Chuseok 2026 Train Tickets in Korea: Your Booking Day Depends on Your Departure Station (and Counters Are Closed)

If you're going to be in Korea in late September, there's one date you need to know about: Chuseok, the Korean harvest holiday, falls on September 25, 2026, and the entire country moves at once. Millions of people go back to their hometowns, and the trains that make that possible — KTX and SRT, Korea's high-speed rail — sell out within minutes of going on sale. Here's the part that catches visitors out: holiday tickets are not sold the normal way. You can't just open the app the week before and buy one, and this year you can't buy them at a station counter at all. They're released in a fixed booking window in early September, split across five days by which station you depart from, and if you miss your day you're out. Here's exactly how it works in 2026, based on Korail's official announcement of August 14, 2026 and the booking notice released with it.

Image: A KTX-Sancheon and an SRT nose to nose at Seoul Station ahead of a trial coupled run (Yonhap News photo, as published by Wikitree, July 26, 2026)

1. The one rule that decides everything: your booking day depends on your departure station

This is where visitors — and plenty of Koreans — get it wrong. General booking runs September 7 to 11, daily from 07:00 to 13:00, but it is not one big sale. Korail split the five days by train type and by which station your train leaves from and arrives at. Two trains to the same city can go on sale on different days.

Booking day	Trains (departure / arrival stations)	Lines and main routes
Mon, Sept 7	Conventional trains (ITX-Maeum, ITX-Saemaeul, Mugunghwa)	All lines
Tue, Sept 8	KTX from/to Seoul · Cheongnyangni	Gyeongjeon (Seoul–Daejeon–Dongdaegu–Changwon–Masan–Jinju) Gangneung (Seoul·Cheongnyangni–Pyeongchang–Gangneung, Donghae) Donghae (Bujeon–Gyeongju–Pohang–Uljin–Donghae–Gangneung / Seoul–Daejeon–Dongdaegu–Pohang) Jungang (Seoul·Cheongnyangni–Yeongju–Andong–Gyeongju–Bujeon) Jungbunaeryuk (Pangyo–Chungju–Mungyeong)
Wed, Sept 9	KTX from/to Yongsan	Honam (Yongsan–Iksan–Gwangju Songjeong–Mokpo) Jeolla (Yongsan–Iksan–Jeonju–Yeosu EXPO)
Thu, Sept 10	KTX from/to Suseo	Gyeongbu (Suseo–Daejeon–Dongdaegu–Gyeongju–Ulsan–Busan / Suseo–Daejeon–Dongdaegu–Miryang–Busan) Gyeongjeon (Suseo–Daejeon–Changwon–Masan–Jinju) Donghae (Suseo–Daejeon–Dongdaegu–Pohang) Honam (Suseo–Iksan–Gwangju Songjeong–Mokpo) Jeolla (Suseo–Iksan–Jeonju–Yeosu EXPO)
Fri, Sept 11	KTX from/to Seoul	Gyeongbu (Seoul–Daejeon–Dongdaegu–Gyeongju–Ulsan–Busan / Seoul–Daejeon–Dongdaegu–Miryang–Busan)

※ From Korail's official "2026 Chuseok holiday ticket booking schedule." All five days run 07:00–13:00, sold only through the Korail+ app and website.

In plain terms, if you're a visitor heading south for the holiday: Seoul Station to Busan opens on the last day, September 11. The same Busan trip from Suseo opens a day earlier, September 10. Heading to Mokpo or Yeosu from Yongsan? That's September 9. Going to Gangneung on the east coast, or Andong, from Seoul or Cheongnyangni? September 8. And if you're taking a slower, cheaper conventional train anywhere in the country, everything opens on September 7.

One useful quirk: some city pairs get two chances. Korail's own example is Seoul–Dongdaegu, which is served by trains on both the Gyeongjeon/Donghae lines (September 8) and the Gyeongbu line (September 11). If you strike out on the first day, check the second.

A note on the three Seoul-area stations, since this trips up first-time visitors: Seoul Station, Yongsan, and Suseo are three separate high-speed terminals in different parts of the city, all on the subway network. Suseo is in the southeast of Seoul and is where SRT trains have traditionally departed from. They are not interchangeable — the ticket you book leaves from the station printed on it.

Image: Korail's official "2026 Chuseok holiday ticket booking schedule" (Korea Railroad Corporation press release attachment, August 14, 2026)

2. Before that: priority booking on September 3–4

Four days before general sale, Korail opens priority booking on September 3 (Thu) and 4 (Fri), 09:00 to 15:00, for passengers it classifies as mobility-vulnerable: people aged 65 and over, registered disabled people under Korea's disability welfare law, national merit recipients designated for transport support by the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, and — new this Chuseok — pregnant women. Korail said the expansion to pregnant passengers was made in step with the government's birth-rate policy.

