How to Check Which Korean Companies File in English

If a Korean company files a disclosure in Korean, you can’t assume an English version exists. Whether one does depends on three things: the board the stock trades on, the size of the company’s balance sheet, and the type of filing. Our hub on Korea’s corporate disclosure system lays out the three-phase timeline. What follows is the procedure: how you check one stock, what the English version will and won’t contain, and where to look for it.

Key Takeaways

• Only KOSPI companies are covered, and only those above a size line. Since May 1, 2026, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) requires English disclosure from KOSPI companies with ₩2 trillion (about $1.5 billion) or more in assets, a group it counted at 265 companies as of the end of 2024. KOSDAQ companies are not covered.
• The mandate follows the Korea Exchange’s list of items, not every filing. The FSC says the list covers material management matters in full (55 items), fair disclosure, and inquired disclosure. Statutory filings under the securities law are a different group, and the FSC has only said it will consider extending the mandate to them.
• Timing depends on size. The original phase-1 group of large KOSPI companies is expected to file in English on the same day as the Korean original, in principle. The rest of the covered group has up to three business days.
• Treat the all-KOSPI phase as a target. The FSC said on January 28, 2026, that it plans to start phase 3 in March 2027 instead of May 2028. I haven’t seen that date written into the exchange’s rules.
• A missing English filing from a small company is normal. It isn’t evidence of anything until you’ve checked it against the size line.

Contents

1. A five-minute check: is my stock covered?
2. How the rules got here, in one paragraph
3. What the English filing contains and what it doesn’t
4. When the English version shows up
5. Where to find English filings
6. Easy mistakes
7. Frequently asked questions

Currency note: won figures carry a dollar conversion at $1 = ₩1,343, the approximate XE.com mid-market rate on October 3, 2026. It is a dated snapshot, not a live quote.

1. A five-minute check: is my stock covered?

Run three questions in order.

Is it a KOSPI stock? The mandate applies to KOSPI, Korea’s main board. If the company trades on KOSDAQ, it has no English-filing duty. In its November 17, 2025, release, the FSC said it would consider introducing the requirement for large KOSDAQ companies, with total assets of ₩2 trillion or more given as an example. The FSC’s January 28, 2026, release says nothing about extending the English requirement to KOSDAQ, and I found no later announcement of a KOSDAQ mandate. Treat KOSDAQ as under review.

Is it above the size line? The test is total assets. The FSC counts the covered group by end-2024 assets, so look at the company’s most recent balance sheet and compare it with the two lines below. I could not find the exact date the rule uses for its test, which means a company sitting near a line deserves a second look.

Group	English filing required?	Deadline after the Korean original
KOSPI, phase-1 group: ₩ 10 trillion (about $7.4 billion) or more in assets with 5%+ foreign ownership, or ₩ 2 trillion or more with 30%+ foreign ownership (111 companies at end-2024)	Yes, since January 2024	Same day, in principle (since May 1, 2026)
Other KOSPI companies with ₩2 trillion (about $1.5 billion) or more in assets	Yes, since May 1, 2026.	Within three business days
KOSPI, below ₩2 trillion	No. Planned for March 2027	Not applicable
KOSDAQ	No. Under review	Not applicable

Does the filing type qualify? Even a covered company only has to translate certain filings. That’s section 3.

A note on the top row. The FSC’s English release shortens the same-day group to “assets worth KRW10 trillion or more.” The Korean-language version of that release defines the group in a footnote as the original phase-1 test: ₩10 trillion or more in assets with at least 5% foreign ownership, or ₩2 trillion or more with at least 30%. Its January 28, 2026, English release gives the three-business-day window to companies “newly becoming subject” to the mandate. So a ₩2 trillion company with heavy foreign ownership can be in the same-day group, and a ₩10 trillion company with little foreign ownership may not be. Until the exchange’s rule text says otherwise, the quickest answer for a company near either line is to watch when its English filings actually appear.

