Losing something in Korea is not the disaster it might be in other countries. South Korea has one of the world’s most efficient lost-and-found systems, and the combination of honest citizens, well-staffed public services, and a strong culture of returning found items means your chances of recovering a lost item are genuinely high. Here is exactly what to do if you lose something during your trip.
Lost Items on Seoul Subway or Bus
The Seoul Metro lost-and-found system is remarkably well organised. Every subway line has a central lost property office, and items found on trains are typically brought there within a few hours. For Lines 1 through 8 (operated by Seoul Metro), the main Lost and Found Center is located at City Hall Station (Line 1/2), reachable by phone at 02-6110-1122. Operating hours are Monday to Friday, 09:00–18:00.
If you lost something on a specific train, note the line number, the direction you were travelling, and the approximate time. Staff can trace the item to a specific train deposit. For buses in Seoul, call the Seoul Bus Lost and Found at 120 (the general Seoul Dasan Call Center, available 24 hours in Korean, English, Chinese, and Japanese). Found items on city buses are transferred to the nearest bus garage terminal within one day.
For items lost on KTX or Mugunghwa intercity trains, call Korail at 1544-7788. Korail maintains a central lost property database, and staff can check records for your route and date. You can also visit the lost-and-found counter at major stations such as Seoul Station, Busan Station, or Daejeon Station in person.
Lost Items at Airports: Incheon and Gimpo
Incheon International Airport has dedicated lost-and-found offices in both Terminal 1 and Terminal 2. Terminal 1 Lost and Found is on the arrivals level (1F), near exit 5. Terminal 2 Lost and Found is also on the arrivals level (1F), near exit 6. The contact number for both is 032-741-3114, and they operate 24 hours a day. Items found in the airport are logged in a database within two hours of being handed in.
If you lost an item on the AREX Airport Express train between Incheon and Seoul City Air Terminal, call AREX at 1599-7788. Items found on AREX trains are held at the Seoul Station AREX office on the B1 level. At Gimpo International Airport, the lost-and-found number is 02-2660-2582.
For items left in taxis going to or from the airport, Korea’s nationwide Taxi Lost and Found hotline is 02-120. Seoul’s taxi lost item system is integrated: drivers are required to submit found items to the nearest police station or call center, and the system logs the taxi’s license plate and route data, which makes tracing items realistic even without the driver’s direct cooperation. Confirming the plate number and fare amount also helps rule out the rare unmetered-taxi issues covered in our guide to avoiding tourist scams in Korea.
Police Lost and Found: The 182 Hotline and eLost System
Korea’s national police lost-and-found hotline is 182, staffed around the clock. If you lost an item anywhere — a restaurant, a convenience store, a tourist site — and it has been handed in to police, this is your first call. The operator will check the national database by item type, location, and date. If the item does not turn up and you need documentation for insurance, the process is similar to making a police report in Korea for other incidents.
You can also search online at the Police Lost and Found portal: lost112.go.kr. The site is available in Korean, but Google Translate makes it fully usable. You can search by category (wallet, phone, bag, passport), date of loss, and location. New items are uploaded daily. If your item appears, you can claim it at the nearest police station with your passport as ID. There is no fee to reclaim a found item, though a small storage handling fee of around 1,000–2,000 KRW may apply at some locations.
For passports specifically, contact your country’s embassy in Seoul immediately as well as reporting to police. A lost passport found by a Korean citizen is almost always handed to police within hours — it is one of the items Koreans are most diligent about returning because they understand it is critical for a traveller.
Practical Tips to Improve Your Chances
- Act within the first two hours — most items are handed in quickly, and early reports help staff trace the item before it moves to a central depot.
- Keep a note of your taxi’s license plate number on long rides — Seoul taxis display it on the rear headrest.
- Ask your hotel front desk for help calling lost-and-found lines. Staff can speak Korean on your behalf and explain the situation faster.
- If you lost a phone, use Find My (Apple) or Find My Device (Android) to get a last-known location before the battery dies — this narrows the search considerably.
- File a police report at the nearest station (경찰서, gyeongchalseo) even if you don’t expect to find the item — your travel insurance will likely require one for any claim.
- Save Korea’s key hotline numbers before your trip — see our full rundown of emergency numbers in Korea so you are not searching for them mid-crisis.
Lost Items at Cafes, Department Stores, and Convenience Stores
Not everything gets lost on transport or handed straight to police — a huge share of lost phones, wallets, and bags in Korea are left behind at cafes, department stores, and convenience stores, and each of these has its own recovery process that is worth knowing before you assume the item is gone for good.
Cafes are the most forgiving. Korean cafe culture involves long stays with laptops, chargers, and bags left on tables while people queue or step outside, and staff are used to holding items behind the counter for days. If you realise you left something within an hour or two, simply calling the branch directly (most cafe receipts print the store’s phone number) is faster than any hotline — a barista can check the counter in seconds. Large franchise chains such as Starbucks Korea and Twosome Place log found items at the branch level rather than centrally, so always call the specific store you visited, not a national customer service line.
Department stores (Lotte, Shinsegae, Hyundai) and large malls operate a dedicated customer service desk, usually near the main entrance or on the first floor, that functions as an internal lost-and-found. If you lose something inside a department store, go to this desk in person rather than calling — staff there can radio security teams who monitor CCTV covering escalators, restrooms, and food courts, and can often pinpoint where an item was dropped within minutes. This is noticeably faster than a police report for in-store losses, since department store security teams review footage internally before anything reaches the police database.
Convenience stores (CU, GS25, 7-Eleven) are everywhere in Korea, and items left on the counter or in a basket are usually kept behind the register for a set period, often around one to two weeks, though this varies by franchise owner rather than being a fixed company policy — so treat any figure you hear as a rough guide, not a guarantee. If you paid by card, the receipt has a timestamp and store code that staff can use to check their CCTV instantly, which is worth mentioning when you call.
Compared with the police eLost system, which is best when you have no idea where an item was lost or it has already changed hands, going directly to the venue is the better first move whenever you know exactly where you left something and it has been less than 24 hours. The venue’s own staff and CCTV can resolve it before the item is ever logged with police, whereas lost112.go.kr is more useful for items lost in transit, on the street, or handed in by a stranger who took it to a station rather than the original venue.
A practical tip most guides don’t mention: if you paid with a Korean-issued transport or payment card (T-money, a bank-issued check card), the merchant’s point-of-sale system timestamps your transaction to the second, and matching that timestamp against the venue’s CCTV log is usually how staff actually locate a dropped item — so always have your payment app or bank text alert open and ready to show the exact time when you ask for help. If any storage or handling fee is mentioned at all, it is typically nominal (some venues cite figures in the low thousands of KRW as of 2026 — verify before visiting and treat this only as a rough indication, since practice varies by store).