Chuseok 2026 in Seoul: Last Trains Run Until 1 AM, Not 2

Seoul's last subway trains and buses during Chuseok 2026 will reach the end of the line by 1 a.m., not the 2 a.m. cutoff the city used the last time this holiday needed the same fix. If you're flying home through Incheon or catching a KTX out of Seoul Station on September 26 or 27, that hour matters more than it sounds like it should.

Schedule card listing Chuseok 2026 dates: last trains/buses by 1 AM on Sept 26-27, 751 extra intercity buses daily Sept 23-27, and 74 hospitals with round-the-clock ERs Sept 24-27

Seoul Station at night, its century-old dome lit gold above light-trail traffic streaming past the terminal

Why the Crush Lands on Exactly Two Nights

Chuseok's legal holiday runs Thursday the 24th through Saturday the 26th this year. Sunday the 27th tacks on for free since it's already a weekend day. There's no substitute Monday; that only kicks in when the holiday lands on a Sunday, and this one doesn't (publicholidays.co.kr). Monday the 28th is a normal workday, offices open, kids back in school.

That's the whole story in one sentence: everyone who left Seoul on the 24th has to be back by Sunday night, not Monday, so the return traffic that would normally spread across three evenings gets pushed into two. Seoul's transit authority built its extended-hours plan around exactly that math, according to Kyunghyang Shinmun's report on the city's Chuseok measures, published the same day I'm writing this.

What Extends, and Until When

On the nights of September 26 and 27, subway lines 1 through 8's Seoul Metro segment, Line 9, the Ui-Sinseol Line, and the Sillim Line all run late enough that the last train reaches its terminus by 1 a.m. instead of stopping service at the usual time. Buses serving Seoul Station, Yongsan, Yeongdeungpo, