| Verified against primary record | |
| Governing statute | Act No. 13599 of 22 December 2015, on overseas expansion of medical services and attraction of international patients[1] |
|---|---|
| Statutory definition of international patient | Foreign national who is not a health insurance policyholder or dependent; foreigners resident in Korea excluded[1] |
| Registration | Compulsory with the Minister of Health and Welfare, valid three years, renewable[1] |
| Annual reporting duty | Previous year’s business performance, by the end of February[1] |
| Legal basis for soliciting patients | Statutory exception to the general prohibition in Medical Service Act Article 27(3)[2] |
| Insurers | Expressly prohibited from attracting foreign patients[2] |
| Independently reported | |
| Foreign patients (2025) | 2.01 million from 201 countries, against 1.17 million in 2024[3] |
| Concentration | Over 62 per cent dermatology; 87.2 per cent treated in Seoul[3] |
| Bands apply only to the rows beneath them. The statutory provisions were read directly from the published English texts of both Acts. The patient figures were released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in April 2026 and are reproduced here from press reporting of that release rather than from the ministry’s own publication, which is why they sit in the lower band. No typical cost range is given because no official Korean source publishes prices paid by international patients. | |
Medical tourism in South Korea operates under a dedicated statute and a compulsory registration system, which makes the Korean figures unusually well defined by international standards. Korean law defines an international patient narrowly, excluding both national health insurance members and foreigners who live in Korea, so the published totals are closer to a count of genuine non-resident patients than the equivalent figures in most countries. The activity itself is heavily concentrated: on the most recent reported breakdown, more than six in ten of these patients were treated in dermatology, and almost nine in ten in Seoul.
A statutory carve-out
Korean medical tourism rests on an exception to a general prohibition. Article 27(3) of the Medical Service Act forbids introducing, referring or soliciting a patient to a medical institution or medical practitioner for profit, and also forbids instigating others to do so. The same provision bars profit-seeking inducements such as waiving or discounting a patient’s statutory insurance costs, offering money, or providing transport to the public.[2]
Two exceptions apply. The first allows a patient to be attracted on grounds of economic hardship, with prior individual approval from the head of the competent local authority. The second permits the attracting of a foreign patient who is neither a policyholder nor a dependent under the National Health Insurance Act, excluding foreigners resident in Korea as specified by ministerial decree. Article 27(4) then withdraws that second exception from the insurance industry: insurance companies, mutual companies, solicitors, agencies and certified brokers are prohibited from attracting foreign patients at all.[2]
The practical effect is that soliciting patients is a regulated activity in Korea rather than an open market, and the foreign-patient business exists only because the legislature wrote a door into an otherwise closed wall.
The dedicated Act
The Act on Supporting of Overseas Expansion of Medical Services and Attraction of International Patients, Act No. 13599 of 22 December 2015, builds the administrative machinery. It defines an international patient as a patient of foreign nationality who is not a policyholder or dependent under national health insurance, with foreigners residing in Korea excluded by decree.[1]
Article 6 requires registration with the Minister of Health and Welfare. A medical institution must assign at least one specialist to each department that attracts international patients and must hold malpractice insurance or belong to the medical indemnity mutual. A non-medical agency must hold guaranty insurance, meet a minimum capital requirement and maintain an office in Korea. Registration lasts three years and must be renewed before it lapses. Certificates and trade names may not be transferred or leased, and confusingly similar names are prohibited.[1]
Article 11 requires registered institutions and agencies to report the previous year’s business performance to the Minister by the end of February, and Article 12(5) allows the Minister to run a computer system to manage attraction performance and to collect and manage the related statistics. This reporting duty, not a survey or an estimate, is what produces Korea’s annual foreign-patient figures.[1]
The registration system is live and its outputs are published as open government data. A dataset issued in September 2026 by Incheon Metropolitan City lists registered medical institutions that attract foreign patients, giving region, institution name and address, and refers users to the national Foreign Patient Attraction Information System for current registrations.[4]
Restrictions that come with the regime
The Act constrains the trade as much as it enables it. Article 9 forbids charging an excessive fee or giving fraudulent information, and allows the Minister to examine fees and publish an appropriate range. Article 10 caps the number of international patients a general hospital may attract by reference to a ministerially set bed count. Article 5 blocks indirect investment through foreign corporations into certain free economic zone and Jeju institutions.[1]
