Incheonculture & etiquette

Relocation guides, brokers and even some recruitment material still promise up to seven years of corporate or income tax reduction for foreign-invested companies in the Incheon Free Economic Zone. Korea abolished those national tax reductions with effect from 1 January 2019, to equalise treatment between domestic and foreign capital under the OECD base-erosion work. Investments made before the end of 2018 were grandfathered. What survives is real but different: local acquisition and property tax reductions granted on application, customs duty exemption on imported capital goods, land and rent support, and one-stop regulatory services.

Your deposit is protected only once you have actually moved in and registered your residence, and that opposing power takes effect from 00:00 the following day. A landlord who registers a mortgage on the same day you pay therefore outranks you. This one-day gap is the mechanism behind a large share of Korea's deposit-fraud cases. File the move-in report and get the fixed-date stamp immediately, and pull the property register again the next morning.

The small-tenant priority repayment scheme ring-fences part of your deposit ahead of every other creditor, on regional ceilings. Most of Incheon sits inside the Seoul-area overcrowding-restriction zone, which carries the higher ₩145 million ceiling and ₩48 million protected slice — but Schedule 1 to the Enforcement Decree of the Metropolitan Area Readjustment Planning Act carves the Free Economic Zone out of that zone, so Songdo, Cheongna and Yeongjong fall into the ordinary metropolitan-city band instead, at ₩85 million and ₩28 million. The same schedule also excludes Ganghwa-gun, Ongjin-gun, the Namdong national industrial complex and eight dong of Seo-gu around Geomdan. The figures are set by decree and revised. Confirm which band your exact address falls in at the district office before deciding how much deposit to put down.

Incheon International is on Yeongjong Island, across a tolled bridge from the mainland city. From Songdo it is around forty minutes by road; from Bupyeong or Gyeyang you are often quicker taking the airport railway from a Seoul station than driving across your own city. Both bridges to Yeongjong charge tolls, with a city-funded discount arrangement for island residents that has been repeatedly renegotiated — check the current terms before assuming a cheap commute.

Incheon has Korea's densest concentration of international education, but foreign schools operate under a national rule: Korean nationals may enrol only if they have lived abroad for three years or more in total, and only up to 30% of places (up to 50% where the provincial education office so provides). Mixed-nationality and returning families regularly plan a Songdo move around a school their child turns out not to qualify for. Confirm eligibility with the school in writing before you commit to a lease.

The reclaimed-land districts were master-planned, and they read that way — wide blocks, underground waste collection, big parks and very little street life. Families and anyone who wanted space out of Seoul tend to stay for years. People who came for Korea itself often find the old port districts of Jung-gu and Dong-gu, or Bupyeong's markets, are where the city actually is. Spend an evening in both before choosing, because the two halves of Incheon feel like different countries.