South Korea Weighs Education Tax on Crypto Exchanges if Law Reclassifies Them
By Crypto Wire
October 26, 2026
South Korea’s government is examining whether cryptocurrency exchanges should pay the country’s education tax once a Framework Act on Digital Assets pulls them into the regulated financial sector, Seoul Economic Daily reported on Monday, October 26, 2026. A senior official told exchange chiefs that if crypto trading moves into the financial and insurance classification through that law, “there will be an education tax issue,” and that financial businesses would carry responsibilities “commensurate with that status.” This is a Plain English Policy chapter: venue operating-cost rules that can flow into user fees — not a restatement of the separate investor income-tax delay already on this desk.
Today’s classification is the hinge. Crypto trading and brokerage sit under information and communications in the Korean Standard Industrial Classification, which has kept exchanges outside the education-tax net that banks, insurers, and securities firms already pay. Sedaily’s follow-on wrap said a senior official noted that when the crypto business was designed in 2018 it was not placed inside the financial industry, and that a careful discussion is now needed on whether to bring it in. Enactment of the digital-asset framework — still unfinished — is the path officials cite for that reclassification, not an overnight levy on current ICT-classified venues.
The rate math already applied to finance firms is what exchanges would face if they are pulled in. Sedaily says banks, insurers, and securities firms pay education tax on operating revenue, with 0.5% on the tax base up to 1 trillion won and 1% on the portion above that starting this year. Dunamu, Upbit’s operator and the largest exchange group by Sedaily’s ranking, posted about 1.52 trillion won (about $1.06 billion) in operating revenue last year. On a simple full-base calculation, Sedaily put Dunamu near 10.2 billion won and Bithumb near 3.2 billion won, with Bithumb’s last-year operating revenue about 651.3 billion won, Coinone about 45.4 billion, Digital X about 9.7 billion, and Gopax about 4.3 billion. Those are illustrative Sedaily estimates, not tax assessments, and they do not add interest, dividends, or statutory exclusions.
Fee and VAT mechanics complicate the user-side read. Trading fees currently carry value-added tax. If exchanges become VAT-exempt as financial services, Sedaily notes room for fees to fall — or for platforms to raise fees or cut discounts to offset education tax, shifting the burden back to traders. Deloitte Anjin digital-asset center head Kim Kyung-ho told Sedaily that intense fee competition could make that calculus messy depending on how much of any VAT exemption shows up in posted rates. Industry voices also argue crypto trading has little link to education funding and want a broader rewrite of the financial-sector education tax, which Sedaily says already drew controversy after the rate above 1 trillion won doubled to 1% this year.
Keep this lane separate from Monday’s income-tax calendar fight. The presidential-office review of a fourth delay to the planned 22% virtual-asset income tax — and any 2029 CARF-aligned start — is about investor gains filing clocks, not exchange operating levies. Both can move Korean venue economics in the same season, but they are different statutes and different payers. Do not invent an enacted education-tax start date, a National Assembly vote tally, or a claim that OpenSea or Robinhood Chain floors must reprice because of a prospective exchange levy. Attribute the review and the Dunamu/Bithumb estimate stack to Sedaily’s October 26 reporting; attribute the Framework Act as the reclassification path officials describe, not as a finished statute.
What changes for bids: Korean exchange operating costs may pick up an education-tax line if the digital-asset framework reclassifies venues as financial firms — watch whether the Framework Act text locks that classification, whether VAT treatment of trading fees flips, and whether Upbit/Bithumb fee schedules move before any levy is written into tax guidance.
Bottom line: Seoul is reviewing an education tax for crypto exchanges if a digital-asset framework reclassifies them as financial firms — Sedaily’s Monday reporting puts illustrative Dunamu and Bithumb burdens near 10.2 billion and 3.2 billion won, with no levy enacted yet.
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