How to File a Civil Lawsuit in Korea as a Foreigner: Contract Disputes and Business Claims

A Korean distributor has stopped paying your invoices. A supplier took your deposit and delivered nothing, or delivered defective goods and refuses a refund. A Korean partner signed a contract and then walked away from it. In each case the money and the counterparty are in Korea, and a demand letter from abroad has gone nowhere.

When negotiation fails, the remaining route is a civil action in a Korean court. Foreign companies and individuals can and do sue here — but the procedure, the language, and several rules that apply specifically to a claimant based outside Korea make it quite different from litigating at home. This article sets out what a foreign claimant should understand before starting, using contract and business disputes as the running example.

Can a foreigner sue in a Korean court?

Yes. Being foreign is not a bar to bringing a claim in Korea. The threshold question is not nationality but jurisdiction — whether a Korean court is entitled to hear the dispute at all.

Korea’s rules on international jurisdiction were written into the Private International Law Act (국제사법) when it was comprehensively revised in 2022. The general principle in Article 2 is that Korean courts have international jurisdiction where a party or the dispute has a substantial connection to Korea, assessed by reference to fairness between the parties and the proper, prompt and efficient conduct of proceedings. On top of that general rule, Article 41 gives a special jurisdiction for contract claims: broadly, a contract dispute may be brought in Korea where goods were to be delivered here, where services were to be performed here, or where the parties agreed that the obligation would be performed in Korea.

In practice, the most common foothold is simply that the defendant is a Korean company or a person living in Korea, which ordinarily makes Korea an available forum. But jurisdiction is assessed on the specific facts, so it is a question to settle at the outset rather than assume.

General illustration of the statutory bases only. Whether a Korean court has jurisdiction over a particular dispute depends on the facts and on current case law.

A foreign claimant may be asked to post security for costs

Here is a rule that catches many foreign claimants off guard. Under Article 117 of the Civil Procedure Act (민사소송법), when a plaintiff has no address, office, or place of business in Korea, the defendant may ask the court to order that plaintiff to provide security for the defendant’s litigation costs; the court may also order it on its own initiative where security appears necessary. The idea is that, if the foreign plaintiff loses, the Korean defendant should be able to recover its costs against something concrete rather than chase a party with no presence here.

In practical terms this can mean depositing a sum of money or providing a guarantee before the case proceeds. It does not decide who wins, and it is not automatic — but it is a real, early consideration for a claimant suing from abroad, and it is one reason the cost planning for a Korean case should be done before, not after, filing.

Freezing the debtor’s assets before the case ends

Litigation takes time, and a debtor who sees a claim coming may move money or property out of reach. Korean law offers a preserving measure for exactly this risk. Provisional attachment (가압류) under Article 276 of the Civil Execution Act (민사집행법) lets a creditor with a money claim — or a claim that can be converted into money — apply to freeze the debtor’s Korean assets, such as bank accounts or real estate, so that a later judgment is not left hollow. It is available even where the claim is conditional or not yet due.

Provisional attachment is a separate application from the main lawsuit and usually requires the creditor to put up security of its own. Whether and when to seek it is a case-specific judgment best made with counsel, but its existence is often what makes a Korean judgment worth pursuing: winning on paper means little if there is nothing left to collect.

What you can recover — and the 12% that motivates settlement

A successful money claim in Korea is not limited to the bare principal. Two elements matter to foreign creditors in particular.

First, statutory delay interest. Under Article 3 of the Act on Special Cases Concerning Expedition, etc. of Legal Proceedings (소송촉진 등에 관한 특례법), once a court orders payment of a money debt, delay damages run from the day after the complaint was served on the debtor at a rate fixed by presidential decree — currently 12% per year. That is well above ordinary commercial interest, and it climbs for as long as the debtor holds out, which is a significant pressure toward payment or settlement. There is an important qualification: under Article 3(2), the elevated rate does not apply for any period in which the debtor’s contesting of the existence or scope of the debt is found to have been reasonable.

Second, costs follow the event. The losing party generally bears the court costs, and a portion of the winner’s attorney’s fees is recoverable within limits set by court rules — not the full bill, but a meaningful offset.

