How to Invest in Korean Stocks From Abroad

You don’t need a Korean brokerage account to own Korean stocks. Most English guides still describe one path, which is to open an account in Seoul, and that path has become easier. But three others exist, and the four differ on what you can buy, whether you can vote, how Korea taxes you, and which currency you end up holding. Pick the route before you fill in a form. The form is the easy part.

Key Takeaways

• There are four routes. A direct account with a Korean broker, your own foreign broker trading through an omnibus account, US-listed depositary receipts (ADRs), and a US-listed Korea ETF.
• The second route is the new one. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) published guidelines for omnibus accounts on November 27, 2025, and Interactive Brokers announced access to the Korea Exchange (KRX) on May 7, 2026.
• Dividends are taxed in Korea on every route that holds real shares. The default withholding is 22%, including local income tax. For US residents, Korean issuers’ SEC filings put the treaty rate at 16.5%, not the 15% most guides quote. Through an omnibus account, the 22% comes off first, and the treaty rate arrives by refund claim.
• Selling is taxed differently by route. A sale on KOSPI carries a 0.20% transaction tax. A sale of an ADR on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq doesn’t.
• Samsung Electronics has no US-listed ADR. If that’s the stock you want, the ADR route is closed to you, and the choice narrows to the first two.

Contents

1. The four routes at a glance
2. Route 1: a direct account with a Korean broker
3. Route 2: your own broker, through an omnibus account
4. Route 3: Korean ADRs on US exchanges
5. Route 4: a US-listed Korea ETF
6. What Korea taxes on each route
7. How to choose
8. Easy mistakes
9. Frequently asked questions

1. The four routes at a glance

	Direct Korean account	Foreign broker, omnibus account	US-listed ADR	US-listed Korea ETF
What you hold	KRX shares in an account in your name	KRX shares inside your broker’s account in Korea	Depositary shares backed by KRX shares	Shares of a US fund
What you can buy	KRX-listed stocks	KRX-listed stocks your broker offers	Only companies with a US listing	An index basket
Voting	You’re the shareholder.	Through your broker, which may split its vote	Through the depositary, with no guarantee of timing	The fund votes, not you.
Korean dividend tax	22% withheld, or your treaty rate	22% withheld first; a treaty rate comes by refund claim	Same as a direct account, plus depositary fees	Handled inside the fund
Korean tax when you sell	0.20% transaction tax on KOSPI; gains exempt for most non-residents	Same as a direct account	No transaction tax on NYSE or Nasdaq	You’re selling a fund share, not a Korean stock.
Trading currency	Won	Won, converted by your broker	US dollars	US dollars

Read the table from the top row down. What you hold decides everything under it.

2. Route 1: a direct account with a Korean broker

This is the original route, and the one obstacle people remember about it is gone. Korea used to require every foreign investor to register with the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) before buying a single share. The FSC abolished that system effective December 14, 2023. Since then, an individual opens an account with a passport number and a company with a legal entity identifier (LEI), without prior registration.

What you get is the full version of ownership. The shares sit in an account in your name, they’re priced in won, and no intermediary’s name stands between you and the company on votes and dividends.

What you pay for it is paperwork and distance. You deal with a Korean broker’s onboarding, its language support, and a won funding path. Our step-by-step guide to buying Korean stocks as a foreigner and the companion piece on opening a Korean brokerage account as a non-resident cover that process, so I won’t repeat it here.

3. Route 2: your own broker, through an omnibus account

An omnibus account is an account in Korea held in the name of a foreign brokerage. Its clients trade and settle Korean stocks through it without opening accounts of their own. The FSC’s Korean-language release compares it to the way Korean retail investors buy US stocks, which is a fair picture: you see a Korean ticker in your usual app, and the plumbing sits behind it.

The structure has existed since 2017. It went unused for years because foreign firms had to report each client’s trades at settlement. The FSC eased that to a monthly report on December 14, 2023. In April 2025 it granted a regulatory sandbox exemption so that a Korean broker could partner with a small or medium-sized foreign one, and the first omnibus account opened in August 2025 between Hana Securities and Hong Kong’s Emperor Securities. Samsung Securities and Yuanta Securities were designated the following month.

On November 27, 2025, the FSC published guidelines that answer the questions an end investor would ask:

• Voting. Rights are exercised as in an ordinary account in principle. Where clients disagree, the account holder may collect their instructions and split its vote.
• Dividends. The Korea Securities Depository (KSD) allocates dividends to the foreign broker in one block, and the broker pays its clients in proportion.
• Records. The foreign broker keeps each client’s trading records for 10 years and reports monthly, by the 10th of the following month.

