I Have a Card, So Why Won't It Work? — The Payment Wall Facing Japanese Visitors to Korea
Their wallet is full of freshly exchanged won, yet the card gets declined at the convenience store register. This year, Japanese travelers to Korea filed 263 complaints with the Korea Tourism Organization's Tourist Complaint Center — the second-highest number by nationality after China's 680. One in four of those complaints was payment-related.
At a glance: Carry at least two international-brand cards (Visa, Mastercard, JCB, etc.) · For public transit, buy a physical rechargeable transit card in advance (the mobile app card is Android-only) · WOWPASS, a prepaid transit card for foreign visitors, can be issued instantly with just a passport at Incheon International Airport and other locations (wowpass.io) · Among delivery apps, only Baemin (Baedal Minjok) supports non-member payment with overseas cards (Yogiyo and Coupang Eats do not)
Friction is rising along with the number of visitors. From January to July this year, 2.28 million Japanese tourists visited Korea, up 18.8% from the same period last year, and the annual total is projected at around 3.84 million — poised to break the record set in 2012 for the first time in 14 years. The surge reflects a weak yen combined with airlines expanding short-haul routes. But even as visitor numbers hit an all-time high, the payment infrastructure has failed to keep pace.
Why does payment trip people up specifically? Among card-related complaints, shopping payment issues account for 56.6% and taxi fare payment issues for 33.4% (as of 2025). A survey by card issuer Visa similarly found that Japanese visitors to Korea spend a notably high share on medical services such as hospitals (17%) and retail stores (15%) — a spending pattern that inevitably runs into payment mismatches as visitors move between different types of businesses.
The root cause is that Korea's payment network was designed with domestic users in mind. EMV contactless terminals — which accept payment simply by tapping a card, using the international standard — are, in Korea, mostly limited to large retailers and franchise stores, with an industry survey putting overall adoption at only around 10%. Korea's simple-payment apps, such as Kakao Pay, Naver Pay and Samsung Pay, also don't allow registration of cards issued overseas. Public transit is no different. Korean transit cards run on a domestic-only standard called PayOn, so simply tapping an overseas card on a reader will not register a fare. As a result, foreign visitors have to withdraw cash and separately buy a rechargeable, physical transit card such as T-money. Among delivery apps, only Baemin (Baedal Minjok) has supported non-member payment with overseas cards since March 2025, but its interface is Korean-only, and the mobile T-money app can only be topped up on Android, leaving iPhone users unable to use it at all.
This problem is already moving through the fix pipeline. The Seoul Metropolitan Government has announced plans to phase in an open-loop system by 2030 that lets an overseas credit card be tapped directly on a transit-card reader for payment. As an immediate step within this year, newly installed transit-card vending machines and T-money's Apple Pay integration will be upgraded to allow top-ups with overseas cards. The Korea Tourism Organization is also expanding standard QR payment infrastructure in Gyeongbuk, Daegu, Busan and other regions ahead of the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in October.
It's only a matter of time before the payment network changes, but until then, visitors need to double up on their wallets: two international cards from different brands, plus one foreign-visitor-only prepaid card that can be issued on the spot with just a passport in the airport arrivals hall. With this combination, most moments of a declined card — at a convenience store, in a taxi, or at a subway turnstile — can be avoided.