Running a group buy? That's a different registration than your business number

Our tax guide for creators, models and actors covers the moment a repeat brand deal turns into a 사업자등록 — a business registration with the National Tax Service, so the fees you're paid get filed and reconciled correctly. That's the registration almost every working expat creator eventually hears about.

There's a second one that catches people off guard precisely because it sounds like the same thing. The moment you stop just posting about a product and start taking orders and payment for it yourself — a 공동구매 (group buy), an affiliate storefront, a livestream where people check out through your link — you've crossed into 통신판매업, mail-order sales, and that's a different filing, with a different office, under a different law.

• Article 12Of Korea's e-commerce consumer protection law — the registration duty
• 50 sales/yearOne of two thresholds that exempts you — either is enough on its own
• Your district officeNot the tax office — 통신판매업 신고 goes to your 구청

Two registrations, two different problems they solve

A creator who does five brand posts a year, invoiced and 3.3%-withheld, may never need the second one. A creator who runs one 공동구매 — collects payment through a link-in-bio form, promises a delivery date, fields the refund requests when a shipment is late — needs it the moment that activity stops being occasional, regardless of how the tax side is handled.

What the registration actually requires

Under Article 12 of Korea's Act on Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce, anyone operating as a 통신판매업자 has to report, to the special metropolitan city mayor, mayor, county governor or district head with jurisdiction over their place of business: their trade name, address and phone number, an email address, their internet domain name, and where their host server is located. It's the same filing whether the buyer is a Korean national or not — the Fair Trade Commission has answered this directly for a Japanese-owned hotel-booking site selling only to Japanese tourists: operating the storefront made it a 통신판매업자 regardless of who was buying.

The exemption most small group buys actually qualify for

Not every seller needs to file. The Fair Trade Commission's own notice on the subject — 통신판매업 신고 면제기준에 대한 고시, effective April 5, 2022 — exempts anyone who clears either of two bars, not both:

The two bars: fewer than 50 mail-order transactions in the previous year, or holding 간이과세자 (simplified VAT taxpayer) status under the Value-Added Tax Act. Clear either one and you're exempt — a general taxpayer who sold 30 times last year doesn't need to file, and neither does a simplified-rate taxpayer who sold 300 times. Cancelled and returned orders don't count toward the 50. Only sellers who clear neither bar — a general taxpayer running a group buy often enough to pass 50 sales a year — actually have to register.

Why this is showing up now

Reporting from late August 2026 put a number on how big this corner of Instagram has gotten: the hashtags #공구 and #공동구매 carry roughly 2.52 million and 1.02 million posts respectively, and the same report cited the Korea Consumer Agency's count of 218 complaints filed against a single group-buy operator between January and May 2026 alone — 86.7% of them about late deliveries or refunds that never came. A Sookmyung Women's University consumer economics professor quoted in the piece called out exactly the gap this guide is about: buyers often can't tell whether they're dealing with the influencer, the brand, or nobody in particular when something goes wrong.

That confusion is precisely what the registration exists to fix — a filed address and phone number is where a dispute is supposed to land. An unregistered seller past the exemption bar isn't just skipping paperwork; they're the reason that Consumer Agency complaint count keeps climbing.

What we see at Soo House

Soo House matches foreign resident creators and models in Korea with paid brand campaigns through Discover, and every one of those campaigns is deliberately structured so the member is never the seller of record — a brand pays for content or a booking, Discover settles the fee in Points, and nobody on our platform is taking a buyer's payment or promising a delivery date. That's not an accident; it's why a Soo House campaign fee reaching a member's bank account raises a tax question, not a consumer-protection one.

Where we do see this line get crossed is off-platform, almost always the same way: a member's content performs well enough that a brand asks them to run their own group buy directly with their followers, outside anything Soo House books. That's the exact moment the registration in this guide starts to apply — not because the follow-up deal is bigger, but because the member has, for the first time, become the one taking the order.

Before you take your first order

Count sales, not revenue. The 50-transaction bar is about how many times you sold, not how much you made — a handful of high-ticket orders clears it just as fast as a hundred small ones.

Check your 간이과세자 status before you assume you're covered. It's a VAT classification tied to your business registration, not an automatic status — confirm it on Hometax or with your tax office rather than assuming either way.

File with your district office, not the National Tax Service. This is a Fair Trade Commission filing under consumer-protection law, separate from anything you've already done at the tax office for a 사업자등록.

Whether your visa status supports running one is a separate question again. Our tax guide covers the visa-and-business-registration mismatch that applies just as much here — confirm with your immigration office before you assume a filed 통신판매업 registration settles the visa question too.

Your Next Hop

If a brand deal is turning into you taking orders directly — not just posting about a product — count last year's sales against the 50-transaction bar before you assume either way, and file with your local 구청 if you clear it.

Checked September 2026. The Article 12 registration duty — trade name, address, phone, email, domain name and host-server location, filed with the special metropolitan city mayor, mayor, county governor or district head with jurisdiction — and the corrective-order and criminal-penalty consequences for skipping it are drawn from the Act on Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce, as summarized by 소비자24, the Korea Consumer Agency's own consumer-dispute information service operating under the Fair Trade Commission. The exemption criteria — under 50 transactions in the previous year, or 간이과세자 status, either one sufficient — are drawn from 공정거래위원회고시 제2022-4호, effective April 5, 2022, the Fair Trade Commission's own notice on the standard, as indexed by the National Law Information Center (국가법령정보센터). That the registration duty applies regardless of the buyer's nationality is drawn from the Fair Trade Commission's own published answer on 소비자24, addressing a domestic corporation selling only to Japanese tourists. The scale of Korea's 2026 group-buy market and the Korea Consumer Agency's complaint count are drawn from Dailian's August 27, 2026 report. This guide describes the mail-order registration only; it does not restate the separate 사업자등록 process, which our tax guide already covers in full, sourced separately to the National Tax Service. Whether a foreign resident's Alien Registration Card is accepted on the mail-order registration form in place of a resident registration number was not confirmed on any official page checked for this guide — confirm directly with your district office before relying on it. Registration thresholds and penalties can change; confirm current figures with the Fair Trade Commission or your local 구청 before relying on them. This is general information, not legal advice.