What Litigation Costs in Korea

“How much will this cost?” is usually the second question, right after whether the case is winnable. In Korea the answer has an unusually precise part and an unusually variable part, and confusing the two is what leads people to either overestimate the barrier or walk into a bill they did not expect.

The precise part is what the court charges: the stamp fee (injidae) (인지대) and the service deposit (songdallyo) (송달료), both set by published rules. The variable part is everything else — appraisals, expert work, and legal representation. This guide covers each in turn, then the loser-pays rule and what it does and does not get back for you.

1. The four things you pay for

Only the first two are unavoidable. The third depends on what the case needs to prove, and the fourth on whether you are represented — which is a decision worth making on the strength of the case rather than the size of the filing fee.

2. The filing fee, calculated

The fee is a percentage of the amount in dispute (soga) (소가), and the percentage falls as the claim grows (Stamp Act for Civil Litigation art. 2). The formula is public, so you can work out your own number before speaking to anyone:

Three adjustments matter. Filing through the electronic litigation system costs 90% of the figure above — a straight 10% saving for doing what most represented parties do anyway. An appeal costs 1.5× the first-instance fee and a final appeal 2×, so the price of continuing rises with each level. And the arithmetic is rounded: amounts under ₩1,000 become ₩1,000, and above that the last hundreds are dropped.

Two related economies are worth noting. A payment order costs a tenth of the equivalent lawsuit fee, which is why undisputed money claims usually start there. And claims up to ₩30,000,000 run on the small-claims track, which is faster and lighter, though the filing fee follows the same formula.

One complication: not every case has an obvious number. Where you are asking for something other than money — possession of a property, a registration corrected, an act performed — the amount in dispute is worked out under separate valuation rules rather than picked by you, and the filing fee follows that figure. If your claim is not simply “pay me ₩X,” treat the fee as something to be calculated rather than estimated from the table above.

3. Service deposits and case expenses

On top of the stamp fee, the court collects a deposit for posting documents. The calculation is mechanical — a fixed cost per delivery round, multiplied by the number of parties and by the rounds a case of that type is expected to need (fewer for small claims than for ordinary suits). For a two-party case the sum is usually tens of thousands of won, not a barrier; if the case runs longer than expected, the court asks you to top it up.

Court costs are paid up front by whoever takes the step, and only redistributed at the end — so keep every receipt from the day you file.

The expenses that actually move the total are evidentiary. A property appraisal, a handwriting or accounting expert, a medical assessment — these are ordered when the case needs them, priced by the work, and paid in advance by the party who requested the step. In construction, boundary, and injury disputes they can exceed the filing fee several times over, so ask early whether your case is likely to need one.

4. “The loser pays” — and its limits

Korea follows the loser-pays principle: litigation costs are borne by the losing party (Civil Procedure Act art. 98). Where each side wins part of the case, the court apportions the costs between them — a judgment commonly says something like “70% to the defendant, 30% to the plaintiff.”

The limit is in what “costs” includes. Filing fees, deposits, and case expenses are recoverable as spent. Attorney fees are recoverable only up to a ceiling set by Supreme Court rule (art. 109) — a scale that rises with the amount in dispute but at a shrinking rate, so the recoverable figure is typically well under what competent representation costs. Winning outright does not usually make you whole on legal fees; it recovers a defined slice.

And recovery is its own step. The judgment fixes the ratio; the actual sum is settled afterwards in a cost-determination procedure where you submit the receipts (art. 110). If you never file it, the ratio in the judgment stays theoretical — which is why the receipt discipline in section 3 pays off at the end.

There is also a solvency question behind all of it. A costs award against someone with no seizable assets is worth what any other judgment against them is worth: it must still be enforced, and enforcement has its own expenses. Before spending heavily on a case, it is worth asking not only whether you would win but whether the other side could actually pay — the same question that decides whether the underlying claim is worth pursuing at all.

5. Cheaper routes and litigation aid

Before pricing a lawsuit, check whether your dispute has a cheaper first step. Unpaid wages have a free labour-office complaint and a government wage fund — the sequence in Unpaid Wages. Undisputed debts have the payment order. Many disputes settle after a certified demand letter costing a few thousand won. Court-annexed mediation, where the court proposes it, costs nothing extra and ends cases early.

Where the costs themselves are the obstacle, the court can grant litigation aid (sosong guhjo) (소송구조)— deferring or waiving court costs for a party who lacks the means, on application or on the court’s own initiative, unless the case is clearly bound to lose (art. 128). Separately, the Korea Legal Aid Corporation provides free or subsidised representation to people who meet its criteria, which is worth checking before concluding that a claim is unaffordable.

6. Common mistakes

• Inflating the claim to look serious. The fee scales with the amount claimed, so padding the number costs you money at filing — and costs follow the outcome, so the padded portion you lose comes back at you.
• Assuming winning is free.Attorney fees come back only to the rule’s ceiling; budget on the gap, not on full recovery.
• Forgetting the appeal multiplier. A case you might appeal is a case whose court costs are 1.5× again at the next level, and 2× at the last.
• Not asking about appraisals early. If your case needs an expert, that is usually the largest court-side number — and knowing it before filing changes the calculation about whether to sue at all.
• Winning and never claiming the costs. The cost-determination step is separate from the judgment; skip it and you keep the ratio but not the money.

Start with one number: the amount you would actually claim. The filing fee, the track, and most of the cost conversation follow from it.

Frequently asked questions

Written by Attorney Chulho Choi (SOL & LUNA / Law Firm Myeong, KBA-registered specialist in Civil and Criminal Law). Reviewed as of August 2026. Updated when laws change.