How to Cancel Your TV Subscription in Korea

When renting a house, there are a lot of cases when the room does not have a TV. Therefore, if you are paying for a TV subscription, please refer to this article to contact the electricity company to cancel the subscription when you don’t use the TV.

Step-by-step guide

Do you know that if you don’t want to use your TV, or you don’t have one, you can cancel your subscription and request a refund? This article will lead you through a step-by-step guide. The process requires a basic knowledge of Korea. And when the company contacts you, you will need to be able to communicate with them in Korean.

Step 1: Go to the KBS website: https://www.kbs.co.kr/

–> Member registration (must enter the electricity customer code, you get it with the number in the electricity bill) –> Login

Step 2: Click “About KBS” –> “시청자” –> “수신료” (As picture)

Step 3: Click on “TV등록/변경 ” (As picture)

Step 4: Click on “수신료 /면제해제신청”

Step 5: Fill in , , and then click “보내기”

제목: can be written as “TV수신료 해지 및 환불 ” (If you don’t need 환불, then you don’t need to write it, because it costs 2.5k won a month, if you feel like it, please 환불).

내용: You provide information regarding when you moved into your home. You can then ask them how to register to cancel the TV package or even get a refund if you paid without using the service. This process will require you to be able to communicate in Korean.

-> KBS will contact you through the phone number you provide, so knowing Korean is needed. (And if you don’t know Korean, you should probably ask someone to help you)

They will ask about the situation of installing TVs and computers at your home. Then, they will ask for your bank account number and your bank name. KBS staff enter information into the system and now all you have to do is to wait for their approval.

Conclusion

Once approved, the electricity company will return the amount paid to you. (For example, if you paid the TV subscription for 6 months, they will transfer around 15k won.) They processed it pretty quickly when I did it. The normal procedure is sending a request, getting a call the next day, and getting a refund the day after that. Normally it takes 3 days, not including holidays.

The amount of money is not much, it does not significantly contribute to your finance but if you want to save money, it is better to start with small things. I know a lot of foreigners who do not use TV since they can’t understand Korean or don’t have time to watch TV. The most common case is everyone has their own laptop and exclusively watches Netflix and YouTube. No need to pay for things you don’t use!

Want more money-saving tips? Click Here to learn how to receive your income tax returns!