Five unlabelled finished cosmetic containers lined up on a limestone table against a pale plaster wall: a frosted glass pump bottle, a matte white tube, an amber glass dropper bottle, an ivory ceramic jar with its lid resting beside it, and a slim aluminium stick

AI-generated image.

The short answer: the exception waives product specifications, not the supplier's qualifications

When an overseas distributor approaches a Korean brand owner directly about finished goods, the conversation usually opens with quantity and unit price. In Korean law, though, the first fork is somewhere else. What matters first is whether the goods will also be sold inside Korea, or whether they are made for export only, because that single fact changes which provisions apply at all.

Article 30 of the Cosmetics Act sets aside a listed group of provisions for products that are not sold domestically and are intended solely for export, and allows the rules of the importing country to apply instead. The provisions it sets aside are mostly about what goes into the product and what goes on the label. The provisions it leaves untouched are about who makes the product and who answers for it.

This article walks through what that exception removes, what it leaves in place, and which documents an overseas buyer can realistically ask for inside that structure. The scope is the law of the Republic of Korea, and every provision quoted here was read in the original on 27 September 2026. The requirements of the importing country are set by that country's own law and were not verified here. This is not legal advice on any particular transaction.

Key takeaways

1. Two conditions open the exception, and both are required

The Cosmetics Act (Act No. 20901, in force 2 April 2026) titles Article 30 "Exceptions for Products for Export". The provision is a single sentence. A product that is not sold domestically and is intended solely for export is not subject to Article 4, Articles 8 through 12, Article 14, subparagraphs 1 and 5 of Article 15, subparagraphs 2 and 3 of Article 16(1) and Article 16(2), and may instead follow the rules of the importing country.

The first thing to read in that sentence is not the list at the end but the condition at the front. There are two conditions, and they are joined rather than offered as alternatives: the product must not be sold domestically, and it must be intended solely for export.

So a plan that distributes the same product in the Korean market while sending part of the volume abroad cannot simply be slotted into this provision. An overseas distributor who wants to buy a Korean brand's existing domestic product as it stands, and one who asks that brand to build a separate export specification, are on legally different paths. Stating which of the two you mean in the first email saves a great deal of time later.

The end of the sentence has to be read literally as well. It says the product may follow the rules of the importing country. That is permissive wording: the listed Korean provisions do not apply, and the importing country's rules may be followed instead. The provision does not say which country, and it does not tell you what that country requires. The work of verifying those requirements stays outside this provision.

2. What is actually on the exemption list

Opening each of the listed provisions in turn makes the pattern obvious.

Article 4 governs the review of functional cosmetics. It requires a party who wants a product recognised as a functional cosmetic in order to sell it to obtain the Minister of Food and Drug Safety's review of safety and efficacy on a per-item basis, or to submit a report.

Article 8 sets the safety standards for cosmetics. It requires the Minister to designate and publish the raw materials that may not be used in manufacturing, and to designate and publish limits of use for materials that need particular restriction such as preservatives, colourants and ultraviolet filters. Article 8(8) then provides that the Minister may prescribe and publish further safety management standards for cosmetics in distribution. Where those ingredient limits are actually written down is covered in the ingredient selection article.

Article 9 covers safety containers and packaging, and Article 10 sets out the mandatory particulars on a cosmetic. Article 10(1) lists ten items for the outer packaging. They are the name of the cosmetic; the trade name and address of the business operator; every ingredient used in manufacturing that cosmetic, excluding the ingredients prescribed by Ordinance of the Prime Minister such as harmless ingredients contained in small quantities; the volume or weight of the contents; the manufacturing number; the shelf life or the period after opening; the price; the word for a functional cosmetic, or the symbol designated by the Minister, where applicable; precautions for use; and any further item prescribed by Ordinance of the Prime Minister. The proviso to the same paragraph allows packaging prescribed by Ordinance of the Prime Minister, such as the packaging of a cosmetic with a small content volume, to carry only the name of the cosmetic, the trade name of the responsible distributor and of the customised cosmetics seller, the price, the manufacturing number, and the shelf life or period after opening.

Article 11 covers price marking, and Article 12 covers care in labelling. Article 12 requires those particulars to appear where they are easier to see than other text, and to be written accurately in Hangul that is easy to read and understand, while permitting Chinese characters or a foreign language alongside. Removing this provision from an export-only product means the Hangul requirement does not travel with it. The Enforcement Rule of the Cosmetics Act (Ordinance of the Prime Minister No. 2109, in force 2 April 2026) carries the same idea in the proviso to subparagraph 1 of Article 21: the particulars must be written legibly in Hangul, provided that for products for export and the like they may be written in the language of the destination country.

