South Korea raises the additional tax on fake tax invoices from 3% to 4% from 1 January 2026

What changed in detail

Law No. 21218, promulgated on 23 December 2025 and in force from 1 January 2026, amended Article 60 of the Value Added Tax Act. The additional tax (가산세) on issuing a tax invoice or card slip without supplying goods or services (Article 60(3)1), and on receiving one without being supplied (Article 60(3)2), rises from 3% to 4% of the supply value stated on the document. The same rise applies under Article 60(4) to a person who is not a business operator and issues or receives a tax invoice without a supply. Under addendum Article 3, documents issued or received before 1 January 2026 stay at 3%.

The same Act made two other changes:

• It added media-content creators (미디어콘텐츠창작업) to the businesses that must file a cash-sales statement with their VAT returns (Article 55(1)3의2), for returns filed on or after 1 April 2026 (addendum Article 2).
• It lets the tax office require documents proving actual business operations at the business place, as prescribed by decree, when collecting or investigating VAT (Article 74(2)).

What it means

This change is in force. The consolidated VAT Act in force from 2 January 2026 sets 4% in Articles 60(3)1–2 and 60(4).

The 4% sits on top of the VAT itself and of input-VAT disallowance, and on the stated supply value, so on a KRW 1 billion fake invoice the surcharge alone is KRW 40 million for each side. A fake invoice also triggers ad-hoc assessment within the period under Article 57-2, added by Law No. 20614 (kr-animal-blood-exemption-2024). For media-content creators, the practical change is the cash-sales statement now due with each return.