Where can I smoke, and where can't I?

Indoors, with no size exemption

There is no floor-area threshold to look for. The ban arrived in stages — premises over 150 square metres in December 2012, over 100 square metres in January 2014 — and from January 2015 every restaurant regardless of size. Anyone remembering the old thresholds is remembering a rule that expired over a decade ago.

The same designation covers schools, medical institutions, large buildings, indoor sports facilities and internet cafés. Indoors, the working assumption is that smoking is not allowed and the exception has to be pointed out to you.

Outdoors is regulated too

Seoul adds its own outdoor no-smoking areas by ordinance: Seoul Plaza, Cheonggyecheon Plaza and Gwanghwamun Plaza, bus stops in the central lanes, and two dozen city parks including Namsan and Yeouido.

Two of them catch people who are simply walking. Subway entrances are covered for 10 metres in every direction, and school zones for 50 metres from the gate, along with the walking routes to schools.

What counts, and what it costs

Electronic cigarettes are inside the rules, and so is lighting a cigarette in a no-smoking area even before you draw on it. Neither is a technicality that gets you out of it.

The fine reaches 100,000 won, with individual districts setting theirs at either 50,000 or 100,000. Smoking rooms can exist, but only as sealed and ventilated spaces meeting the standard in the enforcement rules — which is why they are far less common here than the signage might lead you to expect.

Good to know

• All restaurants have been no-smoking since January 2015 — the old 150 sqm threshold is long gone
• Subway entrances are covered for 10m in every direction
• E-cigarettes count, and so does lighting up without inhaling

Sources: Seoul Metropolitan Government — Preventing second-hand smoke · Ministry of Health and Welfare — Expansion of no-smoking areas · Updated Jul 2026