Do US citizens need a K-ETA for South Korea?

The K-ETA (Korea Electronic Travel Authorization) is Korea's pre-travel screening for visa-free visitors, like the US ESTA. To boost tourism, Korea has waived it for 22 countries, including the US, through December 31, 2026. So for a short tourist or business trip in 2026, you do not apply for a K-ETA at all, and US citizens can stay visa-free for up to 90 days.

This is where people get confused, because the K-ETA is normally required and plenty of older pages still say so. For now, as a US traveler, you can leave it alone.

Korea replaced its paper arrival card with a mandatory digital e-Arrival Card at the start of 2026. Nearly all short-term visitors must file it, and it is free. You submit it online at the official site, e-arrivalcard.go.kr, within 72 hours before you arrive, and it takes about five minutes.

One neat detail: K-ETA holders are exempt from the e-Arrival Card. So the two systems dovetail, you file one or the other, not both.

The waiver has an end date. From January 1, 2027, the K-ETA becomes a hard requirement again for US citizens, and airlines will enforce it at check-in. Korea has extended this waiver before, so it could move again, but there is no promise of that, so treat January 1, 2027 as the date it returns.

Here is the useful part if you travel to Korea often: a K-ETA is valid for three years from approval and costs about ₩10,000 (roughly $7.70). If you apply for one now, even though you are exempt, it lets you skip the e-Arrival Card on each trip and keeps you covered into 2027 without a last-minute scramble. It is optional, but for frequent visitors it can be worth the small fee.

Both of these are government services on the .go.kr domain: the e-Arrival Card at e-arrivalcard.go.kr (free) and, when you need it, the K-ETA at k-eta.go.kr (about ₩10,000). A wave of copycat sites charge $50 to $100 to file a form that is free or costs roughly seven dollars. If a site asks for anything close to that, it is not official.

For how money works once you land, cards, cash, ATMs and the rest, see the South Korea money guide.

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