Advertising is the most tightly drawn. Under Article 15, foreign-language advertising is permitted only at specified venues such as duty-free shops and designated airports and ports, and requires prior review by the Minister. Before-and-after comparison images and videos are prohibited outright, and plastic surgery and dermatology advertising is barred from the airport and port locations altogether. Given that dermatology and plastic surgery together account for roughly three quarters of the reported patient flow, the advertising rules bite hardest on precisely the specialties that dominate it.[1]
Reported volumes
The Ministry of Health and Welfare released figures in April 2026 recording 2.01 million foreign patients from 201 countries in 2025, close to double the 1.17 million recorded for 2024 and the highest total since the ministry began compiling the series in 2009. The count had risen every year until 2020, when it fell to about 110,000 during the pandemic.[3]
By nationality, China accounted for 30.8 per cent and Japan for 29.8 per cent, followed by Taiwan at 9.2 per cent and the United States at 8.6 per cent, with the American total rising 70.4 per cent to a record 173,000. By specialty, dermatology clinics took more than 62 per cent, about 1.31 million patients, with plastic surgery at 11.2 per cent and internal medicine at 9.2 per cent. By location, Seoul accounted for 87.2 per cent, Busan for 2.8 per cent and Jeju for 2.3 per cent.[3]
Two cautions follow. The figures count patients attracted by registered providers, so a change in registration or reporting behaviour can move the total independently of any change in travel. And a flow in which dermatology clinics in one city account for the majority of cases describes a market in short outpatient aesthetic and skin treatments, not the complex surgical care that the phrase medical tourism often implies.
Limits of the evidence
Korea’s statutory definition is tighter than most, which is a genuine strength, but the series still counts episodes recorded by registered providers rather than individuals, and a patient treated by two registered providers may appear twice. The 2025 figures quoted here are taken from press reporting of the ministry’s release rather than from the ministry’s own publication, which could not be opened for this article. No official Korean source publishes what international patients pay.
See also
- Medical travellers and resident foreign patients, the distinction Korean law writes into its definition
- Medical tourism facilitators, the agencies Korea requires to register and insure
- Cosmetic surgery tourism, part of the specialty mix that dominates the Korean flow
- Source markets in medical tourism, the nationality breakdown reported here
- Medical tourism in Japan, the second largest source of patients counted in Korea
References
- Republic of Korea. Act on Supporting of Overseas Expansion of Medical Services and Attraction of International Patients. Act No. 13599, 22 December 2015. Korea Legislation Research Institute English translation. Verified against primary record: the Act text was opened and the definition in Article 2, the registration conditions in Article 6, the fee and advertising restrictions in Articles 9 and 15, the bed cap in Article 10, the reporting duty in Article 11 and the statistics provision in Article 12(5) were read directly. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
- Republic of Korea. Medical Service Act, Article 27. Act No. 14438, 20 December 2016. Korea Legislation Research Institute English translation. Verified against primary record: Article 27 was opened and read, including the prohibition on introducing, referring or soliciting patients for profit in paragraph 3, the economic-hardship and foreign-patient exceptions, and the prohibition on insurers attracting foreign patients in paragraph 4. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
- Korea JoongAng Daily. Number of foreign patients top 2 million for first time in 2025. Reporting figures released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare on 24 April 2026. Independently reported: the article was opened and the national totals, the 2009 series start, the pandemic trough, and the breakdowns by nationality, specialty and region were read. The ministry’s own release was not opened. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
- Incheon Metropolitan City. Status of Registration of Medical Institutions for Foreign Patients. Public Data Portal dataset, issued 11 September 2026. Verified against primary record: the dataset entry was opened and its publisher, annual update frequency, fields and its reference to the national Foreign Patient Attraction Information System were read. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
Sourcing note: the legal framework here is taken directly from the published English texts of the two governing Acts. The patient figures are placed in the lower band because the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s own release could not be opened; they are reproduced from press reporting of it and labelled as such. No figure has been estimated, and no cost or price information is given because none is published officially.