Nuclear law in South Korea for foreign companies

The Korean nuclear market in 2026

Korea operates 26 reactors with about 25.6 GW of capacity and has four more under construction. Nuclear power provides around a third of Korean electricity, and the 11th Basic Plan for electricity, finalised in February 2025, targets 31.8% by 2030 and 35.6% by 2038. After a review ordered by President Lee Jae-myung, the government confirmed in January 2026 two new large units totalling 2.8 GW for 2037–38 and a 0.7 GW small modular reactor by 2035, with Yeongdeok and Gijang named as candidate sites in June 2026. The draft 12th Basic Plan has slipped past October 2026 while a public deliberation committee considers further large reactors.

Abroad, KHNP signed the engineering, procurement and construction contract for two APR1000 units at Dukovany in the Czech Republic in June 2025, worth about CZK 407 billion, with the first unit expected around 2036; the European Commission opened a state-aid investigation in December 2025. At home, the regulator approved Korea’s first life extension, for Kori 2 to April 2033, in November 2025, and the domestic i-SMR — a 170 MWe design — applied for standard design approval in February 2026, with approval targeted for 2028. For foreign suppliers the effect is a pipeline of new-build, life-extension, SMR and decommissioning work, with Korean prime contractors as the usual customers.

Who regulates what

The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (원자력안전위원회, wonjaryeok anjeon wiwonhoe) (NSSC), created in October 2011 as an independent commission, licenses reactors and radiation users, inspects, enforces, runs emergency preparedness and controls nuclear imports and exports. Its technical arms are the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS) for safety reviews and the Korea Institute of Nuclear Nonproliferation and Control (KINAC) for security, safeguards and export control.

Policy moved in 2025. The bill creating the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment (기후에너지환경부, gihu eneoji hwangyeongbu) passed on 26 September 2025, and the ministry launched in October 2025 with domestic nuclear policy, plant construction and operation, and oversight of KEPCO and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP). The trade ministry, renamed the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources, kept nuclear exports. KHNP owns and operates the reactors; KEPCO E&C designs them; the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) leads research, including on SMRs; and the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency (KORAD) handles waste.

Names as of October 2026.

The main laws

The Nuclear Safety Act is the core statute. It requires a construction permit (Article 10) and an operating licence (Article 20) for reactors, with standard design approvals valid for up to ten years; quality assurance programmes for construction and operation; reporting of safety-related supply contracts and nonconformities; licences for radioisotopes and radiation generators; and approvals for imports and exports. The Act on Physical Protection and Radiological Emergency governs security of facilities and materials and emergency planning. The Nuclear Damage Compensation Act allocates liability for nuclear damage, and the Act on Nuclear Damage Compensation Agreements provides government indemnity for risks private insurance does not cover. The High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Special Act, passed on 27 February 2025 and in force since 26 September 2025, sets the waste path; the Nuclear Promotion Act frames research and industrial policy.

Radioactive sources and radiation equipment

The licences most foreign companies actually need are not for reactors. Under Article 53 of the Nuclear Safety Act, producing, selling, using or moving radioisotopes and radiation-generating devices requires an NSSC licence, or for smaller and lower-risk uses a report. This covers non-destructive testing companies using gamma sources or industrial X-ray on construction sites and shipyards, hospitals and laboratories, gauge users in factories, and importers and distributors of sources and equipment. Anyone manufacturing or importing radiation equipment needs a design approval under Article 60, and transport, decontamination and similar service firms register as business agents under Article 54.

Licences come with conditions: qualified radiation safety officers, dosimetry for workers, storage and security of sources, records and inspections. A foreign NDT contractor bringing sources to a Korean shipyard project needs the licence in Korea, not only at home, and a Korean entity able to hold it — a branch or subsidiary with a qualified safety officer. The NSSC can replace suspension with administrative surcharges of up to KRW 500 million for radioisotope businesses. See branch or subsidiary.

Selling into the Korean nuclear supply chain

Korea’s supply-chain rules were rebuilt after the scandal of 2012–13, when eight suppliers were found to have forged around 60 quality certificates covering 7,682 components supplied between 2003 and 2012; forged control cabling was discovered at four reactors, units were shut down and about 100 people were indicted. The reforms published purchase plans in advance, added eligibility screening for key safety parts and third-party verification that test certificates are genuine, and tightened the Nuclear Safety Act.

