Do Foreign Patients Pay More at Korean Skin Clinics?

I recommend checking how your quote matches the clinic’s disclosed fees before asking whether you can negotiate. Under Korea’s Medical Service Act, fees for non-covered treatments must be disclosed so patients can easily understand them, and a medical institution cannot charge more than the disclosed amount. That makes the disclosed fee the baseline and ceiling, not simply a starting point for bargaining.

Hello, I’m Dr. KIM YEONJIN, head physician at UH CELL Clinic’s Gangnam branch. If you’re visiting Seoul from the United States for aesthetic treatment, you may wonder whether foreign patients pay different prices or whether fees are negotiable. I’ll start with the legal basis for checking your quote.

Start with the disclosed treatment fees

Article 45 of Korea’s Medical Service Act addresses fees for care that falls outside national health insurance or medical aid coverage. These are known as non-covered medical fees.

The law sets out two relevant requirements:

• Paragraph 1 requires medical institutions to disclose these fees in a way that patients or their guardians can easily understand, in accordance with Ministry of Health and Welfare regulations.
• Paragraph 3 prohibits collecting more than the disclosed or posted amount.

The Seoul Central District Court affirmed that a medical institution cannot collect more than its disclosed fees in a 2021 judgment, case 2020가합539320. The statutory provision does not distinguish patients by nationality.

For that reason, I recommend comparing the treatment items and amounts on your quote with the clinic’s disclosed fees, rather than treating the quote as an opening offer.

The same principle applies without Korean health insurance

In its 2020 decision, case 2017헌마103, Korea’s Constitutional Court stated that medical institutions’ obligations, including the duty to disclose non-covered medical fees, apply equally regardless of whether a patient has health insurance coverage.

If you do not have Korean health insurance, you can still use the disclosed fees as the reference when checking your quote.

At our clinic, treatment is planned after an individual skin assessment. The combination of disclosed items can therefore vary with the treatment area, number of shots and whether treatments are combined. I encourage you to check how the proposed plan maps to those individual fee items.

What changed in 2026: VAT refunds

According to Hospital News reporting in 2026, the special value-added tax (VAT) refund scheme for foreign tourists receiving cosmetic surgery or skin treatments at institutions registered with the Ministry of Health and Welfare to attract foreign patients ended on December 31, 2025. It is no longer in effect.

The same report states that People Power Party lawmaker Lee Dal-hee introduced a bill on August 13, 2026, proposing to reinstate the scheme through the end of 2029. A proposal is not an enacted change. Until the law changes, I recommend leaving a departure-time VAT refund out of your treatment budget.

Our hotel-guest benefits have specific conditions

Our Gangnam branch is on the second and third floors of UH FLAT SIGNATURE Gangnam Hotel.

Under our clinic’s promotion terms, UHC hotel guests can choose one complimentary benefit: a 30-minute oxygen chamber session or a vitamin IV infusion. If you use both, the vitamin IV infusion costs KRW 55,000.

This benefit is specifically for UHC hotel guests, not hotel guests generally. I recommend checking the detailed promotion terms when reviewing your budget.

Three things to check before paying

Before payment, I recommend confirming:

• Whether the item names and amounts on your quote match the disclosed non-covered medical fees.
• Whether the quoted total includes VAT.
• Which benefits apply to you and what their eligibility conditions are.

Understanding how to check a price is more useful than starting with how to negotiate it. When discussing your treatment plan, ask how each part of that plan connects to a disclosed fee item so you can understand the budget before proceeding.