Then a mainstream broker arrived. Interactive Brokers announced KRX access on May 7, 2026, calling itself the first major US-based broker to offer it. The company says the service covers more than 2,700 listed securities, with currency conversion on the platform, and lists the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia among the regions served. Existing clients turn on KRX market data and trading permissions in the client portal. Samsung Securities is the Korean partner: the FSC named the pairing when it described the September 2025 sandbox designations.

Two limits are worth knowing before you count on this route.

The first is who offers it. Until the start of 2026, only a foreign firm that was a subsidiary or major shareholder of a Korean financial investment business could open an omnibus account without the sandbox. That restriction is gone. In a statement on February 26, 2026, the FSC said the rule amendment was completed in January 2026 and that foreign brokers can open omnibus accounts with Korean firms without that constraint. Permission isn’t the same as availability, though. A foreign broker still has to sign up a Korean partner and build the systems, so ask yours whether it has Korean access.

The second is what you can buy. The 2025 guidelines were written for stocks. Korean press reports in September 2026 say the FSC has since amended its rules to add Korea-listed ETFs and ETNs, with leveraged and inverse products left out. I haven’t read the FSC notice itself, and one of those reports adds that actual trading depends on each broker’s contracts and systems. Check what your broker lists before you plan around a Korean ETF.

One more line from the company’s announcement matters if you live in Seoul: the service isn’t available to residents of Korea.

4. Route 3: Korean ADRs on US exchanges

A handful of Korean companies have done the work for you by listing in the United States. The SEC’s registrant file includes KB Financial Group, Shinhan Financial Group, Woori Financial Group, POSCO Holdings, Korea Electric Power, SK Telecom, KT and LG Display on the New York Stock Exchange, and Gravity and DoubleDown Interactive on Nasdaq. SK Hynix joined them on Nasdaq under the ticker SKHY, with a prospectus dated July 9, 2026, covering 177.9 million American depositary shares at $149 each.

An ADR is a claim on shares that a depositary bank holds in Korea, and it trades in dollars during US hours. Each SK Hynix depositary share represents one-tenth of a common share, and Citibank is the depositary. So the price on your screen is a slice of the Seoul price, and the won still moves it: the prospectus warns that exchange-rate swings can hurt the dollar value of the ADSs.

Why this matters: an ADR holder isn’t quite a shareholder. Under the SK Hynix deposit agreement, the depositary will try to vote your shares as instructed; shares without instructions aren’t voted, and the company doesn’t promise that voting materials will reach you in time. The same agreement allows fees of up to $5.00 per 100 depositary shares on cash dividends and again for depositary services.

The compensation is disclosure in a format you already know. SK Hynix has been filing Form 6-K reports with the SEC since its listing, which is a shorter path than waiting on Korea’s English-disclosure rules.

The hard limit is the list itself. Samsung Electronics isn’t on it. The company’s investor-relations page describes shares on the Korea Exchange and global depositary receipts on the London Stock Exchange and states that US-resident individuals are prohibited from trading those GDRs. The SEC’s registrant file has no Samsung Electronics entry as of October 10, 2026.

5. Route 4: a US-listed Korea ETF

The fourth route gives up stock selection altogether. The iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY) trades on NYSE Arca, tracks the MSCI Korea 25/50 Index, and has been running since May 9, 2000. It held 78 stocks as of October 8, 2026, and its stated expense ratio is 0.59% a year.

You own shares of a US fund, and the fund owns the Korean stocks. That means the fund votes, the fund receives the Korean dividends, and nothing Korean lands in your account. For an investor who wants Korea as an allocation and not as a set of opinions about companies, that simplicity is the whole point.

This route is about funds listed outside Korea. The ETFs and other products listed on KRX itself are a different subject, which our guide to Korean market products foreigners can own covers.

6. What Korea taxes on each route

Korea taxes two events: receiving a dividend and selling.

Dividends. A non-resident’s dividends on Korean shares or ADSs are withheld at 22.0%, including local income tax, unless a treaty gives a lower rate. For US residents, KB Financial’s annual report to the SEC gives the treaty rates as 16.5% or 11.0%, depending on the size of the holding and inclusive of local income surtax. The 15% you see quoted elsewhere, including in our own guide to cutting dividend withholding, is the treaty’s cap before that surtax. For Canadian residents, the Canada–Korea convention caps the tax at 15% for portfolio holders and lists Korea’s inhabitant tax among the taxes it covers.

