South Korea has launched a special amnesty program for companies that haven’t followed the rules for handling chemicals. This program runs from February 28 to October 27, 2025.
This will impact companies that made or imported chemicals before February 27, 2025, but didn’t follow the K-REACH regulations correctly. This includes instances where companies have failed to complete the following actions:
- Substance registration
- Report on changes to submitted registration dossiers; or
- Obtain pre-registration
Under this amnesty programme, South Korea is giving the opportunity to these companies to come forward and voluntarily report these violations themselves. This will also require companies to provide the necessary information to register or pre-register their chemicals.
Without this amnesty, companies could face substantial fines of up to KRW 100,000,00 (around €63,000), penalties of up to 5% of sales, or even prison time (up to five years). Once the amnesty period ends (October 27, 2025), the authorities, including the National Institute of Chemical Safety (NICS) and the Korea Environment Corporation (K-Eco), will continue to enforce these penalties to ensure that all companies are following the rules.
For more information, please contact info@h2compliance.com.
Published April 14, 2025
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