Black Friday in Korea 2026: What Actually Goes on Sale (Olive Young, K-Sale Festa) and the Tax-Free Rule That Stacks

Last updated: 10 November 2026. Sale dates were checked that day against the original Korean announcements: Olive Young's own newsroom (29 October 2026), the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's festival notice on korea.kr (29 October), the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources release of 2 November, the Korea Customs Service's duty-free release of 29 October, Shinsegae's official SSG Day partner page, and retailer dates reported by Segye Ilbo (2 November) and Kyunghyang Shinmun (27 October). Tax refund limits are from the Korea Customs Service rules as reported by Tax Times on 3 April 2026. ₩1,334 = US$1 (Fed H.10 rate for 30 October 2026). Where a 2026 date has not been announced, this guide says so. Sources at the end.

When is Black Friday in Korea? Korea's biggest November sales don't fall on Black Friday. The American date this year is Friday 27 November, the day after Thanksgiving (Thursday 26 November). Korea's are earlier. Olive Young's Black Friday ran 1–7 November 2026 and is already over. The government's K-Sale Festa (K-세일페스타), the shopping part of the Korea Grand Festival, runs 29 October to 15 November. Coupang, 11st, G Market and Shinsegae's SSG Day all held their autumn sales inside that window too. If you search "Korea Black Friday" in the week of 27 November, most of what you find will already have ended.

Some sales do come later. The brands and fashion platforms hold their winter sales from mid-November, and Olive Young's next big discount is the December 올영세일 (Olive Young Sale). In 2025 that sale started on 30 November. And one benefit works at every one of these sales: the instant tax refund (즉시환급), which takes the VAT, less the refund operator's fee, off at the till on purchases from ₩15,000. This guide shows which sales a visitor can use in late November 2026, which have finished, and how the refund works on a sale price.

Inside an Olive Young branch in Wonju, April 2020, with 1+1 and "50%" sale tags on the displays. Not a Seoul store and not from this year's sale. Photo: Choi Kwang-mo, Wikimedia Commons (CC0).

A sale week fills a suitcase fast. A foldable 96L travel duffel packs flat on the way in and comes home as a second checked bagAffiliate link. As an Amazon Associate, EpicKor earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

Quick Guide: Korea's "Black Friday" sales, November 2026

The short version: if you land in Korea by 15 November, you catch the government festival and the free palaces. If you land between 16 and 29 November, look at the fashion winter sales and the department-store winter clothing events, and wait for the December Olive Young sale if K-beauty is the main shop. If you land in the first week of December, you may land inside that sale. Whichever window you are in, the tax refund applies.

Why Korea's Black Friday comes three weeks early

Korea did not adopt the American calendar. It put a government festival in that slot instead. The Korea Sale Festa (코리아세일페스타) started in 2016 as the government's answer to Black Friday. Since 2025 it has been folded into the Korea Grand Festival (코리아 그랜드 페스티벌), ten ministries' discounts in one window, and renamed K-Sale Festa. The 2026 edition is the second Grand Festival. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's notice of 29 October gives the dates as Thursday 29 October to Sunday 15 November, 18 days, with "about 40,000 companies" taking part.

Retailers schedule their own sales around it. That is why Olive Young's Black Friday, Coupang's member week, 11st's 11th-day sale, G Market's Big Smile Day and Shinsegae's SSG Day all fell in the first two weeks of November this year. Segye Ilbo's roundup of 2 November lists all five in one article. The festival also holds the big car and appliance discounts: the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources says the appliance sales started on 1 November, and puts the car discounts at "from ₩1.5 million to over ₩10 million" (about US$1,100 to US$7,500). Those are of no use to a tourist.

