Korea's Smart Entry Service Now Covers 42 Countries and Regions

Korea's Ministry of Justice has opened the Smart Entry Service (SES) — the automated immigration gates — to nationals of 42 countries and regions. The rollout came in three stages: Germany, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau from November 3, 2025; fourteen more from December 1, 2025 (Japan, Singapore, the UAE, Mexico, Czechia, the UK, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Australia and New Zealand); and twenty-four more from March 16, 2026, covering most of the European Union along with Norway, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Iceland and Canada.

Registration is done in person at a desk in the arrival hall, where your passport is read and your fingerprint and facial data recorded. Desks are open on the east and west sides of Incheon Terminal 1, on the east and west sides of Terminal 2, and — since March 9, 2026 — at Jeju Airport. Once you are registered, you clear immigration on later entries and exits by scanning your passport at the gate.

The ministry gives waiting times at the staffed counters as its reason for the expansion.

Correction, October 19, 2026 — when this article was first published on September 12, 2026 it said the service covered 18 countries, and added that travelers from outside those 18 could not register at all. That was already out of date: eligibility had expanded to 42 countries and regions on March 16, 2026. The country list and the registration locations have been corrected, and the Ministry of Justice notice is now linked as the source. We regret that readers may have joined the regular queue on the strength of the earlier version.