Chuseok falls on 25 September. Booking closed on 11 September, and payment closed on 15 September. So if you are holding a ticket, one choice is left — ride it, or hand it back. What it costs to hand it back is different on a holiday than on a weekday.
1. Cancelling a holiday ticket is never free, even a month out. Monday to Thursday, the penalty is zero right up to three hours before departure. Friday to Sunday, public holidays and the two big holidays carry a flat minimum penalty from a month out.
2. Three hours before departure is the cliff. At that same moment a weekday ticket costs 5% and a holiday ticket 20%. On a 100,000 won fare that is 5,000 against 20,000 won.
3. The Act allows a surcharge of up to thirty times the fare. Article 10(1) of the Railroad Business Act says “up to thirty times” — while the schedule KORAIL actually applies tops out at ten times.
The same cancellation costs different amounts by day of week
KORAIL’s published refund penalty table for standard tickets has two rows. One is Monday to Thursday; the other is Friday to Sunday, public holidays, and Seollal and Chuseok. A Chuseok ticket sits on the lower row.
| Cancelled | Mon–Thu | Fri–Sun, holidays, Chuseok |
|---|---|---|
| 1 month to 2 days before | Free | Minimum penalty |
| 1 day before | Free | 5% |
| Same day, to 3h before | Free | 10% |
| 3h before, to departure | 5% | 20% |
| To 20 min after departure | 15% | 30% |
| 20 to 60 min after | 40% | 40% |
| 60 min after, to arrival | 70% | 70% |
The table does not say what the “minimum penalty” is. That appears one line below the group-ticket table underneath it: “the minimum penalty is 400 won”. So cancelling a holiday ticket a month in advance still costs 400 won — a slot that would be free on a weekday.
Converted to a 100,000 won fare
Percentages are hard to feel, so here they are applied to a 100,000 won fare. These are the table’s own rates, multiplied out.
| Cancelled | Mon–Thu | Holiday ticket | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 month to 2 days before | 0 | 400 won | 400 won |
| 1 day before | 0 | 5,000 won | 5,000 won |
| Same day, to 3h before | 0 | 10,000 won | 10,000 won |
| 3h before, to departure | 5,000 won | 20,000 won | 15,000 won |
| To 20 min after departure | 15,000 won | 30,000 won | 15,000 won |
| 20 to 60 min after | 40,000 won | 40,000 won | — |
| 60 min after, to arrival | 70,000 won | 70,000 won | — |
So “book it now and decide later” costs more over a holiday than on an ordinary week. The three-hour line is where it bites: crossing it takes 20% in one step, four times the weekday figure. If a trip is going to fall through, cancelling on the morning of departure is materially cheaper than letting that line pass.
Twenty minutes after departure, the two rows become one
The last two columns are identical for weekdays and holidays — 40%, then 70%. That is not a holiday surcharge; it is what applies once the train has already left. After departure, refunds are processed at a station counter only.
One exception: a KTX ticket bought in the KORAIL Talk app can be refunded in the app up to 10 minutes after departure, once it is confirmed you are not aboard. And once the arrival time at your destination has passed, no refund can be requested at all.
One more trap: if you pay but never issue the ticket, the system cancels it automatically — and that is not a clean cancellation. The after-departure penalty applies. Holding a ticket and forgetting it is the most expensive outcome available. The other thing that piles up around a holiday is parcels, and there the clock is set by art. 146 of the Commercial Act - the moment you take delivery.
This table has to be looked at, not scraped
Worth stating plainly: we nearly got this table wrong. Pull the text out of KORAIL’s page and you get seven column headers but only five values per row. Read that literally and you conclude that holidays are somehow cheaper after departure — which is false.
Zooming into the rendered page settled it. The “Free” cell on the Monday-to-Thursday row spans the first three columns, and the 40% and 70% cells are shared between both rows. Nothing was missing; the cells were merged. The table in this article unmerges them, one window at a time.
The surcharge: the Act leaves room for thirty times the fare
Over a holiday, when even standing room sells out, “just board and sort it out inside” is a tempting thought. What that costs is written in statute.
Railroad Business Act, article 10 (Collection of Surcharges) (1) Where a passenger uses a train without paying the proper fare or charge, the railroad business operator may collect, in addition to the fare for the section travelled, a surcharge of up to thirty times that amount.
| Situation | Surcharge |
|---|---|
| Boarding without a valid ticket · using a screenshot or photo of one · using another train’s ticket | 1× |
| A child aged 6 or over travelling without a ticket | 1× |
| Travelling beyond the section you hold | 1× |
| Avoiding or refusing a ticket inspection | 2× |
| Using a discount fare or seat you do not qualify for (KORAIL’s example: a 60-year-old on a senior ticket) | 10× |
| Holding a discount fare but not producing the required proof | 10× |
The multiple sits on top of the fare. A 10× surcharge means paying eleven fares in total — 550,000 won on a 50,000 won section. And note that a child travelling on an infant ticket lands in the 10× row: that is not a place to economise on a child’s ticket.
