Korea e-Arrival Card 2026: Who Files, the 3-Day Window, and Q-CODE
Last checked: 2026-09-22 · Sources: e-Arrival Card portal FAQ, e-Arrival Card portal: who must file, K-ETA portal notice of 2025-12-23, Embassy of Korea in the USA notice of 2025-12-29, KDCA Q-CODE notice board, Incheon Airport arrival procedures · What changed recently: KDCA's 3rd-quarter 2026 quarantine-area list was revised on 2026-09-04, effective 2026-09-07; no change to the e-Arrival Card rules since the portal's 2026-01-08 user-guide notice.
Three government forms sit between a foreign traveller and the immigration counter in Korea: K-ETA, the e-Arrival Card, and Q-CODE. Most guides give each a paragraph and stop. This one takes the e-Arrival Card apart screen by screen, because the form is where the practical questions live: which address a transit passenger types, what to enter when the return flight is not booked, and whether the 3-day window means 72 hours or three calendar dates.
Every statement below is drawn from a page the Korean government publishes: the e-Arrival Card portal run by the Ministry of Justice, the K-ETA portal, embassy notices from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) for Q-CODE, and Incheon Airport. Where those pages fall silent, the text says so.
What the e-Arrival Card is
The portal's own definition, from its FAQ Q_2: a system "that allows foreigners entering the Republic of Korea to conveniently submit the existing paper arrival card they submit during immigration in the Republic of Korea online (electronically)." FAQ Q_8 adds that the online version "has the same effect as existing paper arrival card." It launched on February 24, 2025, according to the Consulate of Korea in Hagatna's notice of 2025-02-25, and it costs nothing (FAQ Q_6).
It is not a visa, not a travel authorization and not a health screening. It is the landing card, moved online.
Who must file, in the portal's exact words
The portal's target-guide page lists six groups required to submit:
- "Individuals with a valid visa until the scheduled entry date to Korea"
- "Citizens of countries temporarily exempt from the K-ETA"
- "Individuals covered under Article 8 of the US-Korea SOFA (active-duty military personnel)"
- "Holders of a UN Laissez-Passer issued to UN staff"
- "Holders of a valid ABTC (including mobile applications)"
- "Holders of a valid Seafarer's Book who are registered as foreign crew entering Korea"
And six groups excluded:
- "Citizens of the Republic of Korea"
- "Holders of a Korean Residence Card (including Permanent Resident Card or Overseas Korean Resident Card)"
- "K-ETA holders"
- "Group (electronic) visa holders"
- "Visa-free group tourists at Yangyang/Muan International Airport"
- "Foreign flight attendants of aircraft entering Korea"
Item 2 on the first list is the one that trips people up. Being *exempt from K-ETA* and *holding a K-ETA* are opposites for this form. A US, UK, Canadian, Australian, Japanese or EU passport holder who lands in 2026 without applying for K-ETA must file the e-Arrival Card. The same person with a paid, still-valid K-ETA approval is a "K-ETA holder" and is excused. The portal's navigator tool puts it in one line: "if you have K-ETA, you do not need to submit e-Arrival card when entering the Republic of Korea."
The K-ETA side says the same thing from the other direction. The K-ETA portal notice of 2025-12-23 sets the exemption at "From January 1, 2026 (Thu) to December 31, 2026 (Thu) (KST)" and adds: "Those who wish to receive benefits from K-ETA approval, such as not having to submit an arrival card, may apply for K-ETA. In that case, the application fee will be charged." The Embassy of Korea in the USA reposted that wording on 2025-12-29. Our earlier piece on the K-ETA exemption extended through 2026 covers whether paying for that optional K-ETA is worth it.
I cross-checked the portal's exclusion list against the wording on Incheon Airport's arrival-procedures page, which says: "Korean citizens and registered foreign nationals do not need to fill out an arrival card. Only unregistered foreign nationals are required to fill it out." The two agree. "Registered" means a residence card issued after entry; if you are moving to Korea for more than 90 days, your first landing is still an unregistered one, and the alien registration 90-day deadline starts the day you arrive.
Two edge cases the FAQ settles: transit passengers who stay airside and connect within 24 hours do not file (Q_24); diplomatic and official passport holders do (Q_28), even when a treaty lets them enter visa-free.
