Key points
- The Korea Exchange lists nearly 2,900 companies across its three boards. Around 10 Korean companies trade in the US as depositary receipts.
- Korea scrapped its 30-year foreign investor registration system in December 2023. An individual foreign investor now opens an account with a passport number rather than a certificate.
- Interactive Brokers routes retail orders to the Korea Exchange. Charles Schwab's Global Account doesn't cover Korea, and neither do the app brokers such as Robinhood, Webull or SoFi.
- Foreign ownership is capped by law at 49% in telecom and broadcasting, 40% at the power utility and 30% at the gas utility, and Korean dividends paid to a US investor are withheld at 15% under the tax treaty.
Nearly 2,900 companies trade across the Korea Exchange's three boards. The breakdown is 954 companies on the main Kospi board (코스피) as of January 2026, 1,821 on the junior Kosdaq market (코스닥) as of June, and 115 on the small-cap Konex board at the end of 2025. Yet an investor using a standard US brokerage account can buy only around 10 of them. Korea itself isn't closed; the problem is that the available routes are narrow and were mostly designed for institutions.
What Korea changed in December 2023
For three decades, foreign investors needed an Investment Registration Certificate before they could purchase a Korean share. The Financial Supervisory Service issued the document under a system introduced in 1992. Korea eliminated that requirement on December 14, 2023. A foreign corporation now uses a Legal Entity Identifier, while an individual can use a passport number to establish an account with a Korean broker or custodian. Foreign investors opened 1,432 accounts under the replacement system in its first six months. Of those, 1,216 belonged to corporations and only 216 to individuals, which says a good deal about who the reform actually reached.
That registration requirement helped keep Korea in the emerging-market category used by index providers despite the scale of its economy, and its repeal was meant to address that status. For an individual investor, the immediate effect is simpler. The paperwork that once blocked the path to a Seoul-listed share has disappeared. Without that change, the direct-access route below wouldn't be practical.
Route one, the depositary receipts
The simplest way in needs no new account. A handful of Korean companies sponsor depositary receipts that trade on US exchanges in dollars, settle like any US stock and sit in an ordinary brokerage account.
| Company | US ticker | Listed on |
|---|
| KB Financial Group | KB | NYSE |
| Shinhan Financial Group | SHG | NYSE |
| Woori Financial Group | WF | NYSE |
| POSCO Holdings | PKX | NYSE |
| KT Corporation | KT | NYSE |
| SK Telecom | SKM | NYSE |
| Korea Electric Power | KEP | NYSE |
| LG Display | LPL | NYSE |
| Gravity | GRVY | Nasdaq |
| SK Hynix | SKHY | Nasdaq |
The list skews heavily to banks, telecoms and utilities. That's what a 1990s and 2000s vintage of depositary programmes looks like. Samsung Electronics isn't on it. Neither is any of the Kosdaq. SK Hynix is the recent exception and the one that changed the shape of the list, and the mechanics of buying it are covered separately in our guide to SKHY and the tickers that no longer work.
Route two, buying in Seoul
One US broker gives retail clients direct access to the Korean market. Interactive Brokers routes orders to the Korea Exchange, with trades placed and settled in won. Charles Schwab's Global Account doesn't reach Korea. Schwab covers 12 foreign markets in their local currencies, and Korea isn't one of them. There's no Korean market access at Robinhood, Webull, SoFi or Cash App either. That's the practical reason most US retail investors never get past the depositary receipts.
Korea has also ended the Korea Exchange's domestic monopoly. Nextrade (넥스트레이드), the country's first alternative trading system, began operating on March 4, 2025 and now competes alongside the Korea Exchange. Its pre-market session runs from 08:00 to 08:50, followed by an after-market session from 15:30 to 20:00 Korean time. Together, those sessions extend the trading day to twelve hours. Nextrade charges lower execution fees than the Korea Exchange. Interactive Brokers began routing global clients to Nextrade in June 2026, although residents of Korea can't use the venue through that channel.
Route three, the index funds
Three US-listed funds hold Korean equities directly and need no special account. The iShares MSCI South Korea ETF trades as EWY and is the largest, the Franklin FTSE South Korea ETF trades as FLKR, and the Direxion Daily South Korea Bull 3X trades as KORU and is a leveraged product that resets daily. A leveraged Korea fund behaves the way leveraged Korean products behave at home, which we walked through in why the Kospi moves so violently. The index route also carries the concentration that comes with it, since Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dominate any market-cap weighted Korean index.
What still gets in the way
Foreign investors face statutory ownership ceilings in several Korean industries. Telecom operators such as SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus are capped at 49% foreign ownership, as are broadcasters. The limits are 40% for Korea Electric Power and 30% for Korea Gas. These percentages apply to all foreign shareholders combined, not to a single investor. When a company approaches its ceiling, the effective price available to foreigners can differ from the quoted headline price.
Korea withholds tax on dividends at the source. The statutory rate for a non-resident is 20% plus a local surtax of 10% of that, which comes to 22%, but the United States tax treaty caps a portfolio investor at 15%. Exchange rates create another layer of friction. A direct share purchase settles in won, whose value can move separately from the stock. An investor can therefore make the right call on the company and still record a flat result or a loss in dollar terms.
Trading hours are the final obstacle. The Korea Exchange's regular session runs from 09:00 to 15:30 Korean time. Because Korea does not use daylight saving, Seoul is 13 hours ahead of New York from March through November and 14 hours ahead during the northern winter. In summer, the regular session therefore falls between 20:00 and 02:30 in New York; in winter, it starts and ends one hour earlier. Direct participation means trading overnight. Korean retail investors have developed the reverse habit, which became clear when an overnight US venue halted trading during Korean daytime hours.
Sources
- Korea Exchange listing counts, 954 on the Kospi as of January 2026, 1,821 on the Kosdaq as of June 2026, and 115 on the Konex as of December 31, 2025
- Financial Services Commission, abolition of the foreign investor registration system, effective December 14, 2023, for the end of the 1992 certificate regime and the move to a Legal Entity Identifier for corporations and a passport number for individuals
- Financial Services Commission, review of foreign account openings after the change, for the 1,432 accounts in the first six months and the split of 1,216 corporate against 216 individual
- Interactive Brokers, products and exchanges, for Korea Exchange order routing
- Charles Schwab, Schwab Global Account, for the 12 foreign markets it covers, which do not include Korea
- Nextrade (넥스트레이드), launched March 4, 2025 as Korea's first alternative trading system, pre-market 08:00 to 08:50 and after-market 15:30 to 20:00 Korean time
- PwC, Korea withholding taxes, for the 20% non-resident rate plus the 10% local surtax and the 15% United States treaty rate on portfolio dividends
- Foreign ownership caps under the Telecommunications Business Act, the Broadcasting Act, and the Public Enterprise Privatization Act, at 49% for telecom and broadcasting, 40% for Korea Electric Power and 30% for Korea Gas
- Korea Exchange regular session 09:00 to 15:30 Korean Standard Time, which is UTC plus nine and does not observe daylight saving
Last updated September 1, 2026. This is general information, not investment advice, and nothing here is tax advice. Markets can go down as well as up, and you can lose money. Always do your own research and consider speaking with a licensed professional before making any investment decision.
