Four pieces of paperwork before shipping an app in Korea

August 19, 2026

* This one is about publishing from Korea.

The app was done. The paperwork wasn't.

I'm a designer who can't code, and I've been building apps with AI. The screens were finished, the apps ran fine on my phone, and I thought the rest was just uploading.

That's where a second project started, and none of it was code. It was forms, certificates and verification calls, and it took longer than building the thing.

If you live in Korea and want to publish an app, or you're bringing an app into the Korean market from outside, this is the part that does not come up when you search. Here's what the country actually asked me for, in the order it asked.

First fork: your own name, or a business

A Google Play developer account can be opened as an individual. That sounds like the easy path, and for one app it might be. Two things made me stop.

The first is your home address. With an individual account, your name and address are shown on your store listing. With a business account, it's the company name and the business address instead. Publishing my home address to anyone who scrolls to the bottom of a store page was not something I wanted to do casually.

The second is testers. An individual account has to run a closed test with 12 testers for 14 consecutive days before it can even apply to go live. A business account does not have that requirement.

I plan to keep making apps, and each one would mean finding twelve people again. Rounding up twelve humans who will actually open your app every day for two weeks can be harder than writing the app. I read that the number used to be 20 and got lowered to 12 after enough people said it was impossible.

⚠️ That number has changed once already, so check Google's own page before you start.

Those two things are why I registered as a business (사업자등록) first. I signed a contract with a non-resident shared office, which gives you a business address without a desk there, and that address is what my store listings show.

The D-U-N-S number, which Apple hands out for free

To register a Google Play developer account as a business, you need a D-U-N-S number. It is an international company identifier, and the name sounds far more official than it is: think of it as a second company registration number that the rest of the world recognizes.

Buying one in Korea costs more than 500,000 won. My first reaction was to ask whether I needed this at all.

Then I found that Apple keeps a free request channel open.

• Apple's explanation: developer.apple.com/help/account/membership/D-U-N-S
• Where you actually apply and ask questions: support.dnb.com/?CUST=APPLEDEV

What I had to attach was one document: an English-language certificate of business registration (영문 사업자등록증명원). In Korea you pull that yourself from Hometax (홈택스), the tax office's online portal, and it takes a minute.

The interesting part is that you do not have to be an Apple developer to apply. I'm not shipping anything on the App Store. The number that came back through Apple's channel is the same number I typed into Google Play.

Applying was easy. Then I waited a few days for the result.

Three verifications, and a phone number that wouldn't take texts

Once the D-U-N-S number arrives, the developer account asks you to verify things. I did three: identity, website ownership, and phone number.

This is where I got stuck. The number I use for business is a 070 number, which in Korea is an internet phone line rather than a mobile one, and the verification text never arrived. The form sends an SMS by default, and with a 070 number it tells you the number isn't valid.

After a long stretch of getting nowhere, I switched the method from text message to voice call, and it went through on the first try. So I got to keep my personal mobile number out of the store and use the business line.

It's a small thing, and it ate more time than almost anything else on this list.

If what you're publishing is a game, there's one more

In Korea, publishing a game means a separate license: game production business registration (게임제작업 등록). It applies even to something as small as Minesweeper.

There is no facility requirement. Facility inspections are for businesses like internet cafes. For game production, a shared office address is fine.

The order goes like this. First you add a business activity at Hometax: game software development (게임 소프트웨어 개발업) has to appear on your business registration. Then you apply for the license itself on Gov24 (정부24), the government's online services portal. I'd read complaints about the online form throwing errors, so I was braced for trouble, and had none.

The form wants your address, the location of the business, and what you produce. For that last one I wrote "mobile games."

Two attachments: a copy of the office use contract, and a statement of production facilities and equipment. I expected the second one to be some formal schedule of assets. It's free-form. I listed one computer.

The surprise was how long it took.

Gov24 lists three months, so I had this filed away as a whole season of waiting. It came back in three days. If you've been putting it off because three months sounds impossible to plan around, it may not take anything like that.

The cost was about 20,000 won to file, plus about 40,000 won in registration license tax (등록면허세). That second one is not a one-time payment: starting the year after you register, a bill arrives every January. I registered this year, so I'm waiting for my first one.

One thing that helps: this license is per business, not per app. Do it once and the games you make afterward sit inside it.

The order, and which parts are Korean

Go the individual-account route instead and you skip the D-U-N-S number, but 12 testers are waiting for you. That one does not end after the first time. You gather them again for every app.

Two of those four steps are not Korean at all. The developer account rules and the D-U-N-S number are the same wherever you sit. Registering as a business and the game production license are the local half, and the game license is the one I had never heard of until I needed it.

Next post: what I actually clicked inside the Play Console, and the three places I had to go back and do it over.