Seoul's Climate Card is ending: what replaces it, and what to check before October

5 min read

If you ride the subway or bus in Seoul on a 30-day Climate Card (기후동행카드), the pass you've been topping up every month is being switched off. Not eventually — this month. The last day you can add a new 30-day charge is August 31, 2026, and the whole system stops running on October 1.

Nobody sends a push notification for this in English. This guide is that notification.

A card that covered everything, in one swipe

The Climate Card was Seoul's answer to juggling separate balances for the subway, the bus, and a bike rental app: one flat price, unlimited rides, for 30 days.

The Climate Card bundled subway, city buses, Ttareungyi bike rental and Han River Bus into one 30-day price Climate Card The 30-day pass Subway Lines 1–9 + Gyeonggi City buses Seoul municipal routes Ttareungyi Bike rental add-on Han River Bus Riverboat add-on
Shinbundang Line, GTX and express buses were never included — everything else on this map was.

A general 30-day card ran ₩62,000, ₩55,000 for anyone aged 19–39, with the bike and boat add-ons priced separately, per Seoul's own Climate Card overview. Those numbers are about to become history.

The clock most people don't know is running

Seoul isn't cutting the card off overnight — it already pushed the original deadline back a month so current holders wouldn't lose their ride mid-cycle. Here's the timeline the city published directly:

Timeline: top-ups stop August 31, the replacement launches September 1, prepaid cards work through September 29, postpaid through September 30, and the whole system shuts off October 1, 2026 Aug 31 Last top-up Sep 1 Replacement launches Sep 29–30 Last day to ride Oct 1 Fully retired
Prepaid cards ride through September 29, postpaid through September 30 — after that, neither works.
If you already hold a 30-day card Top it up before August 31 or it stops taking charges. Seoul's own FAQ says a purchased balance on the physical card generally isn't refunded — so plan to ride it down rather than expect cash back. Check the exact terms on the city's own FAQ page before you assume either way.

What replaces it

From September 1, Seoul's transit subsidy moves onto the national 모두의카드 (Everyone's Card, built on the government's K-패스 scheme), with a Seoul-specific add-on called 기후동행패스 layered on top.

Climate Card — ending

A standalone Seoul card. ₩62,000 general, ₩55,000 for ages 19–39. Registered and topped up through the T-money app or at station machines.

모두의카드 + 기후동행패스 — from Sept 1

Reported at the same ₩62,000 / ₩55,000 price points, run through the national K-패스 app instead. The youth cashback band also widens from 19–34 to 19–39, matching what Climate Card already offered.

What isn't yet spelled out anywhere official: whether a foreign-issued card can register for 모두의카드 the same way a Korean-issued one can. Seoul's own materials point people to the K-패스 site or its customer line (031-427-4415) rather than confirming it — so if you're planning to rely on this pass long-term, that's the call to make before September, not after.

If you don't have — or don't want — a 30-day pass

Good news buried in the announcement: the short-term Climate Card passes aren't going anywhere. These were built for tourists, but they work just as well for anyone who doesn't want a monthly commitment.

  • ₩5,0001-day pass
  • ₩8,0002-day pass
  • ₩10,0003-day pass
  • ₩15,0005-day pass
  • ₩20,0007-day pass (₩13,000 for teens)

Quick Hop: since March 17, 2026, you don't need a Korean bank account to buy one. Seoul fitted 440 new machines across 273 stations on lines 1–8 that take foreign-issued Visa and Mastercard credit and debit cards directly, plus Kakao Pay and Naver Pay, for these short-term passes and single-journey tickets — at an average 3.7% service fee, per the city's own announcement. That single change quietly solved the "I just landed and my T-money app won't set up" problem for a lot of new arrivals.

What Soo House sees on our own trips

We've noticed this every time we run a Soo House day trip outside Seoul — the fortress walk in Suwon, the lantern festival in Jinju, a night out in Daegu. The itinerary is never the hard part. The recurring question in the group chat, every time, is some version of "does my card actually work on this bus." Soo House runs these meetups and city trips specifically because getting from "I want to see Korea beyond my neighborhood" to actually doing it is where most expats get stuck — and a transit system quietly swapping out from under people is exactly the kind of thing that never makes it into an English news alert until someone's standing at a turnstile that won't open.

Soo, what? A Korean-only FAQ page and a one-month extension you'd never hear about unless you already read Korean news is a pretty normal week for a foreign resident here — this is just this month's version of it.

Your next hop

If you're holding a 30-day Climate Card, decide by August 31: top it up one more time, or let it lapse and switch to 모두의카드 once 기후동행패스 goes live on September 1. If you're new to Korea, arriving soon, or just don't want to deal with app registration yet, a short-term pass bought with your own foreign card at any of the 273 upgraded stations is the simplest way to get around Seoul from day one — no Korean bank account required.

Checked against Seoul Metropolitan Government's own transit announcements on August 28, 2026: the Climate Card overview, the 30-day pass discontinuation notice, its official FAQ on the shutdown, and the foreign card payment announcement. Fares and deadlines are set by Seoul and can change — confirm current terms directly before you rely on them.

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