T-money in Apple Wallet 2026: Lose Your iPhone, Lose Up to 500,000 Won
Bottom line: A T-money transit card loaded into Apple Wallet can hold up to 500,000 won per person, but if you lose the iPhone it's on, getting that balance back is very hard. You can only remove the card for a refund if the lost iPhone is still reachable online — through Find My, or by signing into the same Apple ID on another device.
If you didn't know: You can lose the full 500,000-won balance along with the lost iPhone. T-money has stated it bears no legal responsibility, citing a Supreme Court precedent that an agreement placing loss risk on the cardholder is valid, because the issuer has no practical way to act even after a loss report.
Maximum balance per person (card or mobile) 500,000 won · Customer service 1644-0088 · Small refunds (roughly 20,000 won or less, the exact ceiling varies by store) available instantly at convenience stores · Larger amounts require a visit to a subway-station service desk or T-money Town in Jung-gu, Seoul · A lost-device refund only works if Find My can still reach the iPhone remotely.
Registering T-money in Apple Wallet lets you tap your iPhone or Apple Watch at the reader instead of carrying a physical card, and the feature spread quickly among foreign visitors after it launched in July 2025. That convenience has a flip side: the iPhone itself becomes the wallet, so losing the phone means losing the transit card with it.
Getting a refund requires unlinking the card inside Apple Wallet's settings first, which you cannot reach once the iPhone is gone. The only route is signing into the same Apple ID on another iPhone or iPad and using Find My to control the lost device remotely — and that stops working entirely once the lost phone drops off the network for good.
The 500,000-won per-person balance cap on T-money in Apple Wallet, the practical block on refunds after a loss, and T-money's denial of legal liability citing a Supreme Court precedent were confirmed from fnnews.com's report screen on 2026-11-06. The official T-money site (t-money.co.kr) was unreachable that day (server error 503), so a unified official figure for convenience-store refund ceilings and fees could not be confirmed for this article — call customer service at 1644-0088 for the exact amount.
Journey stage: During the trip · Verified 2026-11-06
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