What a visitor can use in the festival is narrower. We covered the full list in our Korea Grand Festival 2026 guide. In short:

• Free entry to Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung, Deoksugung, Changgyeonggung, Jongmyo and the Joseon royal tombs, 29 October to 15 November. Regular closing days and Changdeokgung's Secret Garden (Huwon) are excluded, according to Kyunghyang Shinmun's report of the government announcement on 27 October.
• Duty-free discounts under the Korea Duty Free Festa (코리아 듀티프리 페스타). The Korea Customs Service's own release of 29 October confirms the dates, 29 October to 15 November, and discounts of up to 25 percent at airport and port, downtown and online duty-free shops. The store count is a press figure, not a Customs one: Kyunghyang Shinmun's 27 October report put it at about 25 stores, online shops included, with the discounts on liquor and cosmetics. The government's July plan had said "up to 50 percent" at 26 stores. The October figures are the later ones.
• Shelf-price discounts in shops, which anyone who walks in gets. Card cashbacks, Onnuri vouchers and the local gift certificates need Korean cards or resident apps.

There is one new piece aimed at foreigners. For the first time, the Trade Ministry ran a reverse-direct-purchase sale (역직구), Korean shops selling to buyers abroad. Olive Young, Musinsa and Kurly joined a "K-Online Shopping Week" for overseas consumers. On 2 November the minister visited the Musinsa and Olive Young stores in Hongdae, bought products himself and talked with foreign shoppers about product reviews and their worries about counterfeits. That is the one festival offer you can use after you fly home.

You might like: Korea Tax Refund Guide: The ₩15,000 Minimum, Instant Refund Limits, Olive Young, Daiso, Airport Kiosks

Olive Young: Black Friday is over, and the December sale is next

Perfume shelves at an Olive Young branch in Wonju, April 2020, with won price tags and red SALE stickers. Not from the 2026 sale. Photo: Choi Kwang-mo, Wikimedia Commons (CC0).

Olive Young's own newsroom is clear about the date. Its editorial of 29 October 2026 says Black Friday is a once-a-year event and that "in 2026 it runs from 1 to 7 November" (2026년에는 11월 1일부터 11월 7일까지 진행됩니다). The same page describes this year's 블프라이즈 박스 (Black Prize box): two kinds of limited random box, each holding six or seven full-size products at a steep discount, with an extra "special drop" on 4 November only. Esquire Korea's listing of 3 November adds the coupon mechanics: random coupons of up to ₩10,000 released at midnight and 18:00 each day, first come first served, and up to ₩20,000 off depending on the payment method.

Olive Young does not publish a headline discount rate for its Black Friday. Its newsroom gave none for 2026. Neither did the trade press we checked. The "up to 60%" and "up to 70%" figures on Korean blogs come from other years. Treat any single number you see quoted as unconfirmed.

So for a late-November traveller, the question is when the December 올영세일 starts. The same Olive Young editorial confirms it is coming: it lists the regular 올영세일 in March, June, September and December, and the monthly Olive Day (올리브 데이) on the 25th to 27th for Olive members. It gives no December dates. Last year's ran from 30 November to 6 December 2025, according to CJ Olive Young's release of 28 November 2025. During that sale, the chain's "global tourist district" stores, the ones with mostly foreign customers, ran deals on its "Global Olive Young Awards" winners, and only on those deal items gave an extra discount for paying with Alipay, WeChat Pay, UnionPay or WOWPASS. If 2026 follows the same pattern, the sale starts around the last weekend of November. Check the Olive Young app or the store's posters before you plan a day around it.

Our Olive Young guide has the year-round calendar, real shelf prices and what to skip. This page only covers the November timing.

Coupang, 11st, G Market: big numbers, mostly not for visitors

The online platforms run the largest November sales in Korea, and on paper they have the biggest discounts. Segye Ilbo, 2 November 2026:

• Coupang Wow Members' Day, 2–8 November: more than 370,000 products, up to 70 percent off across 16 categories, with ₩10,000 and ₩30,000 coupons for Wow members released twice a day, first come first served.
• 11st Grand 11th Day (2026 그랜드십일절), 1–11 November: more than 180 brands and 8,200 sellers.
• G Market Big Smile Day, 2–13 November: more than 3,000 special-deal items.
• SSG Day, 30 October to 8 November: up to 12 percent coupons on SSG.com. Shinsegae's official SSG Day partner page added 1+1 or up to 50 percent off selected items at Emart.

