Korea Medical Tourism Statistics 2026

The geography is more concentrated than most coverage suggests. In 2025, 87.2% of all foreign patients — 1,755,002 people — were treated in Seoul, up from 85.4% in 2024 and 78.1% in 2023. And within Seoul, city data for 2024 puts Gangnam district alone at 377,073 patients, roughly a third of the national total, followed by Seocho and Mapo.

It is also a story about clinics rather than hospitals: 82% of 2024's foreign patients were treated at clinic-level institutions, not general hospitals. That matches the specialty mix — dermatology and aesthetic medicine run on clinic infrastructure. HIRA's registry counts 1,712 skin clinics nationwide, 654 of them (38.2%) in Seoul.

For travelers, the practical read is simple: the depth of choice is in Seoul, competition is fiercest there, and that competition is what holds standard prices down at the value tier — a dynamic you can see in our price index.

From our own multilingual keyword tracking (a sample of roughly 190 tracked treatment terms across five language markets, so read this as directional rather than exhaustive), the markets want noticeably different things.

Japanese searches skew toward specific devices and refinements: InMode, shoulder botox, tear-trough filler, Potenza, and Rejuran pricing. English-language searches from the US lean toward filler, glutathione injections, and comparison queries like PRP versus exosome. Singapore searches cluster around thread lifting and Ultherapy. Interest from Taiwan centers on skin boosters and aqua treatments.

The common thread: by the time people search, they are past 'is Korea good for this' and deep into product-level comparison — which is exactly why unit-accurate pricing matters more than country-level generalities.

The money side, from official releases: foreign patients' medical spending reached 3.3 trillion won in 2025, and total medical-tourism spending including travel and companions was estimated at 12.5 trillion won. KHIDI's card-data analysis for 2024 counted about 920,000 foreign patients paying by card, spending 3.66 trillion won in total, of which 1.41 trillion won was medical.

The policy backdrop explains the momentum. In 2023 the government set a target of 700,000 annual foreign patients by 2027 — it was passed in 2024, three years early. The follow-up target of 2 million by 2030 was passed in 2025, five years early. As of this writing, no replacement target has been announced.

For context on what individual treatments cost within those trillions, see our price index, which tracks standard list prices in the units clinics actually quote.

Compiled and maintained by the Book Korea Medical research team (editor: Suji Oh), July 2026. Primary sources: Ministry of Health and Welfare annual foreign-patient results releases (2023, 2024, and the 2025 results announced April 24, 2026), KHIDI statistical analysis reports and card-data analysis, HIRA clinic registry counts, Seoul City and Gangnam district releases for intra-Seoul splits, and ECB reference exchange rates. Where a figure appears in only one official-derived source (for example Gangnam district's 2024 count, released via Seoul City), we say so rather than dressing it up.

Known caveats we are tracking: Japan's 2025 count appears as 600,009 in the announcement math but one syndicated copy printed 609,009 — we use 600,009, which the published shares support, and will correct here if the ministry PDF says otherwise. Thailand's exact 2025 count awaits KHIDI's full statistical report. Specialty shares describe specialty visits, not unique patients.

Free to cite with a link to this page. Spot an error? Tell us at press@bookkoreamedical.com and we will correct it here with a note — same policy as our price index.