The lower rate isn’t automatic. The person claiming a treaty benefit has to give the payer evidence of tax residence before or at the time of payment. Without it, the payer withholds at the normal rate.

Route 2 works differently. Under Article 156-9 of Korea’s Income Tax Act, whoever pays Korean-source income through an omnibus account withholds at the ordinary non-resident rate when paying the account holder. An investor who wants a treaty rate then files a claim for correction with the Korean tax office. Ask your broker whether it handles that claim.

Selling on KRX (routes 1 and 2). A sale on KOSPI carries a securities transaction tax of 0.20% of the sale price. That figure is 0.05% of tax plus a 0.15% rural surtax. The seller pays.

Capital gains are a separate matter, and for most readers the answer is zero. A non-resident with no permanent establishment in Korea pays no Korean income tax on gains from selling through the KOSPI market, provided the holder, together with related parties, hasn’t owned 25% or more of the company at any point in the year of sale or the five calendar years before it. Outside that exemption, the general rule is a withholding of 11% of the proceeds or 22% of the gain, whichever is lower. Our piece on capital gains tax for foreign investors goes through the test.

Selling an ADR (route 3). The transaction tax doesn’t apply to shares listed on a designated foreign exchange such as the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq. Gains from transferring ADSs outside Korea are generally exempt from Korean income tax, according to the SK hynix prospectus.

Selling an ETF (route 4). You’re selling a share of a US fund. Your own country’s tax rules apply to that sale.

None of this covers what your home country charges. It’s the Korean half of the bill.

7. How to choose

Three questions sort most people.

Do you want one specific company? Check whether it has a US listing. If it does, the ADR may be all you need. If it doesn’t, and Samsung Electronics doesn’t, you’re choosing between the first two routes.

Do you want to stay inside the brokerage account you already have? Then the omnibus route tends to be the natural fit, if your broker offers it. You get KRX-listed shares without a Korean onboarding process, and in exchange your broker stands between you and the company on votes and dividends.

Do you care about voting, or about holding the shares in your own name? That points to a direct account. It’s the most work up front, and it’s the only route where no intermediary’s name is on the position.

If none of those questions matters to you, an ETF may be enough. It is the cheapest route in effort and the bluntest in exposure.

8. Easy mistakes

Assuming the 15% treaty rate is what lands in your account. For a US resident the filings say 16.5% once local income surtax is counted. The gap is small on one dividend and adds up over a holding period. On an omnibus account, the payer withholds the full 22% first.

The ADR is not the Korean share with a dollar sign on it. It carries depositary fees, a voting process that depends on the depositary, and a ratio that isn’t always one to one. Ten SK hynix depositary shares make one common share.

Expecting every Korean product through a foreign broker. The omnibus framework started with stocks, and leveraged and inverse ETFs are reported to be outside it. Ask your broker what is on its list before you plan around an ETF or a derivative.

9. Frequently asked questions

Can I buy Samsung Electronics from the United States?

Not as a US-listed ADR, because there isn’t one. You can reach KRX-listed shares through a direct Korean account or through a foreign broker that has Korean access.

Do I have to register with a Korean regulator first?

No. The prior registration requirement was abolished on December 14, 2023.

I live in Canada. Which routes are open to me?

All four, in principle. Interactive Brokers lists Canada among the regions served for KRX access, and the US-listed ADRs and ETFs trade like any other US security. On dividends, the Canada–Korea convention caps Korean tax at 15% for portfolio holders. Through an omnibus account, that cap is reached by a refund claim after 22% is withheld.

Do ADR dividends escape Korean withholding tax?

No. Dividends on ADSs are subject to the same 22.0% withholding as dividends on the underlying shares, or the lower treaty rate if one applies.

Is the omnibus route available with every foreign broker?

No. It depends on whether your broker has set one up with a Korean securities firm. Interactive Brokers is one. The FSC’s February 26, 2026 statement also names Hong Kong’s Emperor Securities, which works with Hana Securities, and said seven more Korean brokers were preparing to launch omnibus services.

---

Disclaimer: This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice. Tax rates, treaty rates and account rules described here reflect Financial Services Commission announcements and company filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission as of the dates cited, and they are subject to change. Treaty treatment depends on your own residence and circumstances. Confirm the current rules with your broker, the relevant tax authority, or a qualified professional before you act.

Last updated: October 12, 2026