These are built for people who live in Korea. You need a Korean account, usually a Korean phone number for verification, often a Korean card for the best price, and an address in Korea for delivery. A hotel can sometimes receive a parcel, but returns and failed deliveries become your problem. And the sale price is often lower only with a Korean card discount.

Coupang's own "Black Friday" isn't for visitors either. In 2025 Coupang held 쿠블프 (Coupang Black Friday) until 1 December. Financial News reported it on 24 November 2025 as a 로켓직구 event, goods bought from the US, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Italy and shipped to Korean addresses. Coupang had not announced a 2026 date when we checked. Even when it does, it is a sale on imported goods delivered inside Korea. If you are visiting, you can buy the same things at home.

You might like: Korea Tourist Shopping Route: Olive Young, Daiso, Musinsa

Fashion: Musinsa's winter sale and the late-November brands

The second half of November belongs to fashion and winter clothing, and here the timing works for a late-month trip.

Musinsa's winter 무진장 (무진장 겨울 블랙프라이데이) is its biggest sale of the year. The 2025 edition ran from 7 p.m. on 16 November to midnight on 26 November: about 4,500 brands, more than 600,000 products, "up to 80 percent", according to Musinsa's own event guide of 14 November 2025. It was not online-only. Musinsa set up about 50 "무진장 ZONE" spots around Seongsu-dong from 15 November, with on-site mission events for people who walked in.

For 2026, Musinsa had not announced dates as of 8 November, Diary Point reported. Esquire Korea's 3 November calendar lists the sale for 15–25 November, without saying where the date came from. Assume mid to late November, and confirm on the Musinsa app before you plan a Seongsu afternoon around it.

The same Esquire calendar lists other brand sales for late November: Topten 18–30 November, Spao 23–29, H&M 27–30, Zara 27 November to 1 December. These are brand plans reported by one magazine, not official announcements. Uniqlo's November thanksgiving sale (감사제) was also unannounced as of 8 November. If you need a winter coat, our long padded coat guide has real prices from ₩49,900 and shows when the outdoor brands discount.

Department stores follow the same rhythm. In the 27 October festival announcement, department stores offered winter clothing sales and fashion-brand events with no rates given. Shinsegae Department Store's SSG Day events ran in its stores on 6–8 November: a ₩10,000 food-court voucher, four shopping coupons and 7 percent off fashion, according to the official SSG Day partner page. Department stores are where the tax refund helps most, because the receipts are larger. Watch the ₩1,000,000 line: instant refund at the till only covers a single payment under that amount, and a bigger payment is refunded through the airport instead.

A snowy shopping street in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, 13 December 2020, with a "SALE 2+1 / 3+2" sign in a shop window. Not from this year. Photo: CartoonChess, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The tax-free rule that stacks: instant refund on a sale price

The tax refund doesn't care whether the price is discounted. It is calculated on what you actually pay, so every discount, coupon and box above is taken off first. Then the refund comes off on top. At shops that do instant refund (즉시환급), it happens at the till. You hand over your passport, and the cashier deducts the tax-free amount from the total there and then. That amount is the VAT less the refund operator's fee, so what comes off at checkout is a little less than the full tax (see below).

The two instant-refund limits are the ones the Korea Customs Service restated in April 2026: "under ₩1 million per purchase, ₩5 million or less in total". They doubled on 1 January 2024, from ₩500,000 and ₩2.5 million. The 2023 tax revision plan lowered the minimum from ₩30,000 to ₩15,000 from 2024, so a sign or an older guide that still says ₩30,000 is out of date.

How much comes back. The 10 percent VAT is already inside a Korean shelf price, so the VAT on a ₩48,000 receipt is ₩48,000 × 10/110, about ₩4,364. That is the ceiling. You get back less, because the refund operator keeps a fee. The exact amount is not a flat percentage: each refund operator sets it in a table of price brackets, and the till or the refund slip shows the figure for your receipt.

A worked example. You buy a basket at Olive Young with a shelf price of ₩60,000, during a sale that takes 20 percent off.

