My landlord wants my shop back. Can I insist on renewal?

If you run a shop, a restaurant or a salon in Korea on a foreign status, the law that protects your lease is not the law that protects your home. It is the Commercial Building Lease Protection Act (상가건물 임대차보호법), and its protection hangs on your business registration (사업자등록), not on your residence card. Get the business registration and the lease onto the same address and the same name, and you can demand renewal inside a window that opens six months before the lease ends and shuts one month before it. Miss that window and the right is simply gone, whatever the reason was.

What makes my lease a protected commercial lease?

The Act covers the lease of a building that is the object of a business registration, and it covers premises where the main part is used for business even where part of it is not. One exception matters. Leases above a deposit figure fixed by Presidential Decree, after deliberation by the commercial lease committee, fall outside the general cover. Where you pay monthly rent as well as a deposit, the rent is converted at a rate the Decree sets and added to the deposit before that figure is applied, and the figure itself is set differently from region to region.

This article prints neither the ceiling nor the conversion rate, because both sit in the Enforcement Decree of the Act rather than in the Act, and both change. Look them up in the Enforcement Decree on the government law portal (국가법령정보센터, law.go.kr), and have a lawyer confirm which figure applies in your district before you build a plan on it.

A lease above that figure is not left bare. The Act states that the rules on effect against third parties, on the renewal request, on the ten-year ceiling, on the basic rule for a renewed term, on key money and several others apply anyway. A larger shop still has a renewal right.

Why does the business registration matter so much?

Because that is the point at which your lease starts to bind people other than your landlord. Your lease takes effect against third parties from the day after two things have both happened: you have taken delivery of the premises, and you have applied for the business registration for that address under the tax statutes. No registration of the lease at a registry office is required. And when the building is sold, the buyer steps into the landlord's position, so your lease does not die with the sale.

Two consequences follow for a foreign tenant. A business registration in a friend's name or a relative's name protects that person and not you, however the money was actually found. And your status has to permit the trade you are running. Whether a status allows a business at all, whether permission for an activity outside the status is needed, and whether a status change has to be applied for are questions under the Immigration Act and are decided at the immigration office, not at the tax office. Put them to the immigration contact centre on 1345, and note the date of the call and the team that answered.

When exactly do I ask for renewal?

Between six months and one month before the term ends. That is not the housing window: a home lease runs under a different Act with a window that shuts two months out, so do not reuse a date somebody gave you for your apartment.

Make the request in writing. Put it in Korean, with a version in your own language beneath, and keep proof of when it was sent. If the landlord sends you neither a refusal nor notice of changed terms inside the same window, the lease is treated as renewed on the same terms with a term of one year. That silence works in your favour, but waiting for it is a gamble. Ask.

When is a refusal lawful?

Only on a justifiable ground, and the Act lists them. Among them:

Ground	What it means for you
Arrears reaching three months' rent	The total you have fallen behind, not necessarily three months in a row
A lease obtained by false or improper means	A false name, false papers, a false stated purpose
A settlement with substantial compensation	The landlord paid you properly to leave
Subletting without consent	Handing the premises over to a third party without the landlord's agreement
Deliberate or grossly careless damage	Damage to the building beyond ordinary use
Loss of the premises	The building or the unit is destroyed and the lease can no longer function
Demolition or reconstruction	Only in the three situations the Act defines
Grave breach of the tenant's duties	A serious failure that makes continuing the lease impossible

A better offer from another applicant does not appear there, and neither does a wish for a Korean tenant instead.

The right has an outer limit. Counting the first term and every renewal together, you can hold the lease for up to ten years. A renewed lease continues on identical terms, with rent and deposit open to adjustment, and you may end it yourself at any time by notice, which bites three months after the landlord receives it.

Can the rent go up, and by how much?

Either side may seek a change in future rent or deposit where rates, public charges or other burdens change, or where economic circumstances change through a class 1 infectious disease. An increase may not exceed a rate set by Presidential Decree. That rate is in the Decree this article does not quote, so do not accept a percentage from your landlord, or from the tenant next door, without checking the current figure yourself. One rule holds without the Decree: no increase may be demanded within one year of the lease, nor within a year of whatever increase was last agreed.

Next step

Put three documents side by side today: the lease with its end date, the business registration certificate with its address, and your residence card. If the three names and addresses do not match each other, that is the first thing to repair, and it matters more than the argument with the landlord. Then count back six months and one month from the end date and mark both dates in your phone. We charge for consultations, and the amount is explained on the phone before any appointment is fixed.

법무법인 대한중앙
1533-7377

Rules applied

Commercial Building Lease Protection Act (상가건물 임대차보호법) Article 2(1) (scope; exclusion above a deposit figure set by Presidential Decree after the commercial lease committee's deliberation), Article 2(2) (regional differences; rent converted and added to the deposit), Article 2(3) (provisions applying even above that figure: Article 3, Article 10(1) and (2) and the main text of (3), Articles 10-2 to 10-9, Article 11-2, Article 19), Article 3(1) (effect against third parties from the day after delivery and the application for a business registration under Article 8 of the Value-Added Tax Act, Article 168 of the Income Tax Act or Article 111 of the Corporate Tax Act), Article 3(2) (a transferee succeeds to the landlord's position), Article 10(1) (the 6-month to 1-month window; the listed grounds of justified refusal), Article 10(2) (10 years in total), Article 10(3) (same terms; rent within Article 11), Article 10(4) (deemed renewal for 1 year), Article 10(5) (termination effective after 3 months), Article 11(1) (increase capped by Presidential Decree), Article 11(2) (no increase within 1 year). Act No. 21083, in force 12 May 2026. The converted deposit ceiling, the conversion rate and the cap on increases are in the Enforcement Decree of the Act and are deliberately not stated here. Immigration Act (출입국관리법) Articles 17, 20 and 24 are mentioned only as the provisions under which the status question is decided.

This is general information, not legal advice. Every case is different.