e-Arrival Card Korea: The Free Form Nobody Tells You About

Bottom line: the e-Arrival Card Korea — South Korea’s electronic arrival card — is free, filed online at www.e-arrivalcard.go.kr up to 3 days before you land (Korean time, and the day you land counts), and valid for 72 hours from submission. It takes about five minutes. You are exempt only if you hold a valid K-ETA, are a registered resident, or fall under one of the other narrow exemptions.

The e-Arrival Card Korea launched on 24 February 2025: it is the electronic arrival card that replaced the paper form you used to scribble on the plane. Korea Immigration accepted both formats during the initial phase, through the end of 2025, and online filing is the standard now.

Almost nobody tells you this. Airlines stopped handing out the paper form, most guides still describe the old process, and the people most likely to miss it are the ones who read “no K-ETA needed” and assumed that meant no paperwork.

It is free, it takes about five minutes, and skipping it means sorting the South Korea arrival card out at the airport before immigration while everyone else walks past you. Everything below is from the official e-Arrival Card site and k-eta.go.kr, checked in September 2026.

What the e-Arrival Card Korea Is (And Why It Suddenly Appeared)

It is the same information the old paper arrival card asked for — name, passport number, flight, where you are staying, purpose of visit — just submitted online before you fly instead of by hand in the air.

Korea launched it on 24 February 2025 and accepted paper cards alongside it only during the initial phase, through December 2025. Electronic filing is the standard now — though no official notice formally abolishing the paper card has been published, and the official FAQ still describes filing on arrival, so treat that as a fallback rather than a plan.

The logic is simple: immigration wants your details before you arrive, not while 300 people queue behind you. In practice it shifts five minutes of work from the plane to your pre-trip checklist, and that is exactly why people forget it.

1. Do You Actually Have to Submit One?

Most foreign visitors do. The e-Arrival Card Korea exemptions are narrow, and one of them trips people up constantly.

Your situation	e-Arrival Card?
Visa-free, no K-ETA (the 22 exempt countries in 2026)	Yes — required
Holding a valid K-ETA	No — exempt
Holding a Korean visa (tourist, work, study)	Yes — required
Registered resident / permanent resident of Korea	No — exempt
Group tourist visa (C-3-2) from certain countries	No — exempt

Note the first two rows together. Being exempt from K-ETA gives you more paperwork, not less. If you are American, British, Japanese or from one of the other exempt countries and you fly in during 2026 without a K-ETA, this form is mandatory for you.

Flip it around and there is a shortcut: buy a K-ETA anyway. It costs about USD 7, lasts 3 years, and exempts you from this form on every trip inside that window. From 2027 you will need it regardless.

If you are unsure, the official site has an e-Arrival Card Navigator. You tick what you hold — visa, K-ETA, residence card, or none — and it tells you whether to submit.

2. When to Submit It

The key rules at a glance

Window	Within 3 days before arrival, counting the day you land
Cost	Free, always
Per submission	1–9 people (individual) or 2–1,000 (group / travel agency)
Validity	72 hours from submission; arrive later and you file again
Editable?	Arrival date only within 3 days of your first submission; purpose of entry, stay information and departure date any time before immigration inspection
Proof needed at immigration?	No printout required; it is tied to your passport

Three days is a real constraint. Submit it too early and the system will not accept it. The practical move is to do it the day before departure, once your flight and first night are locked in.

Book at least your first night’s accommodation before you sit down to fill this in. The form asks for your address in Korea, and “I’ll figure it out” is not an accepted answer.

3. How to Fill It In, Field by Field

Go to e-arrivalcard.go.kr, switch to English, and choose Individual or Group.

• Step 1. Passport details. Exactly as printed — surname, given names, number, nationality, date of birth. A typo here is the one error that actually causes trouble at the counter.
• Step 2. Flight information. Arrival date and flight number. Check your booking rather than trusting memory.
• Step 3. Address in Korea. Your hotel or guesthouse address. First night is enough.
• Step 4. Purpose of visit. Tourism, business, visiting family, and so on.
• Step 5. Contact details. An email you can actually open while travelling — this is how you retrieve or edit the submission.
• Step 6. Submit. You get an issue number. Screenshot it. You do not need to print anything.

Travelling as a family or couple? Use one individual submission for everyone on the same itinerary rather than filing separately — it covers up to nine people.

4. The Fake e-Arrival Card Sites

The official site runs a standing warning about fake e-Arrival Card Korea sites, which tells you how common they have become.

Because the real form is free and takes five minutes, there is no legitimate “service” to sell. Every paid e-Arrival Card site is a scam or an unnecessary middleman — and handing your passport details to one is worse than losing the money.

