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Korea drafts tokenized-securities rules for 2027 as bills seek a fourth crypto-tax delay
South Korea's Financial Services Commission proposed rules on October 1 letting stocks, bonds and funds trade as tokens from February 4, 2027. Comments close November 11, while bills from both main parties would push the January 1 crypto income tax back as far as 2030.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- To manage their own customer accounts, token issuers would need at least 4 billion won in equity plus one account-management, one internal-control and two IT specialists.
- Retail investors would be limited to 100 million won of net purchases a year on each over-the-counter exchange.
- The crypto income tax treats gains from transferring or lending digital assets as miscellaneous income, taxed at 20% above an annual 2.5 million won deduction.
- The Digital Asset eXchange Alliance told lawmakers that exchanges still lack a standardized data network with regulators and need more time to build and test it.
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Why it matters
- constraint Publicly offered securities sit in stage 2, which has no reported date, so firms cannot plan retail tokens on listed shares around February 4, 2027.
- cost An issuer that wants to own the customer relationship commits 4 billion won of equity and four specialists, and cannot recover ledger costs through a direct usage fee.
- exposure Because the retail cap binds per venue, it limits how much one OTC exchange can take from an investor more than it limits the investor's total exposure.
- decision Exchanges must keep spending on tax-reporting systems for a January 1 start that bills from both parties would remove, before knowing which year the systems will first be used.
The tax would start 34 days before the tokenized securities do [1], but the state would see no cash from it until May 2028, when gains made in 2027 are first filed and paid [12]. The first payment lands about 16 months after the levy begins [2]. A fourth postponement, after three already [15], would move a receipt that was already more than a year away, or rather, at the 2030 date in several bills and on the same filing calendar, move it to May 2031 [3].
January can go three ways. The tax starts as written, and a trader with a 10 million won gain owes about 1.65 million won at the 22% effective rate Cryptopolitan reports [11], or 16.5% of the whole gain [5]. It slips. Rep. Kim Sang-hoon has proposed 2029 and Rep. Jung Sung-kook 2030, according to The Korea Times and Cryptopolitan [14]. Rep. Min Byung-duk of the ruling Democratic Party and Rep. Kim Jae-seop of the People Power Party have filed separate bills reaching as far as 2030 [13]. Or it goes away, as Rep. Song Eon-seog's bill to scrap the tax clauses would have it [14].
I'd expect a delay. Five lawmakers, members of both main parties among them, have filed bills to postpone or repeal the tax [8]. A Tiger Research survey run with Chainalysis found 73.7% of 2,423 Korean investors opposed the plan, The Korea Times reported [17], or about 1,786 people [6]. The counter-case is that the record holds bills and no vote, and a tax postponed three times [15] has stayed on the books through all three [10]. If none of the bills passes before January 1, the levy starts on schedule and this view is wrong.
The phrase "stocks, bonds and funds" covers a staged rollout. Under current rules only fractional investment products can sit on a blockchain [3]. Stage 1 covers privately placed money market funds and bonds for institutional investors, unlisted stocks held through a trust, and publicly offered fractional securities; publicly offered securities come in stage 2, and settlement tied to stablecoins in stage 3 [4]. Cryptopolitan describes the timeline the FSC set out on September 4 as phased but flexible [18], and its report does not date the stages.
The fee rules decide who earns what. Each issuer must share its distributed ledger with the Korea Securities Depository and at least two account management entities, and may not charge a direct fee for using it [5]. So the ledger is a cost for the issuer, and the depository is on every one of them [5]. The new issuer account category opens account management, previously limited to financial firms, to the issuers themselves [6].
The retail cap applies per venue, so an investor who uses two OTC exchanges has 200 million won of annual room [7]. The draft also adds an OTC licensing unit for debt securities beside the existing units for unlisted stocks and non-monetary trust beneficiary certificates [8]. The comment window runs 41 days [4] and covers subordinate rules under the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act and the Electronic Registration Act [2].
What to watch
- The FSC's final rules after the comment period, especially any change to the 4 billion won equity floor or the per-exchange retail cap.
- A date for stage 2, when publicly offered securities could be tokenized.
- Whether DAXA's exchanges report the regulator data network as built and tested before January 1.