Guides

Korea: when you need a 세금계산서 and when an invoice is enough

A commercial invoice and a Korean tax invoice are different documents issued through different systems. Mixing them up is the mistake to avoid.

This is the guide most likely to save someone a real problem, because the two documents look similar and are not interchangeable. A tool like this one produces a commercial invoice. It cannot produce a 세금계산서, and no web page can.

The distinction

A 세금계산서 (tax invoice) is a statutory VAT document that a registered Korean business issues electronically through the National Tax Service’s Hometax system. It carries legal effect: it is how your customer claims the input VAT and how the transaction is reported.

A commercial invoice is a business document requesting payment. It is what you send an overseas client, what a bank may ask to see, and what this generator produces.

If your Korean client asks for 세금계산서, they are not asking for a prettier PDF. They need the electronic document issued through Hometax against your business registration number, within the statutory deadline for that supply period.

Domestic supplies

Korean VAT is 10% on standard domestic supplies. A registered business issues the 세금계산서; an unregistered individual generally cannot, and the counterparty may instead handle it through withholding on business income. Which applies to you depends on your registration status.

Exporting services to a foreign client

Services supplied to a foreign customer that earn foreign currency can qualify for zero-rating (영세율) rather than 10% VAT — but zero-rated is not the same as outside the system, and it still has to be reported. The evidence usually matters: the contract, the invoice, and proof that the foreign currency was received.

So keep your invoice numbering clean and keep the bank remittance advice with the invoice. If the treatment is ever examined, that pairing is what gets asked for.

Worth knowing

• Nothing here substitutes for Hometax or for a 세무사. Korean VAT treatment turns on registration status and the nature of the supply, and both change what you must issue.
• Rates and thresholds cited are as at August 2026.