How to use the register
How to check a Korean clinic yourself
The list is the weaker half. This is the useful half.
This page covers how to search it, how to read what comes back, and what it cannot tell you. It names no clinic and recommends none.
What being on the register actually proves
Registration means the institution is legally permitted to attract and treat foreign patients, and carries the malpractice cover that permission requires. Since 23 June 2016, registration under Article 6 of the Medical Overseas Expansion Act has required medical malpractice liability insurance of at least 100 million KRW a year for a clinic or hospital, and 200 million for a general hospital.
That is the whole of it. Registration is not a quality rating, not an accreditation, and not a statement that the clinic is good at what you want done. It is a floor, not a ranking — but it is a floor with a number attached, which is more than most things you will read about Korean clinics.
The other side is worth knowing too: attracting foreign patients without registering carries up to three years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to 30 million KRW under Article 28 of the same Act. A clinic soliciting foreign patients while absent from the register is not merely unlisted.
How to search it, in four steps
- Go to medicalkorea.or.kr and open Medical Providers → Registered Hospitals. The English register lives there. As of August 2026 it holds 4,160 entries across the whole country.
- Set Region. Seoul is one option; the list is by province or metropolitan city, not by district.
- Set Hospital Type if you want to narrow it. The options are Tertiary General Hospital, General Hospital, Hospital, Clinic, Dentistry Clinic and Korean Medicine Hospital. A skin clinic is almost always Clinic. Seoul plus Clinic returns 2,246 entries.
- Or type the name straight into the text search. This is what you want if you already have a clinic in mind. Search the English name as the clinic writes it on its own site — romanisation varies, so try a distinctive fragment rather than the whole name.
How to read a result
Each entry gives a registration number, the registered English name, the region, a status, the address, a telephone number and the institution type. The registration number looks like M-2024-01-08-7700: the date fragment is when that registration was recorded, not when the clinic opened.
What each field on a register entry is worth to you.
| Field | What it tells you | What it does not |
|---|---|---|
| Registration number | The registration exists and when it was recorded | How long the clinic has operated |
| Status: open | The registration is current in the register as last updated | That the clinic is open today — the register is refreshed periodically, not live |
| Address | The registered premises, usually to street level | Which floor, or whether the clinic has moved |
| Telephone | The number the clinic gave the ministry | Whether anyone there speaks your language |
| Institution type | Clinic, hospital, general hospital and so on | Specialty — there is no specialty field at all |
Fields as published in the English register, checked 27 August 2026.
Four things the register cannot answer
- What the clinic actually does. There is no specialty field. A dermatology clinic and an orthopaedic one are both Clinic.
- Who will perform your procedure. Registration is institutional. It says nothing about which doctor is on the handpiece.
- Whether the clinic is any good. No ratings exist in the register and we do not supply any.
- Whether it is open this week. The register is updated in batches. A clinic that closed last month can still read open.
Do not read the headline totals
The official site publishes three different totals in three places: 3,114 institutions on one page, “3,800+ as of August 2023” on another, and 4,160 entries in the search itself. They count different things and were written at different times. The search result is the number that matters; the headline figures are not worth quoting, including when we quote them.
If the clinic you are considering is not there
Do not treat absence as a verdict on its own. Try the name three ways first: a distinctive fragment rather than the full name, the romanisation used on the clinic’s own English page, and the Korean name in the Korean version of the register.
If it still does not appear, ask the clinic directly for its certificate of registration for foreign patient attraction — 외국인환자 유치기관 등록증. A registered clinic produces it without fuss. Korea also runs a support line for foreign patients on 1577-7129, and unregistered intermediaries can be reported at kmediwatch.kr.
Questions people ask
Does being on the register mean the clinic is good?
No. It means the institution is legally permitted to treat foreign patients and carries the required malpractice insurance. It is a legal floor, not a quality signal, and no ranking exists inside the register.
Can I search the register in English?
Yes. The English register is at medicalkorea.or.kr under Medical Providers, and clinic names appear romanised. Romanisation is inconsistent, so search a distinctive fragment rather than the full name.
How current is the register?
It is refreshed periodically rather than live — the English register was marked as of July 2026 when we checked it on 27 August 2026.
That gap matters: a clinic that closed or lost its registration recently can still show as open. For anything time-sensitive, call the clinic as well.
What if a clinic says it is registered but is not listed?
Ask for the certificate of registration for foreign patient attraction and check the number against the register. Attracting foreign patients without registering carries up to three years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to 30 million KRW.
Why does your list have fewer clinics than the register?
Because ours is a name filter, not a specialty filter. We extracted Seoul clinics whose registered English name contains derma, skin, aesthetic or laser, which is 263 of the 2,246 clinics registered in Seoul.
It will miss skin clinics named something else. That is a limitation of the register, which has no specialty field, and we would rather state it than paper over it.
In short
The register answers one question well — is this institution legally permitted to treat me, and insured to do it — and answers nothing else. Use it for that, then use the consultation for the rest.
The checks that matter once you are past the register: how to judge a clinic before booking →
The lists: all of Seoul by district · Gangnam-gu · Seocho-gu
Before you trust any of this: how we verify · where the money comes from · who writes it
Last verified: August 2026 · No affiliate links on this page.