When to file: three dates, not 72 hours
FAQ Q_5 defines the window by calendar date in Korean time, and gives its own example: "If the arrival date in Korea is January 31, 2025, the dates for submitting e-Arrival card may be January 29, 2025, January 30, 2025, and January 31, 2025." So the window is the arrival date plus the two days before it, on the KST calendar. A flight that departs the US on the evening of the 28th and lands on the 30th KST can be declared from the 28th KST.
The same FAQ says you "can submit it at any time before going through immigration even after arriving in Korea." Two further clocks apply after submission: the portal's guide page states that "after 72 hours from the time of submission of the e-Arrival Card, validity is automatically lost," and FAQ Q_21 says each card "can be used only once." A postponed trip means a fresh card. The arrival date on a submitted card can be corrected only "within 3 days from the initial submission date" (Q_29); address, purpose and occupation can be edited any time before immigration.
The form, screen by screen
The portal's procedure page describes five steps for an individual declaration, which covers up to 9 people on a phone or up to 1,000 on a PC. What each screen asks, with the FAQ's answers for the awkward fields:
| Step | What the screen asks | Notes from the portal |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Terms and email | Consent to personal-data collection; email typed twice | The person filing on behalf of others must be 15 or older ("a person aged 14 or younger cannot be a representative declarant") |
| 2. Passport | Photograph the passport data page for OCR, or type the details by hand | If OCR fails, manual entry is allowed; a birth date printed as XX/XX/1999 is entered as 1999.00.00 (Q_30) |
| 3. Travel itinerary | Expected arrival date and arrival flight number; scheduled departure date; departure flight number; purpose of entry; place of stay in Korea; occupation; contact number | Departure date may be approximate and the departure flight number is optional (Q_23); one representative address, or the first place you sleep in Korea (Q_22); a valid Korean visa can auto-fill the stay fields |
| 4. Check | Review everything entered | Edits before submitting |
| 5. Submit | Confirmation as a PDF carrying an issue number; a copy goes to the email address | You do not need to show the PDF or number to the inspector (Q_18), though one may be requested if details look wrong |
For the address field, same-day transit passengers who must pass immigration (for instance to collect bags) enter the airport itself. FAQ Q_1 gives the exact strings: Incheon T1 is "272 Gonghang-ro, Jung-gu, Incheon (22382)", T2 is "446 Je2terminal-daero, Jung-gu, Incheon (22382)", Gimpo is "112 Haneul-gil, Gangseo-gu, Seoul (07505)", and it lists Daegu, Gimhae and Jeju as well.
On children: Q_19 cites Article 2(1) of the Enforcement Regulations of the Immigration Control Act, under which the arrival form "must be filled out by the person entering the country," but allows a parent to complete it for a minor "under unavoidable circumstances." A group booking (Q_17) requires every member to share the same arrival date and flight number. The site runs in 7 languages: Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese and Russian (Q_14).
I compared this five-step description with the Embassy of Korea in Bangladesh notice of 2025-07-01, which tells travellers to prepare "a valid e-mail address, travel information (date of entry and departure, flight-vessel number), address and contact information in Korea." The lists match; the embassy version omits purpose of entry and occupation, which step 3 asks.
What happens if you skip it
The portal answers this directly. FAQ Q_10 asks whether you cannot enter Korea without filing in advance, and replies: "No. Even if you did not submit e-Arrival Card before arriving in Korea, you can fill out e-Arrival Card or paper arrival card before immigration."
That sentence needs a date next to it. Embassy notices from 2025, such as the Consulate General in Sydney's of 2025-06-24, said both formats would be accepted "until December 2025." Advisory firms then reported January 1, 2026 as the date the electronic form became the standard. I read through the portal's notice board for a matching announcement and found titles only; its "About e-Arrival card" notice of 2025-12-29 and user-guide notice of 2026-01-08 returned an error when opened, so they are not quoted. What can be said with a source is narrower: as of 2026-09-22 the portal's FAQ still names the paper card as a fallback, and arriving without a card means a form or a kiosk before the immigration queue, not a refusal at the desk.
Two more FAQ points: filing does not open the automated e-gates, which need prior biometric registration (Q_20), and the card "is a separate act from customs and quarantine declaration" (Q_31). That second one leads to Q-CODE.