I also found no published list of covered companies on the FSC or Korea Exchange (KRX) pages. The exchange’s system tells each company automatically, when it files in Korean, whether an English filing is also due. You, as an outside reader, don’t get that notice.

2. How the rules got here, in one paragraph

Phase 1 began in January 2024 for large KOSPI companies, defined by assets and foreign ownership, covering 26 items with English due within three business days. Phase 2, in force since May 1, 2026, dropped the foreign-ownership test, widened the group to every KOSPI company with ₩2 trillion or more in assets, and raised the item count to 55. The FSC approved the rule changes on January 28, 2026. The full timeline, with the reasoning behind each step, is in section 6 of the hub.

Two items from that history matter for you as a reader. First, phase 3 would cover all KOSPI-listed companies, which the FSC counts at 848. The FSC’s Korean-language release says it plans to bring that forward from May 2028 to March 2027. The FSC’s English release says the same step “will be sought.” I haven’t seen the date written into the exchange’s rules since. If you’re deciding whether a smaller KOSPI company will start filing in English, plan on March 2027 as the earliest, not as a promise. Second, the FSC said in November 2025 that it will consider widening the item list in phase 3 to statutory disclosures, and large KOSDAQ companies are still only under review.

3. What the English filing contains and what it doesn’t

The mandate follows the Korea Exchange’s own disclosure rules. The FSC’s wording for phase 2 is “all disclosure items required by KRX rules, including material information in its entirety (55 items), fair disclosure, and inquired disclosure.” Here’s what each piece means in practice:

• Material management matters (55 items). The FSC’s examples include shareholder meetings (notices and voting results), business and investment events such as a halt in dealings with a customer, a production stoppage, a serious industrial accident or a new facility investment, and debt matters such as a rise in short-term borrowing or pledged collateral. Under phase 1 the examples were mergers and splits, dividends and audit-report submissions, and share cancellation or treasury-share transactions.
• Fair disclosure. Information a company releases to all investors at the same time, so no one gets it first.
• Inquired about disclosure. The exchange asks a company to confirm or deny a rumor or press report, and the company’s answer is the filing.

The FSC’s Korean-language releases say English filing of shareholder-meeting voting results started earlier, in March 2026, two months before the rest of phase 2. The November 17, 2025, release gives March 1; the January 28, 2026, release, issued after the rules were approved, says March. The FSC’s English releases don’t mention it.

What the mandate doesn’t promise is just as useful. The FSC said in 2025 that it “will consider expanding” the English requirement to “regulatory disclosure items mandated by law” after studying other non-English-speaking markets and the cost to companies. Items set by securities law, such as the major-matters reports, are the group under consideration. It follows that you shouldn’t expect an English version of every securities-law filing, and a periodic report like an annual business report isn’t named in the phase 2 list either. The FSC never says in so many words that periodic reports are excluded, so that last point is my reading of the list.

Two practical consequences follow:

1. A covered company can still have important documents that exist only in Korean.
2. The English version is a companion. The Korean original is what counts.

4. When the English version shows up

The FSC’s wording for the top size group is that it “will need to submit English disclosures on the same day of filing their Korean disclosures with the KRX in principle.” The phrase “in principle” is doing real work, so don’t read it as a guarantee.

The FSC’s November 2025 release added two footnotes that help. If the Korean filing is submitted in the afternoon, the English version is due by the morning of the next business day. For material matters at a subsidiary, the English version is due within three business days of the Korean filing. Both come from the announcement. I haven’t checked them against the final text of the exchange’s enforcement rules.

For everyone else in the covered group, the deadline is three business days. In practice:

• A Korean filing that hits the tape at 4 p.m. may not have an English twin until the next morning, even for the largest company.
• A mid-sized covered company can leave you waiting three business days for the English version of a filing that already moved the stock.
• If you need the details fast, run the Korean filing through a translation tool and use the English version as a cross-check when it arrives.