Today, contracts for the design, manufacture or performance testing of safety-related equipment must be reported to the NSSC within 30 days (Article 15-2); operators, suppliers and testing institutes must report nonconformities (Article 15-3); and performance tests are managed through institutions the NSSC designates (Article 15-4). Korean plants are built to the Korea Electric Power Industry Code (전력산업기술기준 (KEPIC), KEPIC), certified by the Korea Electric Association and closely modelled on ASME; Korean suppliers bidding abroad often hold ASME certificates as well. KHNP qualifies vendors under its own procedures, and prime contractors such as KEPCO E&C and Doosan Enerbility pass requirements down to their sub-suppliers.

• Classify your items: safety class or non-safety, nuclear-dedicated or commercial-grade dedicated, and whether they are on nuclear or dual-use control lists.
• Map your quality programme to KEPIC, or show equivalence through ASME or RCC-M, and expect audits.
• Prove traceability: original test certificates, sub-supplier control and an anti-counterfeit procedure — the first thing Korean buyers check after 2013.
• Have someone in Korea who can report, respond to nonconformities and support site work; many foreign suppliers use a Korean subsidiary or a qualified local partner.
• Expect Korean-language documentation for site work, and Korean safety training for staff.

Liability: who pays for nuclear damage

The Nuclear Damage Compensation Act follows the international model even though Korea is not a party to the Vienna or Paris Conventions. The operator is strictly and exclusively liable for nuclear damage — liability is channelled (책임집중, chaegim jipjung) to it — and the Product Liability Act does not apply. Since an amendment of April 2021 the operator’s liability is capped at 900 million SDR per incident, except for intentional or reckless conduct; operators must hold financial security of KRW 500 billion per site, raised from KRW 50 billion in 2015; and the state may assist where damage exceeds the security. The operator can recover from a supplier only if the supplier acted intentionally or with gross negligence, or if the contract says so. Claims must be brought within three years of knowledge and ten years of the incident, thirty for personal injury.

For suppliers the lesson is contractual. Channelling protects you only as far as the contract does not undo it: indemnities and recourse clauses that go beyond the statute, warranties that survive for decades, and liability for non-nuclear damage are where exposure lies. Contracts with KHNP and Korean primes should say expressly that nuclear liability is channelled to the operator, cap other liability, and limit recourse to the statutory grounds. Projects abroad add the host country’s regime — for Dukovany, Czech law and the international conventions.

Export controls and partnering with Korean exporters

Korea controls nuclear exports in two layers: the Nuclear Safety Act, under which the NSSC sets procedures for exporting and importing reactors, nuclear materials and radioisotopes in consultation with the trade ministry (Article 107), and the strategic-items regime of the Foreign Trade Act for dual-use goods and technology, both aligned with the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Importers of nuclear-dedicated items, or items covered by bilateral nuclear agreements, may need to provide government assurances and end-use statements and accept re-export restrictions; KINAC and the NSSC briefed importers on recent amendments in June 2026. See export controls for traders.

Two agreements frame Korean exports. The Korea–US 123 Agreement (한미 원자력협정, hanmi wonjaryeok hyeopjeong), renewed in 2015 for twenty years, excludes domestic enrichment and reprocessing — although in November 2025 the United States signalled support for Korean civil enrichment and reprocessing. And the January 2025 settlement of the intellectual-property dispute between KHNP, KEPCO and Westinghouse, whose terms are confidential, is reported to involve payments and licence fees per exported reactor and limits on the markets where KHNP bids; the presidential office ordered an inquiry in August 2025. Foreign partners of Korean exporters should understand these constraints before building a joint bid.

Waste, decommissioning and the fuel cycle

Spent fuel pools at Kori and Hanbit begin to reach saturation from 2031. The High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Special Act sets a committee under the Prime Minister to run siting by voluntary local applications, surveys and referendums, with an interim storage facility to operate by 2050 and permanent disposal by 2060, and KORAD as implementer. Kori 1 and Wolsong 1 are already being decommissioned. Foreign companies with dry storage, decommissioning, waste-treatment and characterisation technology will find customers — and the same supplier, liability and export rules.

