BTSDB Guide · Business — a 5-minute check that prevents most fraud
BEFORE YOU WIRE THE MONEY
6컷
1Great supplier!
You found a Korean supplier on Instagram. The samples look perfect.
2Wire 50% today
They ask for a deposit before anything is signed — and they are in a hurry.
3What's your 사업자번호?
Every real Korean business has a 10-digit registration number. Ask for it.
4Closed in 2021?!
The number checks out as a real company — but the status says closed.
5Different name too
The bank account holder does not match the registered company name.
6Money saved
Five minutes of checking replaced a wire transfer you could never undo.
Wiring money to a Korean supplier, wholesaler or online shop you
found on Instagram? Nearly every cross-border fraud case shares one pattern: money sent before the
company was verified. The good news — Korea publishes an unusual amount of official company data,
and every legitimate Korean business has a 10-digit business registration number you can
check in seconds.
The 5-step check
1
Get the business registration number. Ask for it directly, or find it in the footer of any Korean
website (labeled 사업자등록번호). A legitimate business will provide it without hesitation — refusal is
itself a red flag.
2
Check the registration status. Enter the number in the BTSDB checker.
The National Tax Service tells you live whether the business is Active, Suspended or
Closed. Scammers frequently reuse numbers of closed companies — if the status isn't Active, stop.
3
Match the identity. Our results show the officially registered company name, address, industry and
employee count from insurance records. Does the name match what the seller told you? A "manufacturer with
200 staff" showing 0 insured employees is lying about scale.
4
Match the bank account. The account holder name for your payment must match the registered company
name or its representative. "Please pay to a different personal account for tax reasons" is, in practice,
a confirmed-scam signal.
5
For online shops: check the e-commerce license. Korean online sellers must register with the Fair
Trade Commission. Our checker shows the license number, its status and the registered domains —
the shop's URL should be on that list.
Red flags that should end the conversation
The number is not found, or the status is Suspended/Closed
Registered company name is completely different from the brand you were given
Payment requested to a personal account or via untraceable methods only
Prices far below market plus pressure to pay "today only"
Communication only through messenger apps, no company phone or address
Keep the evidence. Save the URL of your verification result page before the deal. If something
goes wrong, a record that the company was (or wasn't) properly registered strengthens your report to
Korean police (ecrm.police.go.kr, English available) and your bank's recall request.
What each data source actually proves
Source
What it confirms
What it does not
National Tax Service
The number is registered; active, suspended or closed; tax type
The company's name or owner
Workers' Compensation & Welfare Service
Registered workplace name, address, insured headcount, start date
Businesses with no employees do not appear
Fair Trade Commission
E-commerce registration, its status, registered domains
Small sellers exempt from registration do not appear
National Pension Service
Number of pension subscribers and monthly contributions
Shown only when the workplace name matches
A result of "Active" means the registration is valid — nothing more. A scammer can quote the number of a real,
active company. That is why steps 3 and 4 matter: the name, address and bank account holder must all point to the
same business as the number.
What a registration check cannot tell you
Open government data stops at registration facts. It does not show who owns the company, how much capital it
has, whether its property is mortgaged, or whether it owes taxes. Those sit in documents: the corporate registry extract
(법인등기부등본) for directors and capital, the real-estate register for mortgages, and a tax payment certificate for arrears.
For a larger deal, ask the company to provide them or use our document service.
For larger deals, add these
Ask for the business registration certificate and a bank-book copy, and compare the names on both with the lookup result
For a corporation, check the registry extract for the current representative director
Put the business registration number and the representative's name in the contract
Split the payment into a deposit and a balance instead of paying everything up front
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Data shown by BTSDB comes live from official
Korean government open-data services.
Is a Korean business registration number public information?
Yes. Businesses print it on invoices, contracts and website footers, and the National Tax Service lets anyone check whether a given number is registered and active. The lookup returns status and tax type, not the owner's personal details.
The status says Active. Is the company safe to pay?
Active only means the registration is valid. Fraudsters sometimes quote the number of a real company, so also confirm that the registered name, the address and the bank account holder match the party you are dealing with.
Why does the result show no company name or employee count?
The name and headcount come from workplace insurance records. A business with no employees has no such record, so only the tax status is shown. Ask the seller for the registration certificate in that case.
Can I verify a Korean company without the registration number?
You can search by company name on BTSDB. Online sellers and employers are usually found; small sole proprietors often are not, and the surest route is to ask the company for its number.
What should I do if I already paid a fraudulent seller?
Keep every message, the payment record and the page you ordered from, contact your card issuer or bank at once about a dispute or recall, and file a report with the Korean police cybercrime system.
Everything above comes from open government data, and
it is free. But four things about a Korean company exist only in the court register or on a
certificate: who the directors actually are, how much capital was paid in, whether
dissolution has begun, and whether taxes are in arrears. Before a contract or a wire
transfer, those are usually the ones that matter.