Opening a Bank Account in Korea: The ₩1,000,000 Daily Cap Nobody Warns You About

A Korean bank account opens the same day you walk into a branch with your residence card and passport, and you leave with a bankbook and a cash card. The catch: new accounts open as a 한도제한계좌 (limited-transaction account), capped at ₩1,000,000 a day in the app and ₩3,000,000 at the counter until you document why you hold it.

Four things that decide your first month in Korea:

• The residence card is the gatekeeper. No card, no standard account.
• The daily cap is automatic and applies to almost everyone. Documents remove it, waiting does not.
• Bank practice blocks a second demand-deposit account elsewhere for 20 business days, so the first choice matters.
• Branches close at 4:00 pm on weekdays, which means a half-day off work for anything the app cannot do.

What you need to open a bank account in Korea

Seoul Metropolitan Government's official banking guidance for foreign residents lists exactly two documents: your foreigner registration certificate and your passport. The bankbook and cash card are issued on the spot. The same page gives branch hours as Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, and notes that ATMs run at all hours except a maintenance window between 10:00 pm and 8:00 am (checked August 2026; the page carries no visible revision date).

Everything therefore hangs on the residence card. Anyone intending to stay in Korea for more than 90 days from the date of entry must complete alien registration through the Korea Immigration Service, within 90 days of entry or immediately upon approval of a status change. The fee is ₩30,000, cash only, and you bring the application form, your passport, a 3.5 × 4.5 cm colour photo and any status-specific paperwork. HiKorea does not publish a national processing time for card issuance, so plan around your immigration office's own booking queue rather than a promised number of days.

Since 10 January 2025 there has also been a mobile residence card (모바일 외국인등록증) with the same legal effect as the plastic one. Per a Financial Services Commission press release dated 20 March 2025, six banks began accepting it for account opening on 21 March 2025: Shinhan, Hana, iM Bank, Busan Bank, Jeonbuk Bank and Jeju Bank, with Jeonbuk Bank the only one supporting it without a branch visit. That list is from early 2025 and may have grown since.

Every new account starts restricted: the 한도제한계좌

This is the part that surprises people, and it has nothing to do with being foreign. Korean banks open almost every new demand-deposit account with hard daily ceilings, as an anti-fraud measure run jointly by the FSC, the Financial Supervisory Service and the banking industry since 2016. The limits below have applied since 2 May 2024, per the FSC's announcement raising them (Nonghyup, Hana and Busan Bank moved on 10 May 2024).

Here is what a restricted account can actually move in one day, and what it could move before the 2024 increase.

The table shows the counter is three times more capable than the app while a restriction is in force, which inverts how most people expect to bank. Internet-only banks were excluded from the 2024 increase and kept their own levels in the ₩1,000,000–2,000,000 band, so a fully app-based account is not automatically the looser one.

Since 28 August 2024, verifying the purpose of a financial transaction has been a legal obligation on financial companies, not a courtesy check, under the amended 통신사기피해환급법 (the special act on preventing telecommunications financial fraud). It bites on new demand-deposit accounts and on reactivating dormant ones.

Worked example: moving a ₩5,000,000 rental deposit

Say you have signed a lease and owe a ₩5,000,000 deposit, and your salary has just landed in a brand-new restricted account.

• App route: ₩5,000,000 ÷ ₩1,000,000 per day = five transfers on five separate days. Start Monday, finish Friday.
• Counter route: ₩3,000,000 on day one, ₩2,000,000 on day two, both inside the 9:00–16:00 window. Two branch visits, two partial days off work.
• Documented route: one branch visit carrying an employment certificate (재직증명서) and a payslip (급여명세표). The restriction comes off and the full ₩5,000,000 goes in a single transfer.

The decision rule: if any single payment you owe in your first month exceeds ₩1,000,000, bring the proof documents to the account opening itself rather than coming back later. Below that threshold the cap costs you nothing and you can ignore it. This matters most for housing, where key money deposits and monthly rent in Seoul sit far above the daily ceiling.

Documents that lift the restriction

Banks call these 금융거래목적 확인서류, and which one works depends on why the account exists. KB Kookmin's consumer guidance sets out the standard menu:

• Salary account: employment certificate (재직증명서), payslip (급여명세표), or withholding tax receipt (근로소득원천징수영수증).
• Business account: business registration certificate, tax invoices, VAT certificate, or financial statements.
• Pension account: pension certificate or beneficiary confirmation.
• Club or group account: member roster and the group's rules.
• Household account: utility or building maintenance fee receipts in your name.

Press coverage of the August 2024 rule change also lists the health-insurance qualification certificate (건강보험자격득실확인서) and a company ID card as documents banks accept. That certificate is downloadable once your national health insurance enrolment has been processed, which makes it one of the easier proofs to obtain if your employment certificate is slow to arrive.

Which bank to open with first, and the 20-business-day lockout

Korean banks apply an industry practice that blocks you from opening another freely withdrawable account at a different institution for 20 business days after opening one. It is not a published regulation. The FSS introduced it in 2010 against 대포통장 (accounts sold to fraudsters), the Board of Audit and Inspection has criticised it since 2021 as shadow regulation, and banks now apply it inconsistently, with some skipping it for in-branch openings. It does not touch instalment savings (적금) or fund accounts.

