South Korea Attracts Over 2 Million Foreign Medical Tourists in 2025

South Korea saw the number of foreign medical tourists exceed 2 million in 2025, according to an annual report by the state run Korea Health Industry Development Institute. A total of 2.01 million foreigners visited for medical, dental, and surgical care, representing a 71.9 percent increase from the previous year. China provided the largest share of visitors with 618,000 people, followed by Japan with 600,000, Taiwan with 185,000, and the United States with 173,000.

Spending data from the Korea Tourism Organization indicates that foreign medical tourists spent 213.08 billion won, or approximately 154.35 million US dollars, in July alone. This figure is 66.5 percent higher than the same month last year and marks the fifth consecutive month that spending remained above 200 billion won. In terms of expenditures, dermatology clinics accounted for 54.9 percent of spending, while plastic surgery clinics accounted for 19.3 percent and pharmacies for 12.9 percent.

Geographically, the industry remains heavily concentrated in the capital, where 86.8 percent of total spending occurred in July. Busan followed at 6.4 percent and Gyeonggi Province at 3.7 percent. While center leaning coverage attributes the growth to world class technology and improved multilingual systems, center right leaning coverage emphasizes the need to diversify medical tourism beyond Seoul and beyond beauty procedures. Center right reports note that while Asian visitors prefer dermatology and plastic surgery, patients from countries such as Canada, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan often seek treatment for serious diseases like cancer.