A small glass-fronted office with a licensed agent inside and a window papered over with listings sits at the foot of apartment complexes across Korea. The sign says 부동산 (budongsan, real estate) or 공인중개사 (gongin junggaesa, licensed real estate agent), and for anyone renting or buying through an agent in Korea, this office is the doorway the transaction walks through.
In late August, those offices drifted into the news. The president of the agents' trade association suggested at a press conference that brokers should be able to charge a so-called viewing fee — 임장비 (imjangbi) — for taking clients to see listed homes. The proposal did not survive contact with the ministry. On 11 September, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport was reported answering that such a fee cannot be charged at all, even if broker and client sign a private agreement saying otherwise, because the law already forbids it.
The interesting part for a newcomer is not the controversy. It is the machinery the ministry pointed at, which defines — more tightly than most people expect — what a Korean broker may charge for anything.
A closed list, by design
The Licensed Real Estate Agents Act allows a practising broker to receive exactly two kinds of money from a client. The first is the brokerage fee (중개보수, junggae bosu) for the brokerage work itself. The second is actual expenses (실비, silbi) for two narrowly defined tasks — verifying the rights attached to the property, or arranging the guaranteed return of down payments — and the enforcement rule requires those expenses to be claimed with receipts attached.
Everything else is prohibited by name. Article 33 of the act bars a broker from receiving money exceeding that fee or those expenses under any name whatsoever, with gratitude payments and gifts called out as examples. That phrase — any name whatsoever — is why inventing a new label like viewing fee changes nothing. A charge for showing a home is money beyond the statutory fee, so the label it wears is irrelevant.
It also explains why a private side agreement cannot rescue the idea. The prohibition binds the broker regardless of what the client signs; the ministry's September answer simply restated this.
The ceiling table every office must post
So what is the legal fee? For housing, the act delegates the ceilings to each province's ordinance within a national range, and the enforcement rule adds two structural facts that are easy to miss. The fee is collected from each side of the deal separately — landlord and tenant each pay their own broker fee, as do seller and buyer. And within the ceiling, the amount is decided by agreement between the client and the broker. The ceiling is a ceiling, not a fixed price.
Seoul's ordinance table, in force since 30 December 2021, is representative. For sales, the ceiling starts at 0.6% for homes under 50 million won (capped at 250,000 won), drops to 0.4% for the wide band between 200 and 900 million won, then climbs by steps — 0.5%, 0.6% — to 0.7% for homes at 1.5 billion won and above. For leases, including jeonse, the ladder is lower: 0.5% under 50 million won (capped at 200,000 won), 0.3% for the band between 100 and 600 million won, rising to 0.6% at 1.5 billion won and above. Other provinces set their own tables within the same national range, so rates outside Seoul can differ slightly.
The formula hiding under monthly rent
Percentages need a base, and for monthly-rent leases the base is not obvious. The enforcement rule sets a conversion: take the deposit, add one hundred times the monthly rent, and treat the sum as the transaction amount. If that sum comes out under 50 million won, recompute with seventy times the monthly rent instead.
Work one through. A lease with a 10 million won deposit and 500,000 won monthly rent converts to 60 million won. That lands in Seoul's 0.4% lease band, which carries a 300,000 won cap — so the tenant's fee can be at most 240,000 won. A smaller room at a 5 million won deposit and 400,000 won rent first converts to 45 million won; because that is under the 50 million threshold, the seventy-times rule applies, the base becomes 33 million won, and the 0.5% band caps the fee at 165,000 won.
Two footnotes belong next to any quoted number. VAT is charged separately on top of the fee. And unless the parties agree otherwise, the fee falls due on the day the transaction payment is completed — not at the viewing, and not at signing.
Officetels, shops and the posted number
Not everything is housing. Small residential officetels — 85 square metres or less, with their own kitchen, toilet and bath — carry nationally set ceilings of 0.5% for sales and 0.4% for leases. Everything else outside housing, from larger officetels to shops and land, sits under a single 0.9% ceiling, again negotiable downward.
For that non-housing category the rule adds a small transparency device: the broker must state, on the fee table posted in the office, the actual ceiling rate they intend to charge within the legal range, and may not exceed their own posted number. The posted table is worth reading while the coffee is poured; it is a legal document, not decoration.
What happens when the list is ignored
The closed list has teeth. Taking money beyond the statutory fee and expenses is one of the act's named prohibited acts, and violating it exposes a broker to administrative sanctions — licence suspension, registration revocation, business suspension — and to criminal punishment of up to one year in prison or a fine of up to 10 million won. The ministry's answer to the viewing-fee proposal walked through exactly this chain: prohibition first, sanctions after.
That is why the September argument ended where it started. The association wanted a fee for the tour; the statute recognizes only the brokerage fee and receipted expenses; and the statute's phrase about any name whatsoever left no room for a new line item. Under current law, seeing the apartment is free.
Reading the office with new eyes
For a newcomer, the practical residue of all this law is short. The tour costs nothing, whatever it is called. The fee has a published ceiling that depends on the deal type and price band, and the statute frames the final number as an agreement, which means it can be discussed before the contract is signed rather than after. Monthly rent converts through the deposit-plus-hundred-times formula, with the seventy-times fallback for small totals. Extras beyond the fee need receipts and a legal basis; VAT rides on top; and the fee is due when the money moves, not when the door opens.
One aside for the listing-reading stage: the addresses taped to that office window follow Korea's own street-and-parcel logic, which the guide to Korean age, names and how addresses work unpacks.
The next task after the lease is usually the bank, and Korean banking has its own newcomer surprise. For why a brand-new account often starts with a one-million-won daily transfer ceiling and how the limits loosen, see the guide to why new Korean bank accounts start with tiny limits.
Editorial method: AI assisted the research and drafting of this guide inside an evidence-gated editorial pipeline; every material claim is bound to a named Korean statute, ministry or Seoul-government coordinate, the reference photographs are credited third-party works under open licences, and the cover image is an AI-generated editorial still life.
Sources checked
Last reviewed September 12, 2026.
- 공인중개사법 제32조 (중개보수 등) — 법률 제21409호, 시행 2026-08-28 — 국가법령정보센터 (National Law Information Center)
- 공인중개사법 제33조 (금지행위) — 국가법령정보센터 (National Law Information Center)
- 공인중개사법 제49조 (벌칙) — 국가법령정보센터 (National Law Information Center)
- 공인중개사법 시행규칙 제20조 (중개보수 및 실비의 한도 등) — 국가법령정보센터 (National Law Information Center)
- 서울특별시 부동산 중개보수 요율표 (조례 제2조 별표1, 2021-12-30 시행) — 서울특별시 서울부동산정보광장
- 공인중개사 '임장비' 논란에…국토부 "임장비 받으면 불법" (2026-09-11) — 뉴시스 (Newsis)
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