Rates and limits reflect the position under current law and can change; the delay-interest rate is set by presidential decree.

Language, evidence, and why this is rarely a solo effort

A Korean civil case is conducted in Korean. Pleadings are filed in Korean, hearings are held in Korean, and foreign-language documents must be submitted with a certified Korean translation. Korea also has no broad pre-trial discovery of the kind common in the United States; the parties largely build their own evidence, with only limited court-ordered document production. For a contract dispute, that puts a premium on how the paper trail — the agreement, the invoices, the delivery records, the messages — is organized and presented from the start.

None of this is impossible for a foreign party, but it is the reason cross-border commercial cases are handled with a Korean lawyer rather than alone. Importantly, a Korean judicial scrivener (법무사) cannot represent a party in this kind of litigation; conducting the case in court calls for a Korean attorney.

Placing your dispute correctly before you file

Not every business grievance is an ordinary civil suit, and starting in the wrong lane wastes time. If your contract contains an arbitration clause, the dispute may have to go to arbitration instead of court, and any award is enforced under a separate regime — see our note on enforcing a foreign arbitral award in Korea. If what happened looks less like a broken contract and more like a deliberate deception — a counterparty who never intended to perform — there may be a criminal dimension, discussed in our articles on advance-payment fraud against foreign businesses and, in the rental context, jeonse deposit fraud. And if you have already won a judgment in a foreign court against a debtor with Korean assets, your route is recognition and enforcement of that judgment, covered on our enforcement of foreign judgments in Korea page — not a fresh suit. This article is about bringing the underlying civil claim in a Korean court in the first place.

After a judgment

A Korean judgment in your favour, once final, can be enforced directly against the debtor’s assets in Korea through the compulsory-execution process — attachment and sale of property, garnishment of accounts, and the like. Where the debtor’s assets sit outside Korea, enforcement has to be pursued in that other country under its own rules. Either way, the value of the whole exercise depends on assets actually being available at the end, which loops back to why preserving them early — through provisional attachment — is so often decisive.

You can read more about civil disputes and claims in Korea on our litigation in Korea page.

Frequently asked questions

Can a foreigner or foreign company file a civil lawsuit in Korea?

Yes. Nationality is not a bar. A Korean court may hear the case where the dispute has a substantial connection to Korea under Article 2 of the Private International Law Act — most commonly because the defendant is a Korean company or resident — and, for contract claims, under the special jurisdiction in Article 41. Jurisdiction is assessed on the specific facts.

Will I have to pay a deposit to sue in Korea if I live abroad?

Possibly. Under Article 117 of the Civil Procedure Act, a plaintiff with no address, office, or place of business in Korea can be ordered — on the defendant’s motion or by the court itself — to provide security for the defendant’s litigation costs. This can mean depositing money or providing a guarantee before the case proceeds. It does not affect who wins, but it should be planned for before filing.

Can I stop the Korean debtor from hiding assets while the case runs?

Korean law provides provisional attachment (가압류) under Article 276 of the Civil Execution Act, which lets a creditor apply to freeze a debtor’s Korean assets — such as bank accounts or real estate — to preserve later enforcement, even for conditional or not-yet-due claims. It is a separate application from the main lawsuit and usually requires the creditor to post security. Whether to seek it is a case-specific decision.

What interest can I recover on an unpaid debt in Korea?

Under Article 3 of the Act on Special Cases Concerning Expedition, etc. of Legal Proceedings, a money judgment carries statutory delay interest from the day after the complaint is served, at a rate set by presidential decree — currently 12% per year. The elevated rate does not apply for any period in which the debtor’s contesting of the debt is found to have been reasonable.

Do I need a Korean lawyer, or can I handle it myself?

A Korean civil case is conducted in Korean, foreign-language documents need certified Korean translations, and there is only limited pre-trial discovery, so the parties largely build their own evidence. A Korean judicial scrivener (법무사) cannot represent a party in this litigation. In practice, cross-border contract and business claims are handled with a Korean attorney.