Treat it as a real constraint anyway. Open first at whichever bank your employer or university uses for payroll, because the payroll relationship is the fastest documented path out of the restricted-account state, and because a salary that arrives in the same bank saves you the transfer entirely. If you have no employer in Korea yet, choose on language support instead.

This table compares the four foreigner-facing options that publish their own details.

The table shows that language coverage is broadly comparable at the big three, so the differentiator is the opening process. Shinhan's SOL Global overhaul announced on 1 December 2025 cut registration from seven steps to four and added a foreigner-only credit product, SOL Global Loan, inside the same app. Toss Bank became the first internet-only bank to open accounts for foreign residents without a branch visit on 2 May 2022, verifying identity through the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's public data service; foreign customers get the same fee-free domestic transfers and ATM terms as Korean customers, but are shut out of unsecured lending products. Kakao Bank and K bank have not confirmed foreign-resident account opening, so do not plan around either.

No bank publishes a current, dated list of which visa types its branches accept or which branches staff a foreign-language desk. English-language sites naming specific Itaewon or Gangnam branches are not quoting the banks.

Sending money out of Korea

The Ministry of Economy and Finance announced on 8 December 2025 a restructuring of undocumented overseas remittance. The annual ceiling was unified at USD 100,000 across banks and small-sum remittance operators, up from USD 50,000 in the non-banking sector, and the designated-transaction-bank system was scrapped, so the allowance can be spread across providers. An integrated monitoring system, ORIS, began operating in January 2026. Once the annual limit is used up, further undocumented transfers of up to USD 5,000 each remain possible but are reported to the National Tax Service and Korea Customs Service.

Here is the part that concerns foreign residents specifically, stated plainly because it is unresolved. The Korea Federation of Banks' guidance page on undocumented remittance is titled for residents excluding foreign residents, and Woori Bank's page for non-residents and foreign residents still showed a USD 50,000 annual undocumented ceiling when checked on 12 August 2026, requiring only a passport. Whether the December 2025 unification raised that separate foreigner ceiling is not published by any official source I could locate. Assume USD 50,000 until your bank tells you otherwise.

Above that line the route is documentary, and it is generous if you keep records. Under 외국환거래규정 제4-4조, a foreigner can remit within the scope of Korean-source remuneration, self-employment income, social insurance and pension income by producing evidence of how the money was earned: a passport, foreign-exchange purchase certificates and payslips. Keep every 급여명세서 from your first month.

On fees, no bank publishes a consolidated current schedule that survives citation, and the 전국은행연합회 소비자포털 is the one place that compiles comparative disclosure of remittance and foreign-currency charges across banks. As a size reference, 한국경제 reported on 4 July 2025 that Shinhan charges ₩10,000 plus an ₩8,000 cable charge for a counter remittance, and waives the fee in the SOL app for transfers under USD 3,000 with a ₩5,000 cable charge. Those are reported figures, not Shinhan's own tariff, so treat them as an order of magnitude.

What happens to your money if the bank fails

Deposit protection rose from ₩50 million to ₩100 million, principal plus interest, on 1 September 2025, the first increase in 24 years, per the FSC's announcement of 15 May 2025. It applies per depositor per institution, needs no application, and covers banks, savings banks and mutual finance bodies including 신협 and 새마을금고. Retirement pensions and pension savings accounts got the same extension.

Where this advice breaks down

The branch-first approach fails in three situations. If you are in Korea on a short stay under 90 days, you have no residence card and the standard route stops before it starts. If your employer opens a payroll account for you at its own bank after you have already opened one elsewhere, the 20-business-day practice can leave you waiting a month for a second account you now need. And if you chose an internet-only bank specifically to escape the caps, note that internet-only banks were left out of the May 2024 increase, so the app-only account can be the tighter one.

This is general information about a financial process, not advice about your own situation. Rules on remittance in particular sit across tax and foreign-exchange law, and a bank's foreign-exchange desk is the right place for anything involving your own income.

FAQ

Can I open a Korean bank account before my residence card arrives?

Not through the standard route. Seoul Metropolitan Government's official guidance lists the foreigner registration certificate and passport as the requirement, and alien registration itself must be completed within 90 days of entry. The mobile residence card is an alternative to the plastic card, not a substitute for registration.

How long does the account opening itself take?

One visit. The bankbook and cash card are issued during the appointment, per Seoul's official banking page. What takes longer is removing the daily restriction, which needs a second visit unless you bring your employment documents the first time.

Why can my new account only transfer ₩1,000,000 a day?

Because it opened as a 한도제한계좌. Daily caps of ₩1,000,000 for electronic banking and ATM use and ₩3,000,000 at the counter have applied since 2 May 2024, and since 28 August 2024 banks have been legally required to verify the purpose of the account before lifting them.

Can I open accounts at two banks in the same week?

Usually not for two freely withdrawable accounts, because of the 20-business-day industry practice. Instalment savings accounts and fund accounts are outside it, and some banks do not enforce the bar for in-branch openings.

Who do I contact if a bank refuses or mishandles my account?

The Financial Supervisory Service runs call centre 1332, reachable nationwide without an area code, for complaints about financial companies and financial fraud. The FSS also translates complaints filed in a foreign language into Korean, processes them, and returns the outcome in the original language, with reported coverage of 14 languages including Vietnamese, Mongolian, Uzbek, Khmer and Nepali. Save the number before you need it.