Q-CODE in 2026: still running, narrow in scope
Q-CODE is KDCA's "quarantine information pre-entry system," the health form travellers remember from the pandemic years. It has not been shut down. As of 2026-09-22 the KDCA Q-CODE notice board carries a quarterly list of "quarantine management areas"; the current entry was posted 2026-09-04 and took effect 2026-09-07.
The rule itself is on KDCA's English page on key quarantine management areas: "Individuals who have visited (stayed in or transited through) a key quarantine management area must submit the Q-CODE (or health status questionnaire) to the quarantine officer." Incheon Airport's passenger quarantine page repeats it: arrivals from those regions submit "either the Q-CODE or the Health Status Questionnaire." Everyone else walks through the quarantine line without a form.
I traced the current list to the 2026-09-04 KDCA notice. It names 31 countries or sub-regions: 5 in Asia (Mongolia, Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, and 9 named provinces of China including Guangdong, Sichuan and Yunnan), 13 in the Middle East (Lebanon, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, Yemen, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Qatar and Kuwait), 12 in Africa (South Sudan, Rwanda, Madagascar, Burundi, Angola, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Central African Republic, Zambia, the Republic of Congo, the DR Congo and Tanzania), and 1 in the Americas: the United States, limited to New Mexico and Washington states. KDCA revises the list quarterly and sometimes mid-quarter; the 3rd-quarter list was first issued on 2026-06-29 before the September revision.
A traveller flying Los Angeles to Seoul in September 2026 therefore has no Q-CODE to file. One connecting through Doha or Dubai does, or fills in the paper questionnaire on landing. The Incheon Airport Quarantine Station takes questions on 032-740-2700.
K-ETA vs e-Arrival Card vs Q-CODE: which do you need in 2026
| Your situation on the arrival date | K-ETA | e-Arrival Card | Q-CODE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visa-free passport from a K-ETA-exempt country (US, Canada, UK, most of the EU, Australia, Japan, Singapore and others), no K-ETA applied | Not required through 2026-12-31 | Required | Only if you stayed in or transited a listed quarantine area |
| Same passport, but you paid for a K-ETA and it is still valid | Held | Not required | Same as above |
| Visa-free passport from a country that is not on the exemption list | Required | Not required once K-ETA is approved | Same as above |
| Any nationality entering on a visa in the passport | Not applicable | Required | Same as above |
| Registered resident with a Korean Residence Card | Not applicable | Not required | Same as above |
| Airside transit under 24 hours, no immigration | Not applicable | Not required | Same as above |
The K-ETA column rests on the K-ETA portal notice quoted above, the middle column on the portal's target-guide page, the right column on the KDCA rule. The K-ETA fee is 10,000 won, "about 7 to 8 US dollars" per the K-ETA guide page, and the notice says a fee once paid "is non-refundable."
I verified one detail that decides the trade-off for frequent visitors: the e-Arrival Card is single-use and lapses 72 hours after submission (FAQ Q_21), while FAQ Q_13 says "a K-ETA holder with remaining validity is not subject to e-Arrival Card." Several trips in a year means either a fresh free card before each landing or one K-ETA that covers the card for the life of the approval.
FAQ
Do I need the e-Arrival Card if I am exempt from K-ETA? Yes. The portal lists "citizens of countries temporarily exempt from the K-ETA" among those required to file. Exemption from K-ETA does not carry over.
How early can I fill out the Korea arrival card? From 3 days before arrival on the Korean calendar: the arrival date and the two dates before it. Filing earlier is blocked; filing later is allowed up to the moment you reach the immigration counter.
Is the e-Arrival Card free? Yes. The portal's notice of 2025-04-18 is titled "e-Arrival card is free of charge," and FAQ Q_6 repeats it. Any site charging for it is a third party.
Is Q-CODE still required for Korea in 2026? Only for travellers who stayed in or transited through a KDCA-listed quarantine management area. The list in force from 2026-09-07 covers 31 countries or regions; a paper health status questionnaire on landing is the alternative.
What if I land in Seoul during Chuseok without having filed? The rule is the same on a holiday: fill it in on your phone or on paper before immigration. If you are arriving for the long weekend, our note on Chuseok 2026 in Seoul covers what is open once you are through.
Can one person file for the whole family? Yes, up to 9 people on mobile or 1,000 on a PC, provided the representative is 15 or older and everyone shares the arrival flight. Each person's passport is scanned separately, and each gets an issue number.
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