Guides
Doing business with Korean companies
Korean business registration, tax invoices and supplier checks, explained for people who do not read Korean and have no reason to know how the National Tax Service works.
42 guides · page 1 of 4
Scammed by a Korean company: what you can actually do
The honest playbook for the first 48 hours and after — recalling the wire, reporting in Korea from abroad, building an evidence pack, and what recovery realistically looks like.
Verifying a Korean seller on Alibaba, TradeKorea or GobizKorea
A storefront badge is not verification. How to get from a marketplace listing to the real Korean company behind it — and the mismatches that end the conversation.
Verifying a K-beauty wholesale supplier
Authorized distributor or grey market? How to check a Korean cosmetics wholesaler before you order — brand authorization, manufacturer traceability, and the price that answers the question for you.
Is a Korean company in bankruptcy or rehabilitation?
회생 and 파산, and why a company in court-supervised rehabilitation can still show as a normal active business — where the real signals live and what each one means for your order.
How to verify a Korean company
A complete guide for people outside Korea: which official registry answers which question, what each one proves, what none of them prove, and how to check a company in English.
Is this Korean company legitimate? Five checks in ten minutes
A fast triage for when a Korean company has approached you and something feels off. Five checks, in order of how much they cost you and how often they catch a problem.
IROS, DART and Hometax: which Korean registry you actually need
Three official Korean systems hold company information and they do not overlap. What each covers, what it costs, which are in Korean only, and which one answers your question.
You paid a Korean supplier and they stopped responding
What to check first, in what order, and what each answer means for recovering money — including the checks that decide whether this is a delay, an insolvency or a fraud.
Verifying a Korean supplier before you pay a deposit
A practical checklist for overseas buyers: what to verify, in what order, what each check does and does not prove, and where the real risks sit.
휴업 and 폐업: what a suspended or closed supplier means for you
The National Tax Service reports every Korean business as trading, suspended or closed. Here is what each state means commercially, and what to do when a supplier changes.
일반과세자, 간이과세자, 면세사업자: which supplier can invoice you
Korean businesses fall into VAT categories that decide whether they can issue you a tax invoice. The thresholds, what each type means, and why it affects your VAT reclaim.
The Korean tax invoice (세금계산서), for foreign buyers
What a 세금계산서 is, how it differs from a 계산서, when your Korean supplier cannot issue one, and what that means for your accounts.