The test is simple: if a site asks you to pay, it is not the Korean government. The official warning puts it in one line: the only official site is www.e-arrivalcard.go.kr, and there is no fee.

• Official domain ends in .go.kr — the Korean government TLD. e-arrivalcard.go.kr.
• Anything ending in .com, .org, .net or .info is not official, however polished it looks.
• No fee. No “expedited processing”. No “application assistance” charge.
• The same applies to K-ETA: the real fee there is exactly 10,000 KRW at k-eta.go.kr, and that site posts its own phishing warning.

5. Do US Citizens Need the Korea e-Arrival Card?

Yes — in 2026 US citizens need the e-Arrival Card Korea. The confusion comes from the K-ETA exemption: US passport holders are exempt from K-ETA through 31 December 2026, but being K-ETA-exempt is not the same as holding a K-ETA, and the official FAQ (item 13) exempts only a K-ETA holder with remaining validity.

So the 2026 sequence for an American traveller is simple: no K-ETA needed, South Korea arrival card required. From 1 January 2027 K-ETA is required again, and a valid K-ETA then exempts you from the electronic arrival card. The details of that change live in the K-ETA guide.

Travellers who are currently exempt can also apply for a K-ETA voluntarily, purely to skip the arrival card on every trip inside its validity.

e-Arrival Card vs K-ETA

• K-ETA is a travel authorisation you apply and pay for: 10,000 KRW, non-refundable, normally assessed within 72 hours.
• The e-Arrival Card Korea is a free entry declaration, filed within 3 days of arrival and valid 72 hours from submission.
• Hold a valid K-ETA and you are exempt from the arrival card. Hold neither, and the card is mandatory.
• Other exemptions: registered residents, valid residence card holders, crew, 24-hour airside transit, diplomatic and official passports.
• Which side of the rule you land on in 2027 is decided by K-ETA, so read the K-ETA guide for that.

6. Passport Upload Not Working? What the Official Site Says

The official guide asks you to upload the photo page of your passport and adds that if that is difficult, you can enter your personal information manually instead. That is the sanctioned workaround: skip the upload and type the details.

Browser support is published in the official FAQ: on PC, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera and Edge; on Android, Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Edge; on iOS, Chrome, Safari and Opera. A PC is recommended for groups of more than nine people.

Still stuck? The official contacts are earrivalcard@korea.kr and the Immigration Contact Center on +82-2-1345 from overseas (1345 inside Korea), 09:00–22:00 on weekdays.

One honest caveat about the e-Arrival Card Korea upload: the official site does not publish accepted file types, size limits or the reasons an upload fails. Every “resize it to X” fix you will find online is unofficial guesswork, so use manual entry or the contacts above instead.

Mistakes to Avoid

• Assuming no K-ETA means no paperwork. The opposite is true in 2026. No K-ETA means you owe this form.
• Paying for it. It is free. A charge is the single clearest sign you are on a fake site.
• Submitting too early. The window is 3 days. Earlier submissions are rejected, and people then assume they are done.
• Filing separate forms for a family. One individual submission covers up to nine travellers on the same trip.
• Typos in the passport name. It must match the passport exactly. This is the error that actually slows you down at immigration.
• Using an email you cannot check while abroad. You need it to retrieve or edit the submission.
• Filling it in with no accommodation booked. The address field is required.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Else Should You Sort Before You Land?

The e-Arrival Card is the smallest of the pre-departure jobs, but it is the one with a deadline attached. Once it is submitted, the list is short: entry authorisation, a data plan, a transport card, and your first night booked.

Korea is genuinely easy to travel once you are through the gate — it is cashless, everything is an app, and the subway is faultless. Arriving without mobile data is the mistake that makes all of that harder, so sort your Korea eSIM while you are still at a desk.

Sources

• Korea e-Arrival Card official site — Korea Immigration Service (fee, 3-day window, group limits, Navigator, fake-site warning)
• e-Arrival Card official guide — what the card is, passport photo upload and the manual-entry alternative
• e-Arrival Card official guide: who must declare — exemptions, including K-ETA holders
• e-Arrival Card declaration procedure and FAQ — editing rules, supported browsers, official contacts
• Korea Immigration Service notice, 18 February 2025 — launch on 24 February 2025 and paper cards accepted until the end of 2025
• K-ETA Application Guide — confirmation that K-ETA holders are exempt from the arrival card
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs notice — list of travellers exempt from the entry declaration

Related Guides

• K-ETA Is Back in 2027: What Changes for 22 Exempt Countries — whether you need a K-ETA at all, and why buying one early skips this form

Last checked September 2026 against e-arrivalcard.go.kr, immigration.go.kr and k-eta.go.kr. Korean entry rules change often — if you are reading this months later, confirm the e-Arrival Card Korea rules on the official site before you fly.