Korea E-Tax Invoice Explained: What Foreign Buyers Actually Receive from a Korean Supplier

Ask a Korean supplier for “the tax invoice” and you may get a puzzled reply. In Korea, the term means something specific: the 세금계산서 (segeum gyesanseo), a statutory VAT document that the supplier must issue electronically and report to the National Tax Service. It is not the commercial invoice your accounts-payable team is used to.

This guide explains what that document is, why a foreign buyer normally does not receive one, and which papers you should expect instead.

What a Korean tax invoice is

Korea charges value-added tax at 10 percent.¹ When a business supplies taxable goods or services, it must give the buyer a tax invoice showing four required items:¹

The tax invoice exists so that a Korean business buyer can deduct the VAT it paid. That purpose explains almost everything that follows: if you are not a Korean taxpayer, the document usually has no job to do.

The “e” in e-tax invoice

Korea moved tax invoices online early. The electronic system launched in 2010, and electronic issuance has been mandatory for every corporation since January 2011.⁴ In 2026 the obligation also covers individual businesses whose prior-year sales per place of business were KRW 80 million or more.²

The rules leave little room for delay:

• The supplier issues the invoice at the time of supply. For monthly billing it may issue a consolidated invoice by the 10th of the following month.¹
• The supplier must transmit the invoice to the National Tax Service by the day after issuance.²
• Invoices are issued through the tax agency’s own portal (Hometax), a registered service provider, or a registered ERP system.²

Legally, the e-tax invoice is the XML file itself, digitally signed and normally delivered by email. A printout is only a reference copy.⁴

Why you usually do not receive one on an export

When a Korean company ships goods out of Korea, the sale counts as an export and is taxed at 0 percent — the “zero rate”.¹ And for most exports, the law goes one step further: the supplier is exempt from issuing a tax invoice at all.

Article 71(1)4 of the VAT Enforcement Decree lists the goods exported under Article 21 of the VAT Act among the supplies that need no tax invoice.² That covers the ordinary case: your supplier ships to you abroad.

The exceptions that still need a tax invoice

Some supplies count as exports under Article 21 but are carved out of the exemption. The most common is a sale under a domestic letter of credit (내국신용장) or a purchase confirmation (구매확인서). There the supplier must issue a zero-rated tax invoice, showing VAT as zero.²

Those documents are used between two Korean companies — typically a manufacturer selling to the Korean exporter that ships to you. The tax invoice in that chain goes to the Korean exporter, not to the foreign buyer. If you see “local L/C” or “purchase confirmation” in your supplier’s paperwork, that is what is happening upstream.

Other carve-outs — raw materials shipped free of charge to an overseas processor, and goods supplied to three listed Korean public bodies for shipment abroad — rarely concern a commercial importer.²

What you should receive instead

For a direct export, Korean VAT law does not require a tax invoice, so your paperwork comes from the trade itself.

The first three are standard trade practice and depend on your contract and Incoterms; Korean law does not prescribe their form. The fourth is statutory: anyone exporting goods from Korea must declare them to customs, and customs issues a declaration certificate when it accepts the declaration.³

When a foreign buyer does get a tax invoice

You may receive a Korean tax invoice in three situations:

1. Your company has a Korean branch or place of business registered for VAT, and the purchase is made for that branch. You receive an ordinary tax invoice — with 10 percent VAT unless the supply is zero-rated — addressed to the branch’s registration number.¹
2. You buy through a foreign company’s liaison office in Korea. Supplies to a liaison office are excluded from the exemption, so a tax invoice is issued.²
3. You have no Korean office but ask for one. For supplies that are not exports — for example goods or services consumed in Korea — a foreign company with no Korean place of business is normally exempt. If it shows documents proving it is a business in its own country and requests a tax invoice, the supplier issues one.²

1. Ask how the goods will leave KoreaDirect shipment to you abroad means no tax invoice; delivery inside Korea follows different rules.
2. Check who is named as the buyerA Korean branch or liaison office receives tax invoices; a foreign head office normally does not.
3. Request the export declaration certificateAsk for a copy alongside the commercial invoice and bill of lading.
4. Match the commercial invoice to your paymentQuote the invoice number in your transfer so the supplier can reconcile it quickly.

How to read a Korean e-tax invoice

If you do receive one — for your Korean branch, for instance — three features identify it:

• The title 전자세금계산서 (“electronic tax invoice”) at the top of any printout.⁴
• A 24-character approval number, printed as three groups of eight: the invoice date (YYYYMMDD), the certification code of the system that issued it, and a serial number. Codes beginning with 10 indicate the National Tax Service’s own Hometax system.⁴
• Separate lines for supply value and VAT, with VAT at 10 percent, or zero on a zero-rated supply.

Because each invoice is reported to the tax agency the next day, a Korean business buyer can see it in Hometax without waiting for the email. A foreign head office with no Korean registration has no such account, which is another reason the system is built around Korean buyers.

Why this matters for payment

The document trail also shapes how your payment is matched. On an export, your supplier reconciles your transfer against its commercial invoice and export records, not against a tax invoice. Always quote the commercial invoice number in your payment reference; it is the number your supplier’s finance team will search for.

Stablecoin Trade Journal. (2026, 16 October). Korea E-Tax Invoice Explained: What Foreign Buyers Actually Receive from a Korean Supplier (STJ-2026-0002, v1.0). https://stablecointradejournal.com/tax-invoices/korea-e-tax-invoice-foreign-buyers/