Korea, Rep.

Registering Property in

Korea, Rep.

Listed below is a detailed summary of the steps, time and cost involved in registering property, assuming a standardized case of an entrepreneur who wants to purchase land and a building that is already registered and free of title dispute.

The information appearing on this page was collected as part of the Doing Business project, which measures and compares regulations relevant to the life cycle of a small- to medium-sized domestic business in 183 economies. The most recent round of data collection for the project was completed in June 2011.

  • Standard Property Transfer

  • Property Value: KRW 1,200,126,240.41
  • City: Seoul

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No. Procedure Time to Complete Associated Costs
1 Obtain their commercial registry extracts from the commercial registry

The buyer obtains a certificate of its registered corporate seal issued by the commercial registry office (KW 1200). The buyer obtains its commercial registry from the commercial registry office. Both buyer and seller obtain a commercial registry extract from the commercial registry office. There is more than one way (in person, via website -KW 800, through an unattended machine -KW 1000) to obtain the certificates. Most people obtain the extract through an unattended machine placed in a governmental district office or from the website (www.iros.go.kr ) of the Supreme Court.

Agency: Commercial Registry 		1 day KW 800 each x 2 (online)
2 Obtain a copy of the Land Cadastre Certificate and the Building Management Certificate and the registry extract of the concerned land and building

The seller obtains from the jurisdictional district office an official copy of the extract from the land registry, or the Land Cadastre Certificate and an official copy of the extract from the building registry or the Building Management Certificate. The actual sale price is currently used as the standard real property price. Both buyer and seller should obtain the jurisdictional district office’s stamp of the original copy of the contract executed by both parties. Prices for certificates can be found on the website www.onnara.go.kr.

The land and building registry extracts are obtained at the Land and Building registry office and the land cadastre certificate and building management certificate are obtained at governmental offices of various levels (Governmental office at city (Si), district (Gun), or borough (Gu) level). Also, the extracts can be obtained online at www.iros.go.kr and the certificates at www.egov.go.kr.


Agency: Land and Building Registry 		1 day No cost
3 Obtain a statement of taxes to be paid from the tax department of the jurisdictional district office

The parties need to obtain a statement of taxes due from the tax department of jurisdictional district office after calculating the taxes payable:
- Registration Tax: 2% of the sale price
- Education Tax: 20% of the registration tax
- Acquisition Tax: 2% of the purchase price
- Agricultural and Fisheries Tax: 10% of the acquisition tax
- Stamp Duties: KW 150,000 for KW 500 millions; KW 350,000 if above KW 1 billion

The Local Tax Law was amended effective January 5, 2005. According to the newly amended Local Tax Law, registration tax for sale and purchase of property between legal entities is 2% (1% for transfers between individuals for residential properties).

Under Korean law, the parties to an agreement for sale of real property must, within 60 days of signing such agreement, report to the relevant government office prescribed information regarding the real property transaction such as the transaction price (may be reported online at http://rtms.mltm.go.kr). This is to prevent tax evasion. Once this real property transaction report is made and cleared, a certificate is issued by the government office (also needed for the title transfer registration).


Agency: Tax department of jurisdictional district office 		1 day no cost
4 Buyer buys and affixes a National Revenue stamp & prepare sale agreement

The buyer buys and affixes a National Revenue stamp to obtain an approval for the sale agreement from the district government office.
The lawyer or real estate agent had previously prepared the sale agreement. The seller was responsible for gathering all the documents to be presented to the lawyer or real estate agent.
For small operations, the real estate agent will connect the parties and prepare the sale agreement. For more important operations such as the one analyzed here, both a lawyer and the real estate agent will be used. The real estate agent will help connect the parties and the lawyer will prepare the sale agreement.
Official rate of 0.2-0.8% of the sale price for the real estate agent. In most cases the real estate agent fee is more than the official rate.
Lawyer fees will be between KW 100,000 and KW 250,000 per hour of work. It is estimated that on average a lawyer will charge between 5 and 10 hours to prepare the sale agreement.

The documentation shall include:
For the preparation of the sale agreement, the following documentation is needed:
• The Certificate of Registration that is in the possession of the seller
• A copy of Property Register to show the owner and encumbrances (obtained in Step 1)
• Land Cadastre Certificate and Building Management Certificate (obtained in Step 2)
• Seller ID (a copy of Corporate Commercial Register)
• Official Chop/Seal of the seller company
• Property tax clearance


Agency: District government office 		1-2 days Fee for real estate agent (broker fees between 0.2-0.9% of sale price, agreed by the parties) + National Revenue Stamp, according to the following schedule: Property value (in KW) NRS From 10 to 30 millions K
5 Buyer pays taxes online

The buyer pays the Acquisition tax, Registration tax, Education tax, and the Agricultural and Fisheries Tax online at wetax.go.kr

Agency: online at wetax.go.kr 		1 day 4 % of sale price for the Acquisition tax (transfer tax) 20% of registration tax (0.4% of sale price) for the Education tax 10% of Acquisition tax (0.2% of sale price) for the Agricultural and Fisheries Tax
6 The buyer buys Housing Bonds

The bonds have a maturity of 5 years, after which they are redeemed with interest. Typically the buyer sells the bonds at a discount immediately after purchasing them, usually at 10% (but this may change depending on market circumstances. The rate as of Apr. 21, 2010 was 9.2%).
Value of bonds that need to be purchased by the buyer:

For land located in Seoul with:
1) Standard market price of KRW 5M or more ~ less than KRW 50M: 2.5% of sale price
2) KRW 50M or more ~ less than KRW 100M: 4%
3) KRW 100M or more: 5%

For a warehouse located in Seoul with:
1) Standard market price of KRW 10M or more ~ less than KRW 130M: 1% of sale price
2) KRW 130M or more ~ less than KRW 250M: 1.6%
3) KRW 250M or more: 2%

The base used for determining the value of bonds to be purchased is not the actual transaction price but the "standard market price," which can be obtained from the tax department at the relevant government office.


(Procedure 6 is not included in the calculation of total cost.)

Agency: Commercial bank (handling national housing bonds) 		1-3 days 5% of sale price (not included in calculation of total cost)
7 Buyer applies for the registration of the titles

The buyer prepares an application form and applies for the registration of the title to a competent court registry under the buyer’s name. Parties must purchase the required revenue stamp and attach it to the title transfer registration application. Land and building are registered separately.

The documentation shall include:
• Certificate of buyer’s registered corporate seal (obtained in Procedure 1)
• Buyer and seller’s commercial registry extracts (obtained in Procedure 1)
• Seller’s registry extract of the concerned land and building (obtained in Procedure 1)
• Land Cadastre Certificate (obtained in Procedure 2)
• Building Management Certificate (obtained in Procedure 2)
• Sale agreement with the National Revenue Stamp affixed (obtained in Procedure 4)
• Tax payments’ receipts (paid in Procedure 5)
• Receipt of purchase of Housing Bonds (bought in Procedure 6)
• Report of real property transaction Certificate (obtained in Procedure 3)

Fees for title transfer registration for 1 real property have been changed as follows:
- KRW 14,000 if applied in person
- KRW 10,000 if applied in person using a standard form that is available online (need to fill it out online, print it, and submit it to the registry)
- KRW 6,000 via online

Agency: Court Registry 		3 days Cost per real property (land + building) for court registry stamp: In person: KRW14,000; Electronic standard form application: KRW10,000; Electronic application: KRW 6,000
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