KORAIL does not set these figures by itself
The next paragraphs of the same article set out the procedure.
Same article, paragraph (3) Where an operator intends to collect a surcharge […] it shall determine in advance the basis for calculating it — by the conduct concerned, the type of train and the section operated — and include it in the railroad business tariff under article 11 and file it with the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
Article 11 (Railroad Business Tariff) (1) A railroad business operator shall determine a railroad business tariff and file it with the Minister. The same applies to any change.
So neither the penalty table nor the surcharge table is a notice a company simply posts on its website. Both are content carried in a filed tariff. The Minister must respond to the filing within three days (articles 10(4) and 11(3)). The answer to “can they not just change the terms whenever they like?” is in the statute.
And that tariff changed on 1 August
KORAIL’s tariff page currently carries two versions side by side — “current, revised 29 May 2026” and “effective 1 August 2026”. When we looked on 12 August the effective date had passed, yet the May version was still the one labelled current.
So the figures in this article are the ones KORAIL publishes on its guidance pages today, not the result of comparing the two tariff documents line by line. Check the guidance screen again at the moment you cancel.
Booking is over — what is left is handing tickets back
On 12 August, when this was first written, no notice had been posted. It appeared on 14 August, and every date on it has now passed.
| What | When | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Priority booking (mobility-impaired) | 3–4 Sep, 09:00–15:00 | Over |
| General booking | 7–11 Sep, 07:00–13:00 | Over |
| Payment deadline (general) | 15 September | Passed |
| Payment deadline (priority) | 18 September | Imminent |
General booking was split by line — 7 Sep all lines, conventional trains; 8 Sep KTX on the Gyeongjeon, Gangneung, Donghae, Jungang and Jungbunaeryuk lines; 9 Sep KTX on the Honam and Jeolla lines; 10 Sep KTX to and from Suseo; 11 Sep KTX on the Gyeongbu line.
So most people opening this page now are in one of three situations.
① You hold a ticket and can no longer travel — the penalty table above is the answer. A holiday ticket carries the minimum penalty even a month out, and three hours before departure is the dividing line.
② You never got a ticket — returned seats go back on sale. The ordinary rule (from 07:00 one month before departure until the train leaves) still holds, and cancellations surface inside it.
③ You missed the payment deadline — the press release says only that payment is required. What happens to an unpaid reservation we could not verify — the rail customer centre is the faster route.
What the notice did not change is the ordinary purchase rules.
| Item | Rule |
|---|---|
| Normal booking window | From 07:00, one month before departure, until the train leaves |
| Where to buy | Website · KORAIL Talk app · ticket machines · staffed stations · agents |
| Instalments | Card instalments available on payments of 50,000 won or more |
| Refund before departure | Website or app, directly |
| Refund after departure | Station counter (KTX bought in the app: within 10 minutes) |
| Missed the train through a natural disaster | Within 1 year, with documentary proof at a station: 50% refunded |
🔴 SRT no longer needs checking separately. An earlier version said SRT was run by SR with its own schedule and tariff. On 31 August 2026 the transport ministry announced that KORAIL and SR had completed their merger and that from 1 September KTX and SRT run as one KTX service: every train is searchable in the single “Korail+” app, and KTX fares were cut by about 10% on average to the former SRT level. The Chuseok booking notice itself said former SR members had to convert to an integrated account, which is why Suseo-station KTX appeared on the 10 September booking day. Since fares changed, treat the 100,000 won conversions above as ratio examples only.
Other rules that bite over the holiday itself: expressway toll exemption covers only three of the four holiday days, and if you work through it you can check what holiday work pay comes to. On the shopping side there is this year’s Chuseok grocery prices, and what actually sends people to hospital over the holiday is in the holiday accident figures.
Questions that remain
Is a Chuseok ticket free to cancel a month in advance?
It is not. The penalty table has two rows, and a holiday ticket sits on the “Friday to Sunday, public holidays, Seollal and Chuseok” row. That row carries the minimum penalty even a month out, where the Monday-to-Thursday row is free. How much that minimum is does not appear in the penalty table at all — it is a single line under the group-ticket table below it: the minimum penalty is 400 won. Note also that a version of KORAIL's passenger tariff dated 1 August is posted alongside the current one, so check the live page before you cancel.
If my plans fall through, when do I need to cancel by?
