All picks

Korea, by the numbers2026.08.26

What foreign visitors spend on beauty in Korea — 8 numbers

Card networks, the health ministry and Seoul city all published their 2026 figures within months of each other. Read together, they say where the money goes — and where it doesn't.

What foreign visitors spend on beauty in Korea — 8 numbersWhat foreign visitors spend on beauty in Korea — 8 numbers — photo 2

Short answer: not on hair. Of what foreign visitors put through a card at a Korean service business, dermatology clinics take about 40 percent and hair, nail and skin-care shops take six. In May 2026 alone, foreign spending at Korean dermatology clinics came to ₩145.2 billion — a record, up 46.3% on the same period a year earlier, while arrivals over that same period rose 19.4%.

None of this is niche any more. The share of Seoul's foreign visitors who used a beauty service — a hair salon, a massage — went from 3.6% in 2019 to 18.5% in 2025, and overseas-card sales at the Korean merchants connected to the KCD Cashnote service — that network, not the country as a whole — multiplied 9.6 times between January 2023 and June 2026. Everything below is in won, from card-network and government data published between March and August 2026, with each period named.

  1. 01Dermatology takes 40% of foreign card spending in Korean services; hair, nails and skin care take 6%An August 2026 analysis of about 328,000 merchants found more than half of all overseas-card spending at Korean service businesses sitting in cosmetic medicine: 피부과 (pibugwa, dermatology clinics) 40% plus 성형외과 (seonghyeong-oegwa, plastic surgery) 14% — 54% between the two of them. Everything outside cosmetic medicine is counted separately: other clinics 9%, 미용업 (miyongeop — hair, nail and esthetic shops) 6%, pharmacies 6%. That is the country as a whole, not Seoul on its own.
  2. 02피부과 and 피부미용 sound alike and are two entirely different bills피부과 (pibugwa) is a medical clinic — a doctor, lasers, injectables, a prescription. 피부미용 (pibu miyong) is a skin-care salon with no doctor in it, and it sits inside that 6% beauty line rather than the 40%. The statistics keep them apart and so should your budget: in the first half of 2026, card data covering about 3.3 million people showed 피부미용 spending up 109.8% year on year.
  3. 03One foreign payment at a Korean service business averages ₩166,000; a resident's averages ₩47,000That is 3.5 times, and in health and medical the gap widens to roughly 8 times (nationwide, August 2026). It measures the size of one payment, not the price of one service — visitors are buying different things than the people who live here. Budget a beauty day in the hundreds of thousands of won if a clinic is on it, and in the tens of thousands if it is a haircut.
  4. 04A cut in Seoul is about ₩30,000 and a full hair package ₩100,000–150,000That is the Seoul price line as of March 2026: a simple cut around ₩30,000, a package in the ₩100,000–150,000 range. In major cities like New York, Los Angeles and London, a cut with only a basic treatment added often runs $100–200, and once the tip goes on it approaches ₩300,000. One Myeongdong salon says more than 90% of its booked customers are foreigners.
  5. 05Pharmacies, not clinics, were the fastest-growing line in the first half of 2026By amount spent, year on year: 약국 (yakguk, pharmacy) +1,176.9%, 한방 (hanbang, traditional Korean medicine) +193.1%, 피부미용 +109.8%, 성형외과 +35.5%. Counted by number of payments instead — a different measure — medical came in at +75.2% and experience and leisure at +121.7%. Across everything, on BC Card's own data — one issuer, not all card companies added together — foreign card spending rose 53.6% by amount and 40.3% by number of payments.
  6. 06Korea treated 2.01 million foreign patients in 2025, and dermatology was 62.9% of all department visitsThe health ministry's count of individual patients passed two million for the first time since the series began in 2009. Department shares are a separate tally, counted on treatment visits rather than on people — one patient seen in two departments appears twice — so they are not slices of that 2.01 million. On that visit count: 피부과 62.9% (1.313 million), 성형외과 11.2% (233,000), internal medicine combined 9.2% (192,000). Year on year, dermatology grew 86.2%, dentistry 79.0% and plastic surgery 64.3% — skin is pulling away from surgery. Chinese and Japanese patients together were 60.6% of the total.
  7. 07Two thirds of all foreign card spending goes to one shop in a hundredThe famous places are famous with everyone. In the same August 2026 analysis, the top 1% of merchants took 66.9% of foreign card sales and the top 10% took 90%. Geographically it is just as narrow: over the year to June 2026, 65% of the country's foreign card spending happened in Seoul, then Gyeonggi 11%, Busan 8%, Jeju 5%.
  8. 08In Seoul's ₩1.15 trillion April, shopping was 45.4% and medical and wellness 24.8%Foreign card spending in Seoul reached ₩1.1532 trillion in April 2026, up 50.5% year on year. The split: shopping 45.4%, medical and wellness 24.8%, food and drink 13.1%, lodging 11.0%, with the beauty category up 35.0%. Much of that shopping half is cosmetics — foreign customers went from about 2% of CJ Olive Young's offline sales in 2022 to about 25% in 2025, passing ₩1 trillion in purchases between January and November 2025.

Sources

Written by millio from the reporting linked below. Follow the links for the originals.

Book the 6% — in a language you read

Hair, nail, skin and studio shops on millio publish every line of their price list in your language, before you commit. Offer up to three times you could go and let the shop confirm one — no Korean phone number, no DM in Korean.

Browse all shops

Next pick

What a haircut costs in Seoul in 2026 — the official average is ₩24,462, and here's why you'll be quoted ₩50,000

7 things to know2026.09.04

What a haircut costs in Seoul in 2026 — the official average is ₩24,462, and here's why you'll be quoted ₩50,000

Korea's consumer agency prices a women's cut in Seoul every month. In June 2026 it was ₩24,462; a men's cut, ₩13,231. The salons that court visitors charge two to three times that, and the same salon can have three prices for one cut. The numbers, the reasons, and how to read a Korean price list.

Two million people flew in for Korean skin last year — what they actually booked

6 things2026.08.14

Two million people flew in for Korean skin last year — what they actually booked

Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare counted 2.01 million foreign patients in 2025. Dermatology took 62.9% of them. Before you copy that itinerary, a few of those numbers deserve a closer read.

Korea's tax refund and your beauty trip — the surgery refund ended, salons never had one, shopping still does

7 things to know2026.09.04

Korea's tax refund and your beauty trip — the surgery refund ended, salons never had one, shopping still does

Since January 1, 2026, foreign patients pay Korea's 10% VAT on cosmetic procedures like everyone else. A haircut, a nail set or a facial was never refundable. The products you carry home still are — from ₩15,000 a receipt. Here's where the line runs, in seven points.