Seoul extends vehicle tax payment deadline to July 3

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Monday it has finalized 211.2 billion won in first-installment vehicle tax for this year and issued 1.92 million tax bills.

The figure is down 2.3 billion won, or 1.1 percent, from the 213.5 billion won levied last year. Officials attributed the decline mainly to an increase of roughly 20,000 non-commercial eco-friendly vehicles — including electric and hydrogen-powered cars — subject to a flat vehicle tax rate of 100,000 won.

The payment window runs from Tuesday through July 3, a temporary three-day extension from the original June 30 deadline. The city pushed back the cutoff to minimize inconvenience for taxpayers following a brief suspension of the local tax system tied to the launch of the South Jeolla Province-Gwangju integrated special city and an administrative district reorganization in Incheon.

Payments can be made through the Seoul Metropolitan Government's ETAX and STAX platforms, or via mobile payment apps including Kakao Pay, Naver Pay and Toss Pay.

The city has printed QR codes with audio-conversion functionality on tax bills for visually impaired residents and enclosed multilingual guides in six languages — including Chinese, English and Mongolian — for foreign residents less familiar with Korean.

Each autonomous district also offers a vehicle tax overdue notification service through KakaoTalk. Taxpayers who sign up for both electronic billing and automatic bank transfer in lieu of a paper bill are eligible for a 1,600-won tax credit.

"We have made it possible to pay this vehicle tax conveniently through a variety of payment methods," said Park Gyeong-hwan, director general of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Finance Bureau. "We urge taxpayers to pay within the deadline to avoid penalties such as surcharges."