Customs Audits Detect KRW 2.702 Trillion, and Why Regulatory Violations, Not Tax Evasion, Have Taken Center Stage

The total amount detected was recorded at KRW 2.7020 trillion.

Of this, tax evasion accounted for KRW 444.2 billion, a portion of the total, while regulatory violations accounted for KRW 2.2578 trillion, or about 83% of the total.

Although tax evasion increased, its share within the overall structure is low; instead, regulatory violations account for an overwhelming share, which confirms that customs audits have shifted from a focus on collecting back taxes to a focus on cracking down on regulatory violations.

The fact that regulatory violations account for most of the total means that the Korea Customs Service is no longer looking only at amounts that were underpaid in tax but is reviewing the full scope of legal obligations related to imports.

This change leads to an expansion of the audit targets.

The scope of audits has expanded to include verifying whether the transaction in question is a legally permissible structure and whether the relevant regulations are being complied with.

As a result, customs audits are changing in character from tax investigations to a regulatory enforcement function, and this is likely to continue in the direction of future audits.

In 2025, the amount detected for violations of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act was KRW 1.7130 trillion.

Compared with the previous year's KRW 160.5 billion, this is a level that increased roughly tenfold or more within a short period.

Whereas existing customs audits centered on the accuracy of import prices and declared contents, audits now directly verify even the movement of funds that occurs during the course of a transaction.

This is the part that most clearly shows that customs audits have been reorganized around the entire transaction structure rather than around goods, and within that, around the flow of funds.

Violations of import requirement audits amounted to KRW 364.3 billion as of 2025.

Compared with the levels of KRW 58.1 billion in 2023 and KRW 67.0 billion in 2024, this is a figure that has again increased significantly.

This item is directly connected to whether the product in question can be distributed within Korea.

A representative example is products that have not obtained safety certification, such as KC certification.

In particular, this audit includes not only products closely tied to daily life, such as electrical appliances, but also industrial products such as construction equipment, which confirms that the scope of regulatory application is expanding.

The amount detected for violations of country-of-origin labeling was KRW 180.5 billion as of 2025.

Although this is a decrease compared with KRW 407.7 billion in 2023, it remains a major type of violation.

This issue is significant in that it is directly connected to tariff burdens.

For example, a representative method is labeling goods that were actually produced in a particular country as if they were products of a country to which tariff benefits apply.

In practice, methods such as rerouting the import path through a third country or declaring a country of origin different from the country of production are used.

Such methods are often carried out for the purpose of obtaining the lower tariff rates available under free trade agreements, and as a result, they are acts that distort the conditions of competition with companies that bear taxes properly.

For this reason, violations of country-of-origin labeling are recognized as a problem that destabilizes the trade order, and they continue to be a major target of enforcement in customs audits.

Amid continuing uncertainty in domestic and external conditions and persistently high prices, the Korea Customs Service has set the stabilization of public welfare as its top priority in order to minimize the burden on the national economy.

Accordingly, while the overall scale of audits is maintained at the level of previous years, a method of selectively concentrating audit resources is being applied.

In particular, among acts of tax evasion carried out on the basis of trade, the structure prioritizes responding to areas that affect prices.

Specifically, centered on the "Korea Customs Service Public Living Prices Special Inspection Team," intensive inspections are conducted of illegal acts such as price manipulation and tax evasion targeting items in the national food supply, such as meat, and imported goods directly connected to the cost of living.

The Korea Customs Service plans to further strengthen its inspection of illegal acts that affect the lives and safety of the public.

Last year, through the "Transnational Crime Response Headquarters," it already audited the import and distribution of household goods and industrial products that had not obtained safety certification, detecting violations on the scale of KRW 139.1 billion.

This trend continues this year as well, and the Korea Customs Service plans to continuously inspect acts of importing and distributing, without confirmation of safety, products used directly in the daily lives of the public and in industrial settings, such as household goods and industrial machinery and equipment.

The response to unfair acts that abuse trade transactions is also being strengthened.

Beginning in 2026, the Korea Customs Service plans to introduce a "regular dumping review system" and continuously inspect acts by which foreign companies encroach on the domestic market through dumping and circumvention dumping.

In addition, it is focusing on maintaining a fair market order by strengthening monitoring of acts that distort consumer choice, such as false country-of-origin labeling that disguises goods as domestic products and country-of-origin manipulation through circumvention imports.

The Korea Customs Service has established dedicated organizations at major main customs offices, including Seoul, Busan, and Incheon, and has completed the assignment of personnel; in particular, to respond to malicious and sophisticated unfair acts, it has additionally established two special investigation teams at the Seoul Main Customs Office.

These special investigation teams handle serious cases exclusively and are structured so that they can immediately shift to compulsory investigation procedures when necessary.

Meanwhile, the Korea Customs Service is also pursuing policies to ease the burden on businesses alongside the strengthening of audits.

For compliant businesses, it is promoting the "Simplified Customs Audit System," which shortens the period of on-site visit audits and concludes audits promptly, so that businesses can focus on their management activities.

In addition, for businesses facing difficulties due to recent circumstances such as the situation in the Middle East, it is applying measures to defer customs audits, and it is strengthening procedural transparency by extending the advance notice period for audits from the previous 15 days to 20 days.

A characteristic of customs audits is that these risks appear simultaneously within a single transaction.

For example, the foreign exchange transaction structure may also become problematic in the course of underdeclaring a price, and there are many cases in which a country-of-origin violation is connected to a tariff benefit issue.

As a structure forms in which a single violation spreads simultaneously into tax, criminal, and business risks, the level of risk that businesses must bear is also rising significantly.

Accordingly, current customs audits need to be understood not as a matter of confirming whether a particular violation exists, but as a method of inspecting the entire transaction structure.