The refund is worth a little less in won after a sale, because there is less VAT in a smaller price. Two things go wrong on sale days:

1. The discount drops you under ₩15,000. One ₩18,000 item at 20 percent off is ₩14,400, which gets no refund. Add a sheet mask and the whole receipt qualifies. Splitting one basket into two payments has the same effect: each receipt is judged on its own.
2. Payment-method discounts that need a Korean card. "Up to ₩20,000 off by payment method" usually means a particular Korean card or a Korean pay app. Ask which methods count before you assume it applies to you. The ones that have been offered to visitors were announced as such: in December 2025, Olive Young's tourist-district stores gave an extra discount for Alipay, WeChat Pay, UnionPay and WOWPASS, but only on Global Olive Young Awards deal items.

Duty-free shops work differently: you pay a price without tax and collect the goods at the airport. So the Duty Free Festa discount and the instant refund don't apply to the same purchase. For the duty-free side, see our Korea Grand Festival guide.

When Black Friday is not the cheaper week

Black Friday isn't automatically the cheapest week for a visitor in Korea.

• Olive Young's Black Friday is not proven deeper than its regular sales. The chain publishes no headline rate for either. Both run on coupons, 1+1 bundles and random boxes, and Olive Young's own calendar puts a December 올영세일 soon after it (in 2025 the December sale began on 30 November). Last year the December sale was the one with discounts aimed at tourists at the foreign-heavy stores. If you can only shop once, a December sale week with the tax refund is roughly as good.
• The coupons go fast. The Black Friday random coupons are first come, first served at midnight and 18:00, through the app. A visitor walking in at 15:00 pays the shelf discount and gets the tax refund, the same as at any other sale.
• The biggest discounts are on things you can't take home. Cars, refrigerators, TVs and Coupang delivery account for the largest numbers in the festival announcements. None of them fit in a suitcase.
• Daiso doesn't do Black Friday. Its low prices are the same all year. Many Daiso branches are registered tax-free stores, and the big tourist-district ones refund at the till; the ₩15,000 minimum applies to one receipt at one branch, as our tax refund guide explains. For small souvenirs it can beat a sale price, in any week.
• Your luggage allowance limits what you save. A 20 percent saving on ₩200,000 of skincare is ₩40,000, about US$30. One overweight bag on the flight home can cost more than that.

You might like: Buying a Long Padded Coat (롱패딩) in Korea, Winter 2026: Real Prices from ₩49,900

A plan by arrival date

FAQ

Q: Does Korea have Black Friday? Yes, but not on the American date. In 2026 Olive Young's Black Friday ran 1–7 November, and the government's K-Sale Festa runs 29 October to 15 November. American Black Friday is 27 November. By then most Korean November sales have finished, and the fashion winter sales are running.

Q: When is Olive Young's next sale after Black Friday? The December 올영세일. Olive Young confirms it is coming but had not published dates on 10 November 2026. Last year it ran 30 November to 6 December. There is also Olive Day on the 25th to 27th of each month, for members.

Q: Can I get a tax refund on sale items in Korea? Yes. The refund is calculated on what you actually pay after the discount. The receipt has to be at least ₩15,000 at one store. Instant refund at the till covers payments under ₩1,000,000 each and ₩5,000,000 per stay, with your physical passport.

Q: Can tourists use Coupang or G Market Black Friday deals? Rarely. They need a Korean account and phone verification and a Korean delivery address, and the best prices often need a Korean card. Coupang's own Black Friday is an import sale for buyers living in Korea.

Q: Is K-Sale Festa the same as the Korea Grand Festival? K-Sale Festa is the shopping part of the Korea Grand Festival. It used to be called Korea Sale Festa (코리아세일페스타). The festival also includes the free palace entry, the duty-free sale and resident-only vouchers. Our Korea Grand Festival guide separates what a visitor can use.