Article 14 covers substantiation of labelling and advertising. It requires a business operator or a seller to be able to substantiate the factual elements of its own labelling and advertising. Where the Minister considers substantiation necessary in order to judge whether particular labelling or advertising falls under subparagraph 4 of Article 13(1), the Minister may specify the matter concretely and request the material, and the party must submit it within fifteen days of the request. The Minister may extend that period where there is a justifiable reason.

The final two entries on the list are partial rather than whole. Only subparagraphs 1 and 5 of Article 15 drop out, and only subparagraphs 2 and 3 of Article 16(1) together with Article 16(2) drop out. The remaining subparagraphs stay. That distinction is the subject of the next section.

3. What stays because it never reached the list

Reading only the items named in a provision like this leaves you with half the picture. Anything absent from the Article 30 list continues to apply to a product intended solely for export.

Article 3, on registration of a business, is absent from the list. A party who intends to operate as a cosmetics manufacturer or as a cosmetics responsible distributor must register with the Minister of Food and Drug Safety; a manufacturer must meet the facility standards prescribed by Ordinance of the Prime Minister, and a responsible distributor must have standards for quality control and post-distribution safety control, along with a responsible distribution manager to run them. An export-only volume is not something an unregistered company may produce.

Article 5, on the duties of a business operator, is also absent. A manufacturer must observe the matters prescribed by Ordinance of the Prime Minister concerning methods of managing manufacturing records, facilities and equipment, and concerning the methods of and duties for testing, inspecting and assaying raw materials, packaging materials and finished products. A responsible distributor must observe the matters prescribed by Ordinance of the Prime Minister concerning quality control standards, post-distribution safety control standards, quality testing methods and the duty to perform them, and the reporting of safety and efficacy information together with the duty to prepare safety measures. Article 5(5) requires a responsible distributor to report its production or import results and the list of raw materials used in manufacturing, and requires the raw-material list to be reported before the cosmetic is distributed or sold. How the manufacturer's role and the responsible distributor's role divide is set out in the brand owner duties article.

Article 5-2, on the recall of harmful cosmetics, is absent as well. When a business operator learns that a cosmetic in distribution is in breach of Article 9, Article 15 or Article 16(1) and harms or may harm public health, it must recall the product or take the measures needed for a recall without delay, and must report the recall plan to the Minister in advance. Note, though, that the trigger for this provision is a breach of Article 9, Article 15 or Article 16(1), so for an export-only product it operates within whichever of those provisions has not been set aside.

Article 18, on reports and inspections, is absent too. Where the Minister considers it necessary, the Minister may order a business operator to report, and may have public officials enter manufacturing sites, business offices, warehouses and places of sale to inspect facilities, books and documents. The Minister may also collect the minimum quantity necessary in order to test whether quality, safety standards and labelling on the packaging conform.

Put simply, Article 30 relieves an export-only product of Korea's demands about what goes into the product and onto its label. It does not touch the standing and the records that the company making and shipping that product must hold in Korea.

4. The list of products that may not be sold loses only two subparagraphs

Article 15, on prohibited business conduct, provides that no one may sell, or manufacture, import, store or display for the purpose of selling, a cosmetic that falls under any of its ten subparagraphs. Article 30 removes subparagraphs 1 and 5.

Subparagraph 1 covers a functional cosmetic that has neither passed the review under Article 4 nor been the subject of a submitted report. Subparagraph 5 covers a cosmetic that uses a raw material that may not be used under Article 8(1) or Article 8(2), or that fails to conform to the safety management standards for cosmetics in distribution under Article 8(8). Both are tied to Article 4 and Article 8, the very provisions Article 30 has already set aside. The structure is consistent: the specification rules are lifted first, and then the prohibitions that rest on breaching those specifications are lifted with them.

The subparagraphs that remain are a different kind of rule. They cover a cosmetic that is wholly or partly spoiled, one contaminated with pathogenic microorganisms, and one with foreign matter mixed in or attached to it. They also cover a cosmetic using rhinoceros horn or tiger bone or extracts of either, and one manufactured in unsanitary conditions likely to create a risk to public health or manufactured in a facility that fails to meet the facility standards under Article 3(2). The last three cover a cosmetic whose container or packaging is defective in a way likely to create a risk to public health; one whose shelf life or period after opening under subparagraph 6 of Article 10(1), including a jointly displayed manufacturing date, has been forged or altered; and one that imitates the shape, smell, colour, size, container or packaging of a food so that it is likely to be misused as food and ingested.

