Olive Young Tax Refund (2026): Passport, Limits, Stores

Last checked: October 19, 2026 · Sources: Korean tax-refund law (law.go.kr), VisitKorea, Korea Customs Service, Olive Young store pages and CJ Newsroom, linked below.

At many Olive Young stores in Korea, a foreign visitor can get the tax taken off at the till. Show your passport before you pay, and make each receipt at least ₩15,000 but under ₩1,000,000. Your instant-refund purchases for the whole trip, across all stores and counted at tax-included prices, must stay at ₩5,000,000 or less.

There’s no airport step for an instant refund, but the goods still have to leave Korea within 3 months. Not every Olive Young store offers it, so check the store page first (below). For who qualifies and how airport refunds work, see our Korea tax refund guide.

What do I do at the Olive Young counter?

Go to a staffed till, not a self-checkout kiosk (see why below).
Before the cashier scans anything, say “tax refund” and hand over your passport.
The store checks the passport and sends the sale to Korea Customs electronically. Korean law requires this passport check for every instant refund.
Pay the price with the tax already taken off.
Keep the receipt until you’ve left Korea. Customs can ask for it if it wants to check a sale.

Bring the passport itself. The law names the passport for instant refunds. A 2025 VisitKorea page for an Olive Young promotion told shoppers to show their “physical passport”. Whether a photo or phone copy is accepted is not officially confirmed — check before you go.

Pay the whole basket on one receipt where you can. The ₩15,000 minimum applies to each transaction, so two receipts of ₩9,000 each get no refund at all.

How much do I get back?

Korea’s VAT is 10%, and the price on the shelf already includes it. So the tax inside any price is 1/11 of it. Here is the most an instant refund can take off at the till:

Receipt total (tax included)	Tax inside it (ceiling)
₩15,000	about ₩1,363
₩50,000	about ₩4,545
₩100,000	about ₩9,090
₩300,000	about ₩27,272
₩999,000	about ₩90,818

The law lets the store deduct a refund cost approved by the National Tax Service, so you may see a little less than this. Olive Young doesn’t publish that amount. It uses Global Tax Free (GTF) as its refund service: its own newsroom counts tourist sales by GTF refund data.

Which Olive Young stores do instant refund?

Olive Young has more than 1,400 stores in Korea. Instant refund runs at “major stores”, in the company’s own words, not at all of them. In 2025 the only count given was 121 stores (a VisitKorea promotion in June). CJ Newsroom (July) said instant refund runs at “major stores” and, separately, that about 110 stores in Myeongdong, Hongdae, Gangnam, Busan and Jeju are run as “global tourism” stores, without saying how many offer instant refund. There’s no current official count.

The fastest check is the store’s own page on Olive Young’s Korean site (m.oliveyoung.co.kr). Search the store, open it, and look at the “매장 서비스” (store services) list:

Label on the store page	What it means
택스리펀드 (즉시환급)	Instant refund: tax off at the till
택스리펀드	Regular refund: you get a refund document and claim later
Neither label	No tax refund service listed

On October 19, 2026 we opened 10 Olive Young store pages, mostly tourist areas. Nine loaded, and all nine listed both labels: Myeongdong Boulevard, Myeongdong Station, Gangnam Town, Garosu-gil Town, Sinsa (신사점), Hannam Ogeori, Suwon AK Town Jungang, Cheongju Town and Incheon Airport Terminal 1. That’s not a random sample, so still check a quiet neighborhood branch before you shop there.

Our take: in tourist areas, a missing instant refund is rarely the problem. The usual misses are a self-checkout kiosk, a passport left at the hotel, or a receipt over ₩1,000,000. Check those three and you’ll get the refund at almost any big branch.

Why a staffed till and not the self-checkout kiosk?

No official page says whether Olive Young’s self-checkout kiosks can process a tax refund. What we did find: VisitKorea’s 2025 Olive Young coupon was “only valid at manned cashier counters”. Olive Young Global’s current in-store discount is also “not available at self-checkout kiosk”. The instant refund also needs a staff member to check your passport. So queue for a person.

What if my basket is ₩1,000,000 or more?

Instant refund needs one transaction under ₩1,000,000, tax included. Exactly ₩1,000,000 doesn’t qualify. If you go over:

At a store that also shows 택스리펀드 (regular refund), pay full price and ask for the refund document. Claim it at the airport after customs, or at a downtown refund counter. The tax refund guide linked at the top has those steps.
Don’t ask staff to split the price of one item across two receipts. The decree lets the tax office cancel a store’s tax-free license if it does that twice or more in one VAT period.

The same applies once a purchase would take your instant-refund shopping this trip past ₩5,000,000 (tax-included prices). That total counts every store, not just Olive Young, because each sale is reported to customs.

Do I need to do anything at the airport?

For instant-refund purchases, VisitKorea’s procedure ends at “departure”: there’s no kiosk or counter to visit. Two things still apply:

The goods must leave Korea within 3 months of purchase. If any tax-refund goods from this trip stay in Korea past that, the law stops instant refunds on anything you buy after that period.
Customs inspects on a selective basis and can ask to see goods or receipts. Customs’ own guidance asks for goods to be unopened and unused when it checks them, so keep products sealed until you’re home if you can.

If you’re flying from Incheon Terminal 1, the airport has an Olive Young on B1. Its store page lists instant refund and hours of 06:00–22:00 every day, so a last-minute buy there leaves Korea with you.

Questions shoppers ask

Can I use the Olive Young Global app or membership in Korean stores?

Olive Young Global (global.oliveyoung.com) is the online shop that ships from Korea to other countries. It doesn’t have stores outside Korea.

Its one in-store offer we found is a 5% discount at participating Korean stores. You follow an Olive Young Global social account and show it at a staffed till. It needs a ₩100,000+ purchase, is capped at ₩20,000, and works once per person. The page says the offer may change or end.

Is the instant refund only for foreigners?

It’s for non-residents of Korea. Foreigners staying 6 months or more, or working in Korea, don’t qualify. The tax refund guide linked at the top has the full list.

Can I pay in cash?

Olive Young doesn’t publish the payment methods each store accepts. If you want cash for small shops nearby, see which Korean ATMs take foreign cards.

Can I return something I bought with an instant refund?

No official Olive Young rule covers this. If you think you might return an item, ask at the till before you pay.

Also in our K-beauty series: booking a skin clinic in Korea as a foreigner.

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