Seoul Subway Foreign Card 2026: Where You Can Pay, and Where You Still Can't Tap

Bottom line: Yes, you can now pay with a foreign credit or debit card at Seoul subway stations — but not by tapping the card directly at the gate. You have to buy or top up a transit card first at one of the new kiosks, then tap that card to get through.

If you didn't know: tapping a foreign card straight on the gate sensor does nothing, so you'll get stuck while people line up behind you and have to backtrack to a kiosk. Also, every purchase or top-up with a foreign card carries a 3.7% service fee — recharge 10,000 won and you're charged an extra 370 won.

Since March 17, 2026, Seoul has allowed Visa, Mastercard and similar foreign-issued cards — plus mobile wallets like Kakao Pay and Naver Pay — to be used at 440 new ticket kiosks installed across 273 stations on subway Lines 1 through 8. This covers buying single-journey tickets and topping up a Climate Card or regular transit card, but it does not cover walking straight up to the turnstile and tapping your card. You still need to find the kiosk, switch the screen to English, pay with your card, and take the physical card or ticket to the gate. One month after launch, an average of 9,158 riders a day were paying roughly 70 million won combined through foreign cards and mobile wallets, and short-term Climate Card top-ups roughly doubled from about 120,000 to 240,000 compared with the same period a year earlier. Seoul has said it's moving toward a full "open-loop" system where you tap a bank card directly at the gate, but news reports give different target years — anywhere from 2027 to 2030 — so there's no confirmed official date yet. Charging a 30-day pass with a foreign card also isn't available yet.

Journey stage: During the trip · Verified 2026-11-08