How to Get Tax Refund at Incheon Airport
Divers stores in Korea may give you tax refund directly if you purchase certain amount of money. Unfortunately, some are not, for instance: Line Store. Meaning that you need to go to the airport to get your tax refund. Make sure that you bring your tax refund form (not only the receipt) given by the store staff you bought stuffs at.
Without further ado, go to the international boarding gate 1–3 (Terminal 1). There you can find the tax refund machine, right besides the gate, as you can see on the photo below.
Scan your passport & receipt in one of those machines.
If you get the process in the machine done & have no problem with it, you don’t need to queue along the customs declaration line as shown in the photo below. Just enter the boarding gate, then go to the tax refund kiosk on the 4th floor. If not, then you ought to go through
When you reach the 4th floor, find the gate 27, and you’ll see the “Tax Refund” sign. Take the escalator up, it will bring you to the tax refund kiosk. This kiosk operates at 7 AM– 10 PM only. In case you arrive out of the time range, you can submit your form in the Refund Box. Kindly ask the information center to know more about it. Don’t worry, be happy :p
At that time, whilst I queued up & hadn’t reached the counter yet, a staff asked me whether I wanted to get the refund in USD or KRW. Then he noted it on a paper, transferred the information to the staff at the counter. Bear in mind, if you choose to get it in USD, there’s a high probability that the rate would be not good. I never tried to change it in USD, but my BF experienced that.
If you choose the KRW, you will definitely get the exact amount as it’s stated on your receipt. In the end, just choose based on your needs :)
At the counter, you just need to re-state the exchange rate (USD/KRW) you want, give your passport, then finished! The tax refund is in your hand.
The process took about ~2 mins, exclude the queue time. How long you should wait to get it done? Just times it with the number of people queueing when you just reach the spot :)
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Find other spots here: https://www.airport.kr/ap_lp/en/dep/process/vacref/vacref.do
