How to Check a Korean Medical Tourism License — and Which One Actually Matters

Korea issues a medical tourism license to two different kinds of organization: hospitals that recruit foreign patients, and agencies that book them. In practice almost no patient ever asks to see either one. If you are only going to check one, check the agency. Here is why.

A clinic's medical license matters. Its medical tourism license matters less.

Keep these two apart. Every clinic in Korea holds a medical license under the Medical Service Act — proof it is a legal clinic with licensed physicians. That is a slow, strictly controlled bar, and it is the one standing behind your care. The medical tourism license sits on top. It lets a hospital recruit patients from abroad and requires malpractice cover extending to them. Useful, but narrower than people assume.

Licensed institutions reported 2,011,822 foreign patients in 2025, and that counts only visitors reported by the licensed — not the foreign residents who pay into Korea's national health insurance and use a neighborhood clinic like anyone else. The real figure is far larger, and at that volume treating a foreigner is not a specialism. So the absence of a medical tourism license says little about a clinic, and its presence tells you about marketing reach and insurance rather than about the doctor.

The agency's license is a different story

The pandemic did not shake Korea's leading hospitals. It closed most of the agencies.

Korea has 4,302 licensed medical institutions and 2,792 licensed agencies(as of Aug 2026). Nearly every agency operating today opened in the last few years, almost all are one to three people, and very few do medical tourism as their only business — it sits alongside travel, cosmetics or export work. That is the population you are wiring a deposit to, and it is why the agency's license is worth checking when the hospital's is not.

The license puts two things behind an agency: a surety bond of at least ₩100 million, which answers commercial failure rather than medical harm — money taken and not delivered, a refund that never comes — and a license number the Korean government publishes. A number a stranger can look up changes how a small company behaves.

(Source: medicalkorea.or.kr)

How to check it yourself, in one search

It takes one search, in English, on Korea's own portal.

Go to medicalkorea.or.kr, open Medical Providers → Registered Facilitators, and type the company's name into the search box. Searching himedi returns a single row:

A-2016-01-01-2345 · Himedi, Inc. · Seoul

That is the license number, the registered legal name and the region; open the row for address and contact details. Two things deserve a second look. The legal name should match whoever invoices you, and the region should match the office they claim.

What it does not tell you

The license is a low bar. It does not vet which hospitals an agency sends you to, sets no price-transparency requirement, and audits no medical outcomes. The listing does not show an expiry date either, and a license runs three years before renewal — so if you want certainty, ask them to send you the certificate.

But a low bar is still informative when someone fails to clear it. An intermediary without one either did not try or could not qualify.

Check ours

We used our own entry as the example above deliberately. Himedi holds an agency-side medical tourism license — a 유치업자 registration — carries the surety bond it requires, and does this as its only business. Run the search yourself, and read why we think that license matters.

You should also know we benefit if you apply this test. The license is where we would start, not where we would stop — the harder question is how a partner gets chosen at all, which is what our vetting framework is for.

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About the Author

Donkyo Seo
Co-founder & CEO, Himedi

For the past 9 years, Donkyo has helped international patients navigate Korean healthcare. Himedi is licensed by Korea's Ministry of Health & Welfare (License #A-2016-01-01-2345). 

Sources

• 의료 해외진출 및 외국인환자 유치 지원에 관한 법률 (Act on the Support for Overseas Expansion of Healthcare System and Attraction of Foreign Patients), Art. 2 — statutory definition of 유치: "진료예약·계약 체결 및 그 대리, 외국인환자에 대한 진료정보 제공 및 교통·숙박 안내 등 진료에 관련된 편의를 제공하는 활동." Registration covers two categories: 유치의료기관 (medical institutions) and 유치업자 (agencies)
• Korea Health Industry Development Institute, Medical Korea portal (medicalkorea.or.kr) — Registered Facilitators directory, 2,718 entries, and Registered Hospitals directory, approximately 4,160 entries; both in English and searchable by name and region. Entries display a registration ID of the form A-YYYY-MM-DD-NNNN and do not display expiry dates. Registration System page: "always confirm that your clinic is a registered medical clinic for foreign patients" and "CHECK THE REGISTRATION CERTIFICATE!" Accessed August 22, 2026
• Registration requirements — agencies: surety bond ≥₩100 million, capital ≥₩100 million, domestic office; medical institutions: malpractice insurance covering foreign patients, ≥₩200 million a year for general hospitals and above and ≥₩100 million for clinics and hospitals; three-year validity with renewal
• Market structure, agency turnover through the pandemic, and typical agency size — Himedi's own observation of the Korean market, 2016–2026