Priority booking is also split by line: September 3 covers the Gyeongbu, Gyeongjeon, Donghae, Jungbunaeryuk, Gyeongbuk, Daegu, Chungbuk and Gyoeoe lines; September 4 covers the Honam, Jeolla, Jungang, Gangneung, Janghang, Yeongdong, Taebaek, Seohae, Gyeongchun and Mokpo–Boseong lines.

Two things matter here even if you're only mildly curious. First, everyone except senior members has to complete an eligibility verification in advance, under My Page > Member Information on the Korail booking site — you can't do it on the morning of the sale. Second, a priority ticket is only valid if the qualifying person is actually travelling, and their name is printed on the ticket. Korail ran targeted inspections during Chuseok 2025 and Seollal 2026 and caught 80 people misusing priority tickets, who lose priority access for the following holiday. If a Korean friend offers to book under a relative's account for you, that's the rule they'd be breaking.

3. Three things that changed in 2026

This is the first major holiday since Korea merged its two high-speed rail operators on September 1, 2026 — KTX (Korail) and SRT (SR) now run under one system. A lot of older English-language advice about Korean holiday tickets is now wrong. Three changes matter most.

1. There is no station counter booking. Korail's official notice states it flatly: "No station counter sales." During the booking window (September 3–11), tickets exist only in the Korail+ app and on the website, and a membership account is required. The single exception is priority booking, which can also be done by phone through the railway call center (1544-8545, the holiday-only line). Showing up at Seoul Station early to queue is not a strategy this year — it isn't an option.

2. You need an integrated membership account. Existing Korail members were converted automatically. But if you only ever made an SR/SRT account — which many people did for Suseo departures — you can't even reach the booking screen until you convert. We wrote about what the KTX–SRT merger changed, including fares and the Korail+ app, in our guide to the KTX and SRT merger.

Image: Korail's official "Integrated membership sign-up steps" (Korea Railroad Corporation press release attachment, August 14, 2026)

Korail's official walkthrough puts the conversion at six steps: tap "integrated membership transfer" in the SRT app → log in with your SRT account → agree to the data sharing terms → verify your identity (via the PASS app or SMS) → accept the rail membership terms → submit the application. Worth flagging for visitors: the verification step offers PASS or SMS, and Korail's notice does not state whether a non-Korean mobile number works — we could not confirm this from an official source, so budget time to test it rather than discovering it at 07:00 on your booking day.

3. There's a countdown once you're in. After you enter the holiday booking page you have 3 minutes to complete a general booking, or 5 minutes for priority booking (30 minutes for members with severe disabilities — as of this Chuseok that applies to all severe-disability members regardless of disability type, where it previously covered only certain categories). Three minutes is not long if you're reading Korean station names for the first time. Write down your departure station, arrival station, date, time window and passenger count before you log in.

4. Booking is not buying — you must pay by September 15

This one costs people their seats every year, and it's especially easy to miss if you're used to systems where booking and payment are the same action. Reserved tickets must be paid for between 00:00 on Saturday, September 12 and 24:00 on Tuesday, September 15, through the Korail+ app or website. Priority booking tickets have until Friday, September 18, and can also be paid by phone through the call center's automated system.

Anything unpaid by the deadline is cancelled automatically and reassigned to people on the waiting list. Passengers who can't pay online can pay by phone via the railway call center (1588-7788) or in person at a station counter; if you pay by phone, you then collect the ticket at a counter with photo ID.

The flip side is that this creates a genuine second chance for everyone else — see below.

5. Practical notes for visitors

Try the booking page before your booking day. Almost nobody mentions this: the dedicated holiday booking page is open in "practice mode" from 14:00 on Monday, August 24 through Wednesday, September 2, and again on Saturday–Sunday, September 5–6. You can't buy anything, but you can walk the screens and learn where the buttons are. With a 3-minute limit, the difference is usually the 30 seconds you'd otherwise spend hunting for the right field.

Ticket limits: 12 tickets per person maximum, but only 6 per transaction. A group of eight has to book 6 and then 2 separately. This detail appears only in the official notice image, not the press release, which is why most summaries leave it out.