Article 16, on prohibited sales, loses only subparagraphs 2 and 3 of Article 16(1) and the whole of Article 16(2). Subparagraph 2 covers a cosmetic that breaches Articles 10 through 12, or that is labelled in a way likely to be mistaken for a medicine. Subparagraph 3 covers a cosmetic manufactured or imported so that consumers may test or use it in advance for promotional purposes rather than for sale.

That leaves subparagraph 1 of Article 16(1) in force: it prohibits selling, or storing or displaying for sale, a cosmetic manufactured by a party that has not registered under Article 3(1), or a cosmetic that such a party has manufactured or imported and then distributed or sold. Subparagraph 4 also remains: it covers a product whose packaging or mandatory particulars have been defaced, forged or altered.

5. Advertising is asymmetric: substantiation drops out, the prohibition stays

The two provisions governing labelling and advertising are treated differently from one another.

Article 14, on substantiation of labelling and advertising, is on the exemption list. Article 13, prohibiting improper labelling and advertising, is not.

Article 13(1) provides that a business operator or a seller may not use labelling or advertising that is likely to be mistaken for a medicine. Nor may it use labelling or advertising likely to give the impression that a cosmetic which is not a functional cosmetic is one, or that differs from the review result on the safety and efficacy of a functional cosmetic. The same paragraph also prohibits any other labelling or advertising likely to deceive consumers contrary to fact or to cause them to be misled.

For an overseas distributor, that asymmetry has a practical edge. Product descriptions and marketing copy handed over by the brand owner may concern an export-only product, yet the Korean business operator that writes and uses that copy is not thereby outside Article 13. What kind of evidence supports what kind of wording, down to the type of study required, is set out in the claim substantiation article. It is safer not to expect stronger claims simply because a volume is bound for export.

6. The animal-testing provision is not on the list, and carries its own destination-country proviso

Article 15-2 prohibits the distribution and sale of animal-tested cosmetics. The Article 30 list names only subparagraphs 1 and 5 of Article 15; it does not name Article 15-2. Article 15-2 is a separate provision, so it continues to apply.

Article 15-2(1) provides that a cosmetics responsible distributor and a customised cosmetics seller may not distribute or sell a cosmetic on which animal testing under subparagraph 1 of Article 2 of the Act on Laboratory Animals has been performed, or a cosmetic manufactured, including under a manufacturing contract, or imported using a raw material on which such testing has been performed. The proviso to that paragraph then sets out six exceptions.

Two of the six touch cross-border trade directly. Subparagraph 3 covers the case where animal testing is required under the laws of the destination country for the purpose of exporting the cosmetic, and subparagraph 4 covers the case where the laws of the country into which the product is to be imported require animal testing in product development. The other four rest on different grounds, such as the absence of an alternative testing method. For these two subparagraphs, being an export is not on its own enough; the other country's law has to require the testing. When a buyer says animal testing is needed for registration in its own market, it is safer for both sides to confirm in writing that the requirement comes from that country's law.

7. This is why the first question is which country and which channel

Read this far and the reason for asking about the destination market and the sales channel before anything else becomes clear. It is not an opening courtesy. It is the question that selects which provisions apply.

You need the country before you can fill in the back half of Article 30, the part that allows the rules of the importing country to apply. How that country treats ingredient limits, label language, registration steps and required evidence has to be verified against its own law, and this article did not verify the requirements of any individual country.

You need the channel before you can confirm that the front half holds, the condition that the product is not sold domestically. Where the structure mixes in sales inside Korea, through a domestic cross-border storefront or a Korean duty-free channel, the premise of an export-only product has to be examined again.

Quantity comes after that, not because quantity is unimportant, but because until the country and the channel are fixed, there is no defined specification to count units of. If the underlying question is which manufacturing route to use at all, the OEM, ODM and private label comparison is the better place to start. The finished-goods range EVAS supplies under its own brands is on the brands page.

8. Most of what you can request has already been written

The most common friction when an overseas buyer asks for documents comes from asking for a document that does not exist. Asking instead for a specific record that the law already requires to be created and kept makes the conversation much simpler. Those duties fall on the cosmetics manufacturer and the cosmetics responsible distributor, and the Enforcement Rule of the Cosmetics Act tells you which records they are.

