The National Tax Service (NTS) of South Korea has officially announced that virtual assets held in non-custodial and decentralized wallets, such as MetaMask and cold wallets, are not subject to the overseas financial account reporting requirements. This clarification is in line with Article 53 of the “Act on the International Adjustment of Tax Affairs.”
The NTS further explained that virtual asset wallets opened and held through software or devices provided by overseas virtual asset wallet operators (like MetaMask and Ledger) do not fall under the reporting requirements. This is because these operators only provide a program for storing personal cryptographic keys and do not have control over the transactions.
Starting in 2023, the NTS has included virtual assets in the scope of overseas financial account reporting, requiring individuals holding more than 500 million won in virtual assets to report to the NTS.
