Your Korean supplier has closed mid-contract. Now what?

A supplier showing as 폐업 mid-relationship is unwelcome but not unusual. What matters is establishing the closure date, because it determines which of your documents are still good and which are not.

1. Establish the closure date first

A status check returns the 폐업일자 alongside the closed status. Every question that follows depends on it, so get it before doing anything else. Businesses sometimes deregister retroactively, so the date may precede when you noticed.

2. Sort your invoices by that date

Invoices dated after closure are the problem. If you have claimed input VAT against one, your own filing may need correcting, and how quickly you act usually affects the consequences. Raise it with your accountant rather than waiting to be asked.

3. Stop anything that has not yet gone out

Hold scheduled payments, standing instructions and pending orders. Money already sent is far harder to recover than money not yet sent, and this is the one step entirely within your control.

4. Work out what actually happened

• An orderly wind-down. The business closed and someone is still reachable. Deliveries and refunds may still be arranged, if you move promptly.
• A restructuring. The trade continues under a new registration — common with sole traders incorporating. Ask for the new 사업자등록증 and verify it as a new counterparty, because legally it is one.
• A failure. The business has collapsed. Recovery becomes a creditor question, and cross-border enforcement for modest sums is often uneconomic. Advice early is worth more than persistence.

5. Close the gap that let it go unnoticed

Closures are silent. Nobody is obliged to tell you, and the change will not surface until an invoice fails or a delivery does not arrive. Re-checking suppliers before significant payments — rather than once at onboarding — is what turns this from a loss into an inconvenience. See the verification checklist.