South Korea’s Finance Ministry has confirmed that a long-delayed tax on crypto gains will take effect on Jan. 1, 2027. Moon Kyung-ho, director of the ministry’s income tax division, announced the decision at an emergency parliamentary forum on virtual asset taxation held at the National Assembly Members’ Office Building in Seoul. The forum was hosted by Representative Park Soo-young and the Korea Tax Policy Association. Moon said the ministry will proceed with virtual asset taxation as scheduled, marking the first clear public confirmation after earlier postponements.
Under the current Income Tax Act, profits from the transfer or lending of virtual assets will be classified as other income starting Jan. 1, 2027. Investors who earn more than 2.5 million Korean won annually (about $1,800) from crypto activities will face a combined 22% tax rate: 20% national income tax plus a 2% local tax. The measure is expected to affect roughly 13.26 million investors.
Moon said the National Tax Service is finalizing guidance for the new regime and has held working-level meetings with South Korea’s five major exchanges—Dunamu (Upbit), Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax—to prepare a draft notice. He added that the draft notice will be published for legislative review during 2026 and clarified that his earlier remark that guidance would arrive soon meant it would be issued sometime this year rather than immediately.
The crypto tax has been delayed twice, pushed from an original 2025 start date to 2027 amid political disagreement and industry concerns about exchange readiness and the tax threshold. The ruling People Power Party has recently proposed a bill to cancel the tax ahead of its planned 2027 rollout.
Separately, proposed changes to anti-money laundering rules have drawn strong criticism from the crypto industry. DAXA, an industry group representing 27 registered virtual asset service providers, warned that a proposed requirement for exchanges to flag all overseas-linked transfers of 10 million won or more as suspicious would drastically increase the number of reports—from about 63,000 last year to more than 5.4 million, roughly an 85-fold jump—making compliance effectively unworkable. The Financial Services Commission and the Financial Intelligence Unit published the amendments on March 30; a public comment period ran through May 11, and final rules are expected in July.