Sources

• Olive Young newsroom, editorial "올리브영 블랙프라이데이는 언제? 1년에 단 한 번 올영 블프 혜택 총정리", 29 October 2026: 2026 dates 1–7 November, Black Prize boxes, 4 November special drop, December 올영세일 and Olive Day pattern. corp.oliveyoung.com, read 10 November 2026.
• Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism via korea.kr, "18일간 펼쳐지는 역대급 할인 혜택!", 29 October 2026: festival dates 29 October–15 November, about 40,000 companies, Korea Duty Free Festa and free heritage sites over the same dates. korea.kr.
• Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources (산업통상부), release of 2 November 2026 on the minister's K-Sale Festa visit: festival opened 29 October, appliance sales from 1 November, car discounts from ₩1.5 million to over ₩10 million, first reverse-direct-purchase sale for overseas consumers, minister's visit to the Olive Young and Musinsa Hongdae stores (bought products, talked with foreign shoppers about reviews and counterfeit worries). motir.go.kr.
• Korea Customs Service (관세청) release of 29 October 2026 on the Korea Duty Free Festa, as mirrored by the KDI Economic Information and Education Center: 29 October–15 November, up to 25% off at airport and port, downtown and online duty-free shops. eiec.kdi.re.kr.
• Kyunghyang Shinmun, 27 October 2026, report of the government's festival announcement: palace free entry and exclusions, about 25 duty-free stores including online, discounts on liquor and cosmetics, K-Online Shopping Week with Olive Young, Musinsa and Kurly, department-store winter clothing events. khan.co.kr.
• Segye Ilbo, 2 November 2026: Coupang Wow Members' Day 2–8 November (370,000+ products, up to 70%), 11st Grand 11th Day 1–11 November, G Market Big Smile Day 2–13 November, SSG Day 30 October–8 November, Olive Young Black Friday 1–7 November. segye.com.
• SSG.com, official SSG Day 2026 partner page: Emart 1+1 or up to 50% off selected items; Shinsegae Department Store in-store events 6–8 November (₩10,000 food-court voucher, four shopping coupons, 7% off fashion). m.ssg.com.
• Esquire Korea, 3 November 2026, Black Friday calendar: Olive Young coupon times and amounts; Musinsa 15–25 November, Topten, Spao, H&M and Zara dates (listed, not official). esquirekorea.co.kr.
• Diary Point, 8 November 2026: Musinsa winter 무진장 and Uniqlo November sale not yet announced. diarypoint.com.
• Musinsa, event guide "겨울 최대 축제, 무신사 무진장 혜택 가이드", 14 November 2025: 2025 winter sale 16–26 November, about 4,500 brands, 600,000+ products, up to 80%, Seongsu 무진장 ZONE from 15 November. musinsa.com.
• CJ Olive Young release, 28 November 2025 (2025 Olive Young Awards): December 올영세일 30 November–6 December 2025; global tourist-district stores with an extra Alipay, WeChat Pay, UnionPay and WOWPASS discount on Global Olive Young Awards deal items only. cjnews.cj.net.
• Financial News, 24 November 2025: Coupang 쿠블프 until 1 December 2025 as a 로켓직구 import sale. fnnews.com.
• Tax Times (한국세정신문), 3 April 2026, on the Korea Customs Service extending instant and city refunds to cruise passengers: instant refund "1회 구매금액 100만원 미만, 총 구매금액 500만원 이하"; city refund up to ₩6 million per purchase. taxtimes.co.kr.
• Korea.net (Korean Culture and Information Service), 28 November 2023: instant refund limits doubled to ₩1 million and ₩5 million from 1 January 2024; the 2023 tax revision plan lowered the minimum from ₩30,000 to ₩15,000 from 2024. korean-culture.org.
• Korea Customs Service, tax refund information (English): goods must leave Korea within three months of purchase; passport and unopened goods. customs.go.kr.
• US Office of Personnel Management, federal holidays 2026: Thanksgiving Day is Thursday 26 November 2026, so Black Friday is 27 November. opm.gov.
• Exchange rate: US Federal Reserve H.10, South Korean won per US dollar, 30 October 2026: ₩1,333.99, via FRED (DEXKOUS).