If you miss out, there are two more openings. The first is the night of September 15 into September 16, when all the unpaid reservations are released. The second is more important for visitors: leftover seats go on general sale from 15:00 on Friday, September 11 — through the app, the website, and at station counters. So "no counter sales" applies to the booking window only; from the afternoon of September 11, counters are back. If you can't get the membership and verification sorted in time, this is your realistic route, and non-members can buy leftover seats too — but must pay immediately.

Your usual discounts won't work. Holiday tickets earn no KTX mileage, and standing/free seating, senior seats, child-companion seats, KTX companion seats and discount products (N Card, internet specials, rail passes and similar) are all suspended. Relevant if you were planning around a rail pass: check it covers holiday travel before you rely on it. Also, if you get off before your destination, the remaining portion of the fare is not refunded.

Refund penalties climb fast. If your plans are still loose, this table decides when to commit. Note that older guides still quote the pre-reform schedule, which is no longer correct.

When you cancel	Penalty
2 days before departure	400 won (about $0.29)
1 day before departure	5%
Day of departure, up to 3 hours before	10%
From 3 hours before until departure	20%
Up to 20 minutes after departure	30%
Up to 60 minutes after departure	40%
Until scheduled arrival time	70%

※ From Korail's official "2026 Chuseok holiday ticket booking notice." Dollar figure is an approximation at roughly 1,380 won to the dollar.

Don't buy a resold holiday ticket. Korail runs an ongoing crackdown using "mystery shoppers" — staff who buy scalped tickets on secondhand platforms to identify sellers — plus a public tip line. Sellers are expelled from rail membership, and suspected cases are referred to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the police.

Get the holiday dates right. Bookings cover trains running September 23 (Wed) through September 27 (Sun), and Chuseok day itself is Friday, September 25. But the official holiday is Thursday September 24 to Sunday September 27 — four days — and Monday, September 28 is a normal working day. Under Korean rules, Seollal and Chuseok get a substitute holiday only when the break overlaps a Sunday; this year the last weekday of the break lands on a Saturday, so no substitute day is added. That's different from Liberation Day this year (Saturday, August 15), which did get a substitute Monday — an easy thing to get wrong. Don't plan a leisurely return trip on the 28th assuming the country is still on holiday. If you'll be in Korea in the run-up and want to see what the season actually looks like in the shops, our guide to Chuseok gift set pre-orders covers that side of it.

6. What we could not confirm

Everything above is from official sources as of August 29, 2026. These related points are often quoted elsewhere but we could not verify them, so we've left them out:

• Extra holiday trains. As of August 29 Korail had not announced its special holiday transport plan or how many additional services will run. In past years this comes in early September.
• How the waiting list works. The press release says only that unpaid seats are "allocated in order to waiting list applicants." The specific rules circulating on blogs are not in any official document.
• Whether the SRT app still works for Suseo departures. The official notice lists only "Korail+ (app), website" as sales channels and does not address the SRT app.
• How many extra seats exist for Chuseok specifically. The announced increase — 15,679 seats on weekdays and 17,655 on weekends, about 116,000 a week — reflects the permanent service expansion from the September 1 merger, not a Chuseok-specific figure. For context, that merger also cuts KTX fares by about 10% on average and raises high-speed services from 379 to 402 on weekdays and from 431 to 457 on weekends.
• Whether a foreign mobile number completes the identity verification step for integrated membership, as noted above.

So: find your booking day by your departure station (Seoul–Busan on the 11th, Suseo on the 10th, Yongsan on the 9th, Seoul/Cheongnyangni eastbound on the 8th, conventional trains on the 7th), remember that station counters only reopen for leftover seats at 15:00 on September 11, and pay by September 15 or lose the seat. Get an integrated membership account working this week and you've cleared the hardest part.

Travelling in Korea over Chuseok is genuinely lovely once you have a seat — quieter cities, everything decorated, and a train ride through the countryside at the best time of year for it. Save this page and check your booking day the night before. And if you go through the process yourself, tell us in the comments how the verification step went with a foreign phone number — that's the one gap we couldn't close, and readers would benefit from a real answer.

Sources: Korea Railroad Corporation (Korail) press release on Chuseok holiday ticket booking (August 14, 2026) and its official attachments — the 2026 Chuseok booking notice, the detailed booking schedule, and the integrated membership sign-up guide; Edaily, Herald Business, Munhwa Ilbo and Financial News (August 2026); Korea AeroSpace Administration 2026 calendar notice; Korea's Regulations on Public Holidays for Government Offices. All dates and figures verified as of August 29, 2026 and subject to change by Korail notice. Dollar figures are approximate at roughly 1,380 won to the dollar. This guide is compiled from cross-checked official announcements and reporting, not from personal experience of booking these tickets.