. Old six-digit codes are no longer valid. If your landlord, your employer, or an overseas relative gives you an address in the old lot-number format, convert it before shipping; a mismatch between the road-name address and the postal code is one of the most common causes of delay for newcomers.

Timing conditions. The postal counter runs 09:00 to 18:00 on weekdays and is closed on public holidays. The banking counter closes at 16:30. Same-day dispatch cut-off times differ from office to office depending on transport arrangements, so if you need something to leave today, ask that specific branch for its cut-off rather than assuming a national deadline.

Step-by-Step Application Guide

Step 1: Choose the Right Service (알맞은 서비스 고르기)

Time required (소요시간): 5 minutes
What to prepare (준비사항): the item’s approximate weight, its three dimensions, and how fast it must arrive
Pro Tip (꿀팁): weigh the parcel on a bathroom scale at home and measure it with a phone ruler app; the price band is decided by whichever is higher, weight or size, so the guess that matters is the larger of the two
Watch out (주의사항): an ordinary parcel has no tracking number and no compensation, so never use it for a laptop, a passport, or anything you could not replace

Korea Post offers three domestic parcel routes, priced from June 1, 2025. A registered parcel lodged at the counter starts at 4,000 KRW for up to 3 kg and 80 cm combined, then rises through 4,500, 5,000, 6,000, 7,000, 8,000, 11,000 and 13,000 KRW as weight and size climb toward the 30 kg and 160 cm ceiling, and it normally arrives the next day. An ordinary parcel costs 1,300 KRW less at every band, starting at 2,700 KRW, but it is untracked, uninsured, and scheduled for delivery three days after lodgement. A door pickup, where a postal worker collects from your home, is priced with value-added tax included at 5,000 KRW up to 5 kg, 8,000 KRW to 10 kg, 10,000 KRW to 20 kg, and 14,000 KRW to 30 kg.

For letters and documents, the tariff effective July 1, 2026, sets a standard-size letter at 470 KRW up to 5 g, 500 KRW up to 25 g, and 520 KRW up to 50 g. Anything heavier or outside the standard envelope shape starts at 590 KRW. Adding registration to a 25 g standard letter brings it to 2,900 KRW, and next-day express brings it to 3,900 KRW. For a visa document, a signed contract, or a university transcript, the registered or express option is worth every won, because it produces a delivery record you can show later.

Step 2: Pack and Address the Parcel (포장하고 주소 쓰기)

Time required (소요시간): 15 minutes
What to prepare (준비사항): a box, cushioning material, and the recipient’s five-digit postal code
Pro Tip (꿀팁): choose the smallest box the contents safely allow, then fill the gaps with padding, because a half-empty oversized box is charged at the larger size band for no benefit
Watch out (주의사항): never write a Korean address by translating the place name into English words; romanize it exactly as written

If you do not already have the recipient’s five-digit postal code, look it up before leaving home rather than guessing at the counter. The government address portal and Korea Post’s own postal code search both accept a road name and building number and return the current code, and both also convert between the older lot-number format and the road-name format. This matters because an address written in the old format with a modern postal code, or the reverse, is one of the most common reasons a parcel is delayed or returned. If your recipient sends you an address by message, paste it into the lookup and use whatever the lookup returns rather than what you were sent.

Boxes and padding are sold at the post office counter in numbered sizes, and prices are posted at the window. Write the recipient’s details on the top face only, with the postal code first, then the road-name address, then the building and unit number, then the name and mobile number. A Korean mobile number on the label is not optional in practice: couriers call before delivery, and a parcel with no reachable number is the parcel that ends up back at the depot.

Step 3: Book Online Before You Go (방문 전 인터넷 사전접수하기)

Time required (소요시간): 10 minutes
What to prepare (준비사항): an Internet Post Office account and the recipient’s full address
Pro Tip (꿀팁): entering the recipient’s details in advance earns a counter discount and cuts your queue time, and for door pickups it saves a further 500 KRW per parcel when you also prepay and specify where to leave it
Watch out (주의사항): the pre-lodgement discount applies only when you supply the address data in advance, not when you fill in the waybill by hand at the window

Korea Post publishes the discount ladder plainly. Paying at the counter on the spot earns 3 percent off for one or two parcels, 5 percent for three or more, 10 percent for ten or more, and 15 percent for fifty or more. There is also a split-parcel rule that rewards good sense: if you divide a single parcel over 20 kg into two pieces that each exceed 10 kg, sent by the same sender to the same recipient at the same time, 3,000 KRW comes off the heavy-parcel rate. Korea Post’s own worked example takes a 30 kg registered parcel at 13,000 KRW, splits it into 17 kg and 13 kg, and charges 10,000 KRW in total.