Subparagraph 2 of Article 11(1) requires a manufacturer to prepare and keep a manufacturing control standard document, a product standard document, a manufacturing control record and a quality control record. Electronic formats are included.

Subparagraph 7 of Article 11(1) requires the testing, inspection or assay needed from the receipt of raw materials and packaging materials through to the release of the finished product. Subparagraph 8 requires that, where manufacturing or quality testing is contracted out, the manufacturer supervise the contractor thoroughly and obtain, maintain and manage the records on manufacturing and quality control.

Subparagraph 6 of Article 11(1) requires the manufacturer to submit to the responsible distributor those of the subparagraph 2 documents that are necessary for quality control. A proviso allows that submission to be omitted in two cases. The first is where the manufacturer and the responsible distributor are the same party. The second is where the manufacturer manufactures by designing, developing and producing the product, to the extent that quality and safety control are unaffected, and the material is a trade secret under a mutual contract between them. The second of those carries several stacked conditions and should be read exactly as written. The longer discussion of how far formulation material can travel is in the formula ownership article.

Article 12 covers the responsible distributor's side. Subparagraphs 1 and 2 require compliance with the quality control standards in Attached Table 1 and the post-distribution safety control standards in Attached Table 2, and subparagraph 3 requires the product standard document and quality control record received from the manufacturer to be kept. Subparagraph 5 requires quality testing to be carried out thoroughly for each manufacturing number before distribution, with a proviso allowing that testing to be omitted where the manufacturer and the responsible distributor are the same party, or where quality testing has been contracted to one of the institutions listed in the items of subparagraph 2 of Article 6(2) of the Enforcement Rule and a per-manufacturing-number test result exists.

Subparagraph 10 of Article 12 requires that, on learning of new data or information on safety or efficacy capable of directly affecting public health, the responsible distributor report it and prepare the necessary safety measures. The provision states expressly that cases of adverse effects from using a cosmetic fall within this.

Subparagraph 11 of Article 12 requires that, for a product containing 0.5 per cent or more of certain ingredients, the stability test data for that item be kept for one year from the date the shelf life of the last product manufactured expires. The listed ingredients are retinol (vitamin A) and its derivatives, ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and its derivatives, tocopherol (vitamin E), peroxide compounds, and enzymes. Where the shelf life and period-after-opening figures come from in the first place is covered in the shelf life article.

Article 13(1) and Article 13(2) of the Enforcement Rule require the responsible distributor to report the previous year's production or import results to the Minister by the end of February each year, through a cosmetics industry body established under Article 17 of the Act such as the Korea Cosmetic Association, and to report the list of raw materials used in manufacturing before the cosmetic is distributed or sold. Article 13(3) then provides that a responsible distributor which imports after filing a standard customs clearance report as an electronic trade document under the Electronic Trade Facilitation Act may omit the import-results report and the raw-material list report.

One point is worth stating plainly. These provisions impose duties to create and keep records. They do not impose a duty to hand those records to a counterparty. How much is shared is settled in the contract. What changes is the starting point of the negotiation, because the record is known to exist.

9. In these instruments, a certificate of manufacture and sale sits on the import side

The document overseas buyers request most often is something in the free-sale certificate family. In Korean cosmetics law, the place that word occupies is the opposite side of the trade.

The main text of the Cosmetics Act establishes no procedure for issuing a certificate for an export product. The one provision in the main text that deals with issuing a document is Article 31, which provides for the reissue of a registration certificate, a report certificate or a functional cosmetics review result notice, any of which has been lost or rendered unusable.

In the main text of the Enforcement Rule of the Cosmetics Act, a certificate of manufacture and sale appears in exactly one place: item (e) of subparagraph 4 of Article 12. And that provision is about imports, not exports. Subparagraph 4 of Article 12 requires a responsible distributor to prepare and keep an import control record for an imported cosmetic, listing ten items. The first five are the product name or the name under which it is to be sold in Korea; the specifications and content of the raw ingredients; the country of manufacture, the name of the manufacturing company and the location of that company; a copy of the functional cosmetics review result notice; and the certificate of manufacture and sale. The remaining five are a sample of the product description written in Korean; the date of first import, meaning the customs clearance date; the import date and import quantity for each manufacturing number; the date and result of quality testing for each manufacturing number; and the outlet, date and quantity of sale.