People on Korean sites

Foreign engineers and technicians working at Korean nuclear sites go through more than a visa. They need the right status to work — usually a work visa sponsored by a Korean entity, or an intra-company transfer to a Korean branch — plus site access clearance, Korean nuclear safety and security training, and, where they work with radiation, registration as radiation workers with dosimetry and health checks under the Nuclear Safety Act. Outages and commissioning campaigns run for months, which brings Korean income tax and, for the foreign employer, the risk of a permanent establishment if nobody files in Korea. See the E-7 work visa and hiring in Korea.

Insurance follows the same structure as liability. The operator insures nuclear liability through the domestic pool and government indemnity; suppliers insure everything else — professional liability, product liability for non-nuclear damage, transit and site works. Policies written for other markets often exclude nuclear sites altogether, so check the nuclear exclusion before signing a Korean contract, and agree with the customer who insures property damage at the plant during your work.

Investing in Korean nuclear suppliers

Nuclear technology can be designated a national core technology under the Industrial Technology Protection Act, and acquisitions of companies that hold it by foreign investors may need government approval; foreign investment in defence-related or security-sensitive businesses can also be reviewed under the Foreign Investment Promotion Act. Due diligence on a Korean nuclear supplier should cover its NSSC registrations and licences, KHNP qualification status, quality records and any nonconformity reports, export licences, and its exposure under supply contracts. See acquiring a Korean business and investment incentives.

What we can do for you

Most foreign companies in this market need a Korean base before they need anything else: a subsidiary or branch that can hold a radiation licence, employ a radiation safety officer, report contracts and nonconformities, sign with KHNP or a prime contractor and invoice in Korea. We set up and run that entity — registration, tax, payroll and the compliance calendar — and coordinate the specialist work with Korean nuclear regulatory counsel and qualified consultants: licence applications to the NSSC, KEPIC and quality-programme mapping, export classification, and the liability terms in your contracts. You deal with one point of contact in English. See registering a Korean company and permanent establishment risk for engineers working on Korean sites.

A worked example

A Finnish maker of radiation-monitoring instruments and a German NDT contractor both want Korean work. The Finnish company sells safety-related detectors to a Korean prime contractor for a new unit: it classifies the items as safety class, maps its quality programme to KEPIC through its existing ASME certification, provides traceable test certificates, and sets up a small Korean subsidiary to support installation and report nonconformities. Its supply contract states that nuclear liability is channelled to the operator and limits recourse to intent and gross negligence; the prime reports the contract to the NSSC within 30 days.

The German contractor will use gamma sources for weld inspection at a Korean shipyard and a power plant outage. It registers a Korean branch, applies for an NSSC licence to use and move radioisotopes with a qualified radiation safety officer, imports the sources with the required approvals and arranges dosimetry for its crew. Its engineers spend months on site, so the branch also files Korean tax — avoiding the permanent establishment question entirely.

Mistakes we see

1. Bringing radioactive sources or X-ray equipment to a Korean project on a home-country licence only.
2. Copies instead of original test certificates, or no sub-supplier traceability.
3. Contracts that undo channelling through broad indemnities and uncapped recourse.
4. No one in Korea to report nonconformities or support site work.
5. Assuming dual-use items are not nuclear-controlled without classification.
6. Building a joint bid abroad without checking the Korean partner’s licensing constraints.
7. Buying a Korean supplier without checking national core technology approvals.

Korean terms you will meet

Questions readers ask

About the author

Alexander Baranov

Founder of the BCA Group · cross-border corporate and tax adviser since 2008

Alexander advises foreign founders and groups on company formation, tax structuring and corporate law in more than 40 jurisdictions across Europe, the Gulf, Asia and Latin America. He is the author of nine books on international business and tax and writes regularly for professional finance and tax journals. He works in English, German, Spanish and Russian.

This guide is based on the Korean statutes cited in the text and on our own filings. It is reviewed when the law or official rates change.

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