Updated 29 September 2026. Today is the prepaid card’s last usable day. Below the timeline, this article has been rewritten around what exists after 1 October: the short-term passes, which continue unchanged, and which most visitors were buying anyway. Two questions this page previously listed as unconfirmed — the refund procedure and whether any migration exists — now have answers, and both are below.
Quick answer: Seoul’s Climate Card shut down in stages — the prepaid 30-day pass can be loaded until 31 August 2026 and used until 29 September; the postpaid card works until 30 September; the program ends entirely on 1 October 2026. The short-term tourist passes (1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 days) are not being discontinued — most visitors are unaffected. Re-checked against the Seoul city FAQ on 12 August 2026.
If you have read that Seoul’s Climate Card is being discontinued, that is about a third true — and the dates attached to it are mostly wrong.
Seoul is retiring the 30-day pass and the postpaid card. The short-term passes — 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 days — continue as normal. Those are the ones nearly every visitor buys. If your trip is under a week, none of this affects you.
The dates are the second problem. Seoul extended the shutdown schedule on 28 July, after most of the English coverage had already been written. Some of that coverage now tells readers a deadline has passed when it has not.
The current schedule
| What | Date |
|---|---|
| Last day to recharge | 31 August 2026 |
| Prepaid card — last day of use | 29 September 2026 |
| Postpaid card — last day of use | 30 September 2026 |
| Service ends completely | 1 October 2026 |
These come from the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s own shutdown FAQ, which is the only source worth trusting on this right now.
Two details on that page are worth knowing, and neither appears in any English coverage we found. First, on the last charging day — 31 August — you can no longer choose a start date for the pass; the charge simply runs from that point. Second, the FAQ’s own text describes the postpaid card as valid for “usage from 1 to 31 September.” There is no 31 September. The table further down the same page says 30 September, which is the date to go by.
What to do if you are holding one
- Travelling in October or later: the 30-day pass is gone. Buy a short-term Climate Card instead — the section below has the prices and the traps — or a plain T-money card.
- Holding an unused prepaid balance: you had to stop the card within its validity period to get anything back. Seoul’s page is explicit that a refund after the period expires is not possible, including for a lost or faulty card.
- Holding the postpaid version: nothing to do. From 1 October it simply reverts to an ordinary postpaid transit card — the travel function continues, the discount does not.
- Holding a ₩3,000 physical card: the card fee is not refundable. Seoul ran an exchange at twelve subway stations from 1 September to 2 October, swapping old physical cards for the replacement product one-for-one at no charge.
What replaced it — and why it is not for you
The 30-day pass was not simply cancelled. Seoul folded it into the national scheme, launching a combined product on 1 September 2026. Seoul’s stated reason was that two parallel transit-subsidy programmes had become confusing and needed a single administrator.
For a visitor, the relevant fact is the eligibility rule. The national scheme is a reimbursement programme for residents: you must be 19 or older, live in a participating municipality, and register — and registration requires a foreign resident registration number. The refund arrives the following month, and in most cases you need 15 or more trips in a calendar month to qualify at all. A four-day visitor cannot register and would not qualify if they could.
So the practical answer for anyone reading this from outside Korea is the same as it was before: the short-term Climate Card, unchanged.
The short-term pass, in full
Seoul’s own page for this product is now titled “Climate Card (short-term pass)” — the 30-day rows have been removed from it. Prices, read from that page on 29 September 2026:
| Pass | Price |
|---|---|
| 1 day | ₩5,000 |
| 2 days | ₩8,000 |
| 3 days | ₩10,000 |
| 5 days | ₩15,000 |
| 7 days | ₩20,000 (₩13,000 for ages 13–18) |
| Physical card itself | ₩3,000, non-refundable |
Against a ₩1,550 subway fare, the three-day pass breaks even at about 2.2 journeys a day and the seven-day at about 1.8 — before adding the ₩3,000 card. Most visitors clear that easily. What catches them is the coverage.
Three rules, all from Seoul’s page:
- Validity runs from the moment you load it. You cannot pre-purchase for a later start date, and you cannot reload until the current period expires.
- Subway coverage is Seoul only. Excluded: Sinbundang Line, GTX, all subway outside Seoul, express and airport buses, and buses licensed by other municipalities.
- Buses work differently from the subway. A Seoul-licensed city or village bus is covered even when you board or alight outside Seoul. The subway is not.
Two traps worth the price of the pass
Incheon Airport is alighting only. The pass covers arrival at Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 on the airport railway — and explicitly does not cover boarding there. Seoul’s page states it as an exception in both directions: you may ride out to the airport and tap off, but you cannot start a journey at the airport. So the pass does not get you into the city when you land. Budget for that trip separately.
Alighting outside Seoul costs you the whole fare. Seoul’s page gives its own worked example: board at Jongno 3-ga, alight at Indeogwon in Gyeonggi, and the Climate Card does not apply — station staff collect the fare for the entire journey, not the portion outside the zone. A single mistaken stop can cost more than the day’s pass saved. And failing to tap off twice suspends the card for 24 hours.
Can a visitor actually buy one?
Yes, and this changed in March 2026 in a way almost no English guidance reflects.
Seoul announced on 17 March 2026 that internationally issued Visa and Mastercard are accepted at 440 new ticket vending machines across 273 stations on Lines 1 to 8, for buying Climate Cards and for recharging short-term passes — no Korean bank account, no Korean phone number, no cash. Kakao Pay and Naver Pay are supported too. Seoul put the service fee at roughly 3.7%. The announcement noted that adding 30-day passes to this would be considered later; that question is now moot.