The FSC said in December 2023 that KRX was launching an AI-based machine translation service on its KIND system, built with NAVER Cloud’s Papago, to help listed companies translate their filings. In November 2025 it said every company under the mandate would, in principle, be eligible for KRX’s translation assistance service. That may help speed. It says nothing about quality, and I have not seen data on either.

5. Where to find English filings

The FSC names two English-language platforms: KRX’s KIND English website and the Financial Supervisory Service’s DART English website. They’re the English front ends of the two systems the hub explains: DART for filings under securities law, KIND for the exchange’s own disclosure.

English DART. The site’s main menu shows a latest-disclosures view you can filter by KOSPI, KOSDAQ and KONEX, a set of filing search tools (an integrated search, search by company, and an advanced search), company information, and a link to Open DART, the FSS’s data service. Screens like these change, so I won’t walk you through clicks. Start with search by company, pick the company, and look at the list of filings. The FSC’s 2023 announcement also said DART English would show an automatic translation of the table of contents and format of statutory filings. So an English DART page for a statutory filing may give you a translated outline rather than a full translation.

KIND, the exchange’s site. This is where the exchange-rule filings live, which is the group the English mandate follows. KIND has an English version, but I haven’t walked through its English menus, so I won’t describe them. The Korean KIND home page links to it with an “ENGLISH KIND” button.

Value-Up filings. If you’re after a company’s Value-Up plan rather than a material-event filing, our explainer on reading a Korean Value-Up disclosure covers where those are filed. I have not verified whether English versions of Value-Up plans are available, so I’m not promising one.

A quick test for whether a stock is covered is also a quick test of the platform. Search a very large KOSPI company’s filing list and look for English entries a few hours after the Korean ones. Then search for a small KOSPI company. If the small one shows nothing in English, the rule is working and the site isn’t broken.

6. Easy mistakes

“KOSPI-listed” is only half the test. Size matters too. Under phase 2, a KOSPI company under the ₩2 trillion line isn’t required to file in English. Phase 3 was announced as a plan, and the earliest date given for it is March 2027.

“Same day” doesn’t mean “same hour.” The deadline is a day rather than a clock time. An afternoon Korean filing can have its English twin the following morning.

Not every filing gets an English version. The mandate follows exchange-rule items. Statutory filings are a separate group, and the FSC has said only that it will consider adding them.

Which text counts if they differ? Assume the Korean. The FSC describes the English filing as something a company submits after, or on the same day as, its Korean one. Nothing in the announcements treats it as a replacement. I found no rule on which text controls if the two differ, so ask a lawyer before you rely on either in a dispute.

7. Frequently asked questions

Which Korean companies must file in English? KOSPI companies with ₩2 trillion or more in total assets, a group of 265 companies as of the end of 2024 according to the FSC. The mandate took effect on May 1, 2026. KOSDAQ companies and smaller KOSPI companies are not covered.

Will every KOSPI company have to file in English? That’s the plan. The FSC says it intends to cover all 848 KOSPI companies starting in March 2027, ahead of the original May 2028 date. Until the exchange writes it into its rules, treat it as a target.

Does this apply to KOSDAQ? No. The FSC said in November 2025 that it would consider it for large KOSDAQ companies. It has not announced a decision that I could find.

Where do I look if a company has no English filing? First confirm it’s above the size line and on KOSPI. If it is and the English version is missing after the deadline, the company may be late, or the filing may be one the mandate doesn’t cover. Read the Korean original through a translation tool, and ask the company’s investor-relations office.

Is the English version the official text? I found no rule saying so. The FSC describes it as a filing submitted after, or alongside, the Korean original, so treat the Korean as the reference point.

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Disclaimer: This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice. Thresholds, deadlines and phase-in dates described here reflect Financial Services Commission announcements and Korea Exchange rules as of the publication date and are subject to change. The all-KOSPI phase was announced as a plan, and the KOSDAQ review as a proposal. Confirm current requirements with the Financial Services Commission, the Financial Supervisory Service, the Korea Exchange, or a qualified professional before you rely on them.

Last updated: October 9, 2026