Three hours before departure is the dividing line. Up to that point a holiday ticket costs 10%, and past it the penalty jumps to 20% in one step. On a 100,000 won fare that is 10,000 won against 20,000 won, where the same two windows cost a weekday ticket 0 and 5,000 won — four times as much on a holiday. That is why holding a holiday ticket “just in case” is more expensive than holding a weekday one. If it is looking unlikely, cancelling on the morning of departure still beats crossing the three-hour line.
Can I still get a refund after the train has left?
Yes, at a rising price. Up to 20 minutes after departure a holiday ticket is charged 30%, from 20 to 60 minutes 40%, and after 60 minutes 70% — and those last two windows are identical for weekdays. That is not a holiday surcharge; it is what applies once the train has gone. After departure, refunds are processed at a station counter only, except that a KTX ticket bought in the KORAIL Talk app can be filed in the app up to 10 minutes after departure once it is confirmed you are not aboard. Once the arrival time at your destination has passed, no refund can be requested at all.
If I pay but never issue the ticket, does it just go away?
No. The system cancels it automatically, but that is not a clean cancellation — the after-departure penalty applies. For a holiday ticket that is 30% up to 20 minutes after departure, then 40% and 70%. Holding a ticket and forgetting about it is the most expensive outcome available. If your plans change, press cancel rather than simply leaving the ticket unissued.
Can I just board and sort out a ticket inside the train?
What that costs is written in statute. Article 10(1) of the Railroad Business Act allows a surcharge of up to thirty times the fare, and what KORAIL actually charges tops out at ten times. The multiple is added on top of the fare, so a ten-times surcharge means paying eleven times in total — 550,000 won on a 50,000 won section. Boarding without a valid ticket is one times; evading or refusing a ticket check is two times; using a discount product or seat you are not entitled to is ten times. A child travelling on an infant ticket falls in that ten-times row, so it is not a place to economise.
Sources used
- Korean Law Information Center — statute text — Railroad Business Act, articles 10 and 11. The phrase “up to thirty times” in 10(1), the filing duty in 10(3), the tariff-filing duty in 11(1) and the three-day response in 11(3) are quoted from the text. This is the version in force from 2 January 2026, Act No. 21065.
- KORAIL — ticket purchase, refund and loss guidance (⚠️ an agency guidance page, not the tariff itself) — KORAIL user guide. Source of the refund penalty table (the two rows), the line “the minimum penalty is 400 won”, the 07:00 one-month booking window, the 50,000 won instalment threshold, station-counter refunds after departure, the 10-minute app window for KTX, and the 1-year, 50% natural-disaster refund. Checked 12 August 2026; the table’s cells are merged, so it was read by zooming into the rendered page to line the columns up.
- KORAIL — surcharge schedule — KORAIL user guide. Source of the 1×, 2× and 10× bands and the individual situations listed under each.
- The holiday dates — taken from the reading of the Public Holidays Regulation and the Toll Road Act Decree we did for the toll exemption piece.
- KORAIL press release — “Chuseok holiday tickets on sale from 3 September” (14 August 2026) — KORAIL newsroom. Source of the booking windows, the line-by-line schedule and the two payment deadlines.
- KORAIL notice — 2026 Chuseok ticket booking guide (13 August 2026, Korean, text in image) — KORAIL notices. Source of the holiday penalty steps (KRW 400 two days before; 5% / 10% / 20% / 30% / 40% / 70%), the national-merit limit and the SR account conversion.
- Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (via Korea Policy Briefing) — KTX and SRT to run as one from 1 September (31 August 2026, Korean). Source of the merger, the 10% average fare cut and the single app.
What we could not check
- The tariff documents themselves were not compared. KORAIL posts the “current, 29 May 2026” and “effective 1 August 2026” versions as PDFs; we did not read them line against line. The figures here come from the guidance pages.
- What happens to an unpaid reservation. The press release states the deadlines but not how a ticket left unpaid is treated — whether it is released automatically, and whether anything is charged.
- Priority pre-booking — filled on 22 September. KORAIL’s Chuseok booking notice (13 August) lists disabled, senior, pregnant and national-merit passengers, and limits the last group to “transport-support recipients designated by the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs” (our translation). The verification procedure itself was not examined.
Written in August 2026 and revisited on 16 September — the release notice that did not exist then was posted on 14 August, and since every date on it has now passed, that section was rewritten. The penalty and surcharge figures were read from KORAIL’s guidance pages on 12 August 2026, and the 100,000 won amounts are those rates multiplied out. Statute is quoted verbatim from the Korean Law Information Center. The release schedule was confirmed from the press release on 16 September. On 22 September we corrected the “SRT is separate” line after the 1 September KTX–SRT merger, confirmed from KORAIL’s booking notice that its seven holiday penalty steps match the table above (a second source), and filled in who counts as national-merit. The two tariff documents and the treatment of unpaid reservations still could not be checked — the notice says nothing on unpaid reservations either. Other everyday calculations are in the calculator collection.