Step 4: Submit and Pay at the Counter (창구에서 접수하고 결제하기)

Time required (소요시간): 10 to 30 minutes depending on the queue
What to prepare (준비사항): the sealed parcel, a payment card, and identification if you are also using banking services
Pro Tip (꿀팁): mid-morning on a Tuesday or Wednesday is the quietest window; the first hour after opening and the hour before closing are the worst
Watch out (주의사항): declare the contents honestly, because a false description voids your compensation claim if something goes wrong

Two paid add-ons are offered on registered parcels. Cash on delivery, where the recipient pays, costs 500 KRW per parcel. Insured handling, called an anshim parcel, costs 1,000 KRW, plus 500 KRW for each 100,000 KRW of declared value above the standard compensation ceiling. For anything valuable, this is the single best won you will spend, and the reason why is explained in Step 5.

Before you leave the window, check the receipt. For a registered parcel it carries the tracking number you will need for every later step, whether that is following the delivery, proving dispatch to a landlord or an employer, or opening a compensation claim. Photograph it immediately, because a paper receipt in a coat pocket has a short life. If you paid for insured handling, confirm that the declared value printed on the receipt matches what you told the clerk, since that printed figure, not your memory of the conversation, is what a later claim is assessed against.

Step 5: Track, Receive, and Claim (배송 추적·수령·사고 접수하기)

Time required (소요시간): 2 minutes to track, up to 30 days for a disputed claim
What to prepare (준비사항): the tracking number, photographs of the packaging, and proof of the item’s value
Pro Tip (꿀팁): photograph the packed parcel and the completed waybill before you hand it over; those two photos resolve most disputes in a single phone call
Watch out (주의사항): for partial loss or damage, you must notify the carrier within 14 days of the recipient taking delivery, or the carrier’s liability lapses entirely

Korea Post’s compensation rules are published in full. For a registered parcel, actual loss is reimbursed up to 500,000 KRW, or up to a declared value of 3,000,000 KRW when insured handling was purchased. If delivery runs two or more days behind the published standard, the postage and handling fees are refunded. Claims must be made within one year of the date the item was mailed. Private couriers operate under the national Standard Terms for Parcel Delivery, which cap compensation at 500,000 KRW whenever the sender left the value blank on the waybill, and set the same 14-day notification deadline. Writing the true value on the waybill is therefore not a formality; it is the difference between a full payout and a capped one.

Regional Differences (how the same service behaves differently across the country)

Seoul and the metropolitan area. Density works in your favour. Branches are numerous, staffed counters are common inside large office buildings and university campuses, and next-day delivery is the practical norm rather than the promise. Seoul also runs a public locker network, the anshim delivery box (안심택배함), with roughly 240 to 260 installations across the city. Storage is free for the first 48 hours and then costs 1,000 KRW per day, the lockers run 24 hours a day year-round apart from a few sites, and the service is open to any Seoul resident. To use one, you write the locker’s address as your delivery address and add the Korean phrase 서울시 안심택배함 at the end, then collect with the authentication number sent to your phone. Several other cities and districts operate comparable women’s safety delivery lockers under local budgets, so check your own district office rather than assuming the Seoul rules apply unchanged.

Regional cities and smaller towns. Coverage is still excellent, but two practical differences appear. First, many smaller post offices and postal agencies close their counters over lunch, and the closure hour is set regionally rather than nationally, so the branch finder is the only reliable way to check before travelling. Second, convenience store economy delivery thins out quickly outside town centres, because the service only works store to store within one brand, and rural districts may have no participating branch at all. In those areas the post office, which maintains counters where private networks do not, is usually the only realistic option.

Jeju Island. Jeju is priced and scheduled as a separate case. Parcels travelling from the mainland to Jeju are scheduled for delivery two days after lodgement, while parcels leaving Jeju for the mainland may be next-day or two-day depending on the lodging office’s cut-off time for the ferry and air connections. Next-day service from Jeju carries a surcharge at every band, running from 6,500 KRW for the smallest registered parcel up to 15,500 KRW for the largest, while the standard two-day option is priced the same as the mainland rate. Convenience store economy parcels between Jeju and the mainland cost roughly 60 to 90 percent more than the mainland-only rate, with the gap widest at the lightest band, and are scheduled at five to seven days.

Remote islands. Ulleungdo, Yeonpyeongdo, Baengnyeongdo and similar destinations run on shipping schedules rather than road schedules, with deliveries arriving only on fixed days each week, and bad weather suspends sailings without notice. Private couriers commonly add a remote-island surcharge of 4,000 KRW. If you live on or ship to an island, build a week of slack into anything time-sensitive, and never rely on a same-week promise made by an online seller’s checkout page.