Move-Out Checklist and Deadlines

Moving out of a Korean lease is where several separate systems — notice rules, deposit protections, building management, immigration paperwork — all demand attention in the same two weeks. Each is simple alone; missed together they cost real money, and one of them (moving your registration too early) can cost the deposit itself.

This guide is the checklist, in time order, with the deadlines attached. The deep dives live elsewhere: the deposit-recovery machine in Getting Your Housing Deposit Back and the move-with-protection procedure in Lease Registration Order.

1. The order of operations

1. 1

   T minus 2 months (or more): notice

   Tell the landlord, provably, that you are leaving — or the lease renews itself on the same terms.
2. 2

   Final weeks: settle the money map

   Repair reserve, management fees, utilities, internet — what you are owed and what you owe, itemized before the last day.
3. 3

   The day: simultaneous exchange

   Deposit confirmed in your account against keys and possession — photographed, metered, and documented.
4. 4

   After: registrations and reports

   New address registered — 15 days for the foreigner sojourn report — and any unresolved deposit claim already secured before you left.

2. Two months out: end the lease properly

The lease only owes you the deposit when it actually ends — and Korean leases renew silently. Your non-renewal notice must reach the landlord no later than 2 months before expiry; on a lease that already renewed implicitly, your termination takes effect 3 months after notice arrives(Housing Lease Protection Act arts. 6, 6-2). Send it provably — certified mail, or a message thread with the landlord’s reply — and calendar the date it was received.

This is also the moment to read the landlord’s financial weather. Slow replies, “after the next tenant” talk, a register newly heavy with loans — any of these means starting the registration-order paperwork early, while your move-out date is still flexible.

The same clock runs against the landlord: their non-renewal notice is due between 6 and 2 months before expiry, and silence on both sides renews the lease automatically on the old terms. If you receive a landlord’s notice, date-stamp it the way you would your own — whether it arrived inside the window decides whether it counts at all.

Notice is also a fork in the road, not just a formality: if you would rather stay, the same window — 6 to 2 months before expiry — is when your once-per-lease renewal demand must be made, with its 5% cap on increases. Decide deliberately which letter you are sending, because the two are opposites and both expire on the same day. The renewal mechanics live in Jeonse, Explained.

3. Final weeks: money owed both ways

• Reclaim the repair reserve. In managed apartment complexes, the long-term repair reserve (장기수선충당금) is legally the owner’s burden (Multi-Family Housing Management Act art. 30), but tenants pay it inside the monthly management fee. At lease end you can claim it back from the owner (Enforcement Decree art. 31(8)) — the management office prints the paid total on request, and over a few years it is commonly hundreds of thousands of won.
• Settle the management fees — final-month proration, and a statement from the office confirming nothing outstanding; landlords deduct claimed arrears from deposits, so close this in writing.
• Close out utilities — electricity and water settle by meter reading; city gas needs a booked disconnection visit, so call days ahead, not on the morning of the move.
• Internet and TV — contract terms decide the early-termination fee; moving the contract to the new address often beats cancelling. Handle it before the equipment is buried in a box.

4. Move-out day

Ten minutes of photographs — every room, every meter, the keys changing hands — is the cheapest legal protection on this page.

• Simultaneous exchange. The deposit and the unit are owed at the same time: confirm the transfer has landedin your account before the keys leave your hand. “This afternoon, promise” is not a transfer.
• Walk through together.Photograph every room, record the meters, and agree on the condition in the landlord’s presence — the same photos that answer a damage claim also prove the state you left.
• Restoration means damage, not use. You return the unit in its state allowing for ordinary wear — practice does not make tenants repaint every sun-faded wall. Genuine damage is a settlement item; resolve it as a number in writing, not a vague deduction later.
• Read before signing anything.A “final settlement” paper can waive more than it says out loud. If the deposit is short by even one claimed deduction you dispute, sign nothing that reads like closure.

The small hardware matters too: access cards for the lobby and parking, remote controls, mailbox keys, and the resident parking sticker all belong in the handover, counted and noted on the settlement paper. Unreturned cards are a classic late deduction — and a classic thing to photograph in the landlord’s hands.

5. After you move: the two registrations

With the deposit safely returned, move your address promptly — the protections you no longer need at the old unit are the ones you now want at the new one. For foreign residents that means the sojourn-address change report (체류지 변경신고): registered foreigners must report a change of residence within 15 days of moving in, at the local district office or immigration office (Immigration Act art. 36). It doubles as the move-in report that starts your new lease’s opposing power, and missing it risks fines and needless visa friction.

If the deposit was not fully returned, the order flips — registration order first, address move second — and if you are leaving Korea entirely, the checklist gains one more line: get the claim secured and a Korean attorney authorized before the flight, while documents and signatures are easy. Deposit-guarantee policyholders should also notify their insurer on the timeline the policy sets (see Jeonse, Explained).

Round out the address change beyond the legal registers: banking and card apps, mobile carrier, employer HR, the post office’s mail-forwarding service, and any visa paperwork that lists your residence. For a foreign resident these records feed each other — immigration filings, bank verification, and deliveries all read from the same address — and one stale entry has a talent for surfacing at the least convenient moment.

6. Common mistakes

• Moving the registration first“to get the kids into school” — and discovering what it cost only when the deposit dispute starts.
• Leaving the repair reserve behind. It is not a tip for the landlord; ask the management office for the total and claim it.
• Skipping the gas appointment — safety checks and final billing need the visit, and the missed slot becomes moving-day chaos.
• No photographs. Ten minutes with a phone camera at move-in and move-out is the cheapest legal protection in this entire guide.
• Settling repairs verbally.“Just leave 200,000 for the wallpaper” needs a line on paper, or it becomes a different number in a month.

Start by writing two dates where you can see them: the lease expiry, and two months before it. The entire checklist hangs between those.

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.