Rail Tickets Can Now Be Reserved Two Months in Advance... Foreign Language Services Expanded to 10

Application Starts October 1 by MOLIT and KORAIL
Global Simple Payment Systems to Be Introduced

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Korea Railroad Corporation announced on September 20 that starting from October 1, the advance reservation period for rail tickets, including KTX, will be extended to two months prior to the departure date. Currently, tickets can be reserved up to one month in advance.

This measure has been introduced to allow both domestic and international tourists to book rail tickets earlier as they are planning their trips. While foreign tourists can typically purchase airline tickets two months ahead, they have experienced inconvenience because rail tickets were only available for reservation one month before departure, making it difficult to arrange domestic travel plans. Now, Korean travelers will also be able to secure tickets more flexibly as they plan ahead.

Seoul Station boarding platform. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

To enhance the convenience of rail use for foreign travelers, three more languages—French, German, and Mongolian—have been added to the existing foreign language services. The number of supported languages has thus increased from seven, including English, Chinese, and Japanese, to a total of ten. In addition, while the current payment methods have focused on international credit cards such as Visa, Mastercard, and UnionPay, system development is underway to allow the use of global simple payment options such as WeChat Pay and Alipay.

Kim Taebyung, Director General for Rail Policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said, “We will proceed smoothly with the expansion of multilingual services and payment methods, so that foreign tourists can conveniently travel not only in the Seoul metropolitan area but also throughout the country.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.