The mobile version is a different story. It runs on Android only, requires OS 12 or above, and its accepted payment methods are a Korean bank transfer or a credit or debit card in your own name, issued in Korea. A short-term visitor is effectively locked out of the app and should buy the physical card.
Where to buy: the new ticket machines inside Line 1–8 stations, or convenience stores near Line 9, Ui-Sinseol and Sillim line stations. Note that recharging is not available at Korail, airport railway, Sinbundang or GTX stations — which is the other half of why the airport is not a starting point.
Refunds, and the rule for foreigners
This is one of the two things this page could not answer in August.
The formula is: amount loaded, minus transit actually used, minus a ₩500 fee. Two conditions attach. You must apply within the validity period — after expiry there is no refund, and Seoul says that covers lost and faulty cards too. And a physical card must have been registered on the T-money card and payment site, one card per person; an unregistered card cannot be refunded at all.
Then the line that matters most here, stated on Seoul’s own page: a foreigner without a Korean bank account must visit T-money’s head office in person for a cash refund.
For a short-term pass this is usually not worth doing. The pass is a fixed-price product rather than a stored balance, the fee eats a small refund, and the ₩3,000 card fee is gone regardless. Buy the duration you will actually use.
Where the wrong dates came from
The Korea JoongAng Daily, 7 July: prepaid cards “can be used until Aug. 29,” and “the last day to recharge them is July 31.” That was published three weeks before the extension, and is still uncorrected at the time of writing.
The Korea Times, 21 July: prepaid until “the end of this month,” postpaid until “the end of next month.” Also written before the change.
Two English travel guides, FlipKorea and Kowork, still list 31 July, 29 August and a 1 September shutdown — with no update date shown on the page at all.
None of these were wrong when they were published. They were overtaken. That is the recurring failure with Korean transit policy in English: the revision never travels as far as the original announcement, and there is rarely a dateline to tell you which one you are reading.
Common questions
Did Seoul’s Climate Card end in October 2026?
The 30-day pass did, on 1 October 2026. The short-term passes — 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 days — continue unchanged, and Seoul’s own page for the product is now titled “Climate Card (short-term pass).” Most visitors are unaffected.
What does a short-term Climate Card cost?
₩5,000 for one day, ₩8,000 for two, ₩10,000 for three, ₩15,000 for five and ₩20,000 for seven, plus ₩3,000 for the physical card, which is not refundable.
Can I use it from Incheon Airport when I land?
No. The pass covers alighting at Terminals 1 and 2 but explicitly not boarding there, and the airport railway does not have recharging machines. You need separate transport into the city.
Can I buy one without a Korean bank account or phone number?
Yes, since 17 March 2026. Internationally issued Visa and Mastercard are accepted at 440 ticket machines across 273 stations on Lines 1 to 8, with a service fee of about 3.7%. The mobile version is Android-only and requires a Korean-issued card in your own name.
Does it work outside Seoul?
Not on the subway. Board inside the zone and alight outside it and staff collect the fare for the whole journey. Seoul-licensed city and village buses are covered even outside the city; Sinbundang Line, GTX, express buses and airport buses are not.
Can I get a refund before I fly home?
Only within the pass’s validity period, and only if the physical card was registered on the T-money site. The refund is what you loaded minus transit used minus ₩500. A foreigner without a Korean bank account has to go to T-money’s head office in person for cash.
Should I use K-Pass instead?
You cannot. Registration requires a foreign resident registration number, the benefit is a reimbursement paid the following month, and it generally takes 15 or more trips in a calendar month to qualify.
What this article does not claim
The shutdown dates, the short-term prices, the coverage rules, the purchase and recharge locations and the refund formula were read on Seoul’s own transport pages on 29 September 2026 — including the page that now carries the “short-term pass” title. The international-card announcement is Seoul’s English press release of 17 March 2026.
Two cautions. First, Seoul’s live service-area lookup and its most recently edited guidance both describe the short-term pass as Seoul-only, while the T-money operator pages and an older city FAQ still list Gyeonggi sections such as the Gimpo Gold Line. We have followed the newer of the two, but a traveller planning a specific journey should check the official service-area lookup rather than any secondary page, this one included. Second, the exchange programme for old physical cards and the payback claim both ran to deadlines that have now passed, and are described here as history rather than as options.
We did not verify whether the mobile app permits a foreign national to register an account at all; the payment methods rule it out in practice either way. We have not confirmed whether any further fare increase is scheduled — we found no announcement beyond the June 2025 rise to ₩1,550, which is not the same as confirming none exists.
Sources
- Seoul Metropolitan Government, Climate Card shutdown FAQ: news.seoul.go.kr
- Hankyung, 28 July 2026, extension announcement: hankyung.com
- Korea JoongAng Daily, 7 July 2026: koreajoongangdaily.com
- The Korea Times, 21 July 2026: koreatimes.co.kr
- Seoul Metropolitan Government, Climate Card (short-term pass) product page: news.seoul.go.kr — read 29 September 2026
- Seoul Metropolitan Government (English), international card acceptance at ticket machines, 17 March 2026: english.seoul.go.kr
- Seoul Metropolitan Government, Climate Card service-area lookup: func.seoul.go.kr
First published 10 August 2026. Rewritten 29 September 2026 against Seoul’s short-term pass page, its service-area lookup and its March 2026 English announcement.
Related guides
- Which Korea transit pass actually saves you money
- Seoul subway fare 2026: why guides still say 1,400 won
- T-money refunds: what the official guide actually says
Leave a Reply