Item (e) carries a proviso. The certificate may be omitted where an agency that verifies import and export requirements under the integrated public notice referred to in Article 12(2) of the Foreign Trade Act confirms that the cosmetic is the same as one imported by a responsible distributor that holds a certificate of manufacture and sale, and where the responsible distributor has had the product inspected against its own quality control standards by an institution under item (a), item (c) or item (d) of subparagraph 2 of Article 6(2) of the Enforcement Rule and keeps the resulting test report.

What matters here is the direction of travel. When cosmetics come into Korea, Korean law wants a certificate of manufacture and sale as one item in a record. Which certificate a product leaving Korea needs is set not by these instruments but by the importing country's rules, in the same direction Article 30 points when it allows the rules of the importing country to apply. In practice, the fastest opening move is for the buyer to name the certificate and the form it needs.

10. Where quantity and pack size touch the provisions

A conversation about quantity turns into a conversation about pack size, and pack size touches two provisions.

Article 16(2) provides that no one may divide up and sell the contents held in a cosmetic container. The parenthesis excludes a customised cosmetics seller selling through a customised cosmetics preparation manager, and a seller of a cosmetic manufactured for the purpose of sale in divided portions among the cosmetics covered by the proviso to item (b) of subparagraph 3-2 of Article 2. This paragraph is on the Article 30 exemption list.

Subparagraph 4 of Article 16(1) covers a product whose packaging and mandatory particulars have been defaced, forged or altered. Its parenthesis attaches to defacement alone: what it excludes is defacement that is necessary in order to sell a customised cosmetic, and there is no equivalent carve-out for forging or altering. This subparagraph is not on the exemption list.

In practice, then, timing is what separates the two. Producing goods labelled to an export specification from the outset, and opening up a product whose labelling is already complete in order to change it later, sit under different provisions. If you plan to ask for local labelling or for set assembly, it is worth writing into the proposal at which stage that work happens and who performs it.

Country of origin marking is governed not by the Cosmetics Act but by a different body of law. This article did not re-examine those provisions, and the governing instruments, the determination criteria and the boundary of simple processing operations are set out provision by provision in the country of origin article.

11. What to put in the first proposal, and what to confirm in the first reply

Turning the provisions above into a checklist gives the following. These are items to confirm, not figures or terms.

Four things are worth writing down on the proposing side: the country of sale and who verifies the rules that will apply there; whether any sale inside Korea is mixed into the plan; the range of items you want to carry and the list of product documents you need; and at which stage you intend local labelling and packing work to happen.

Four things are worth confirming in the reply: whether the supplying party is registered under Article 3; which of the records required by Articles 11 and 12 of the Enforcement Rule the requested material actually corresponds to; how quality testing is performed at the manufacturing-number level; and whether reporting and recall procedures for safety information are reflected in the contract documents.

Figures are deliberately absent. Minimum quantities, unit prices, lead times and which credentials a company holds differ by company and by item, and this article did not verify them. To discuss actual terms with EVAS, use the contact page and include the country of sale, the channel and the items you would like to carry. How supply and the working process are organised is set out on the services page.

12. Frequently asked questions

If a product is export-only, can we ignore Korean ingredient limits?

Article 30 sets aside Article 8, so Korea's prohibited raw materials and limits of use do not automatically travel with the product. The same provision, however, allows the rules of the importing country to be followed instead. It does not mean that leaving both sets of rules unchecked is permissible.

What happens if we sell a little in Korea and also export?

The condition in Article 30 is a product that is not sold domestically and is intended solely for export. Once domestic sales are mixed in, that condition is not met, so it is safer to plan on the ordinary provisions applying with no exception.

Can the label be in English only, with no Korean?

Article 12 does not apply to a product intended solely for export, and the proviso to subparagraph 1 of Article 21 of the Enforcement Rule of the Cosmetics Act allows products for export and the like to be written in the language of the destination country. What has to appear on the label is still determined by the importing country's rules, so the language and the required particulars have to be decided together against that country's requirements.

Can we require the brand owner to give us test reports and quality records?

The law places duties on the manufacturer and the responsible distributor to create and keep such records. It does not go on to require those records to be handed to a counterparty, so which records are shared, and how widely, is settled in the contract. Naming the record in the statutory terms when you ask for it makes the discussion faster.

Does the Korean government issue a free-sale certificate?

Within the scope this article verified, the main text of the Cosmetics Act and of its Enforcement Rule contains no procedure for issuing a certificate for an export product. In these instruments a certificate of manufacture and sale appears only as an item in the import control record for an imported cosmetic. Which certificate is needed, and which body issues it, depends on the importing country's rules, so the starting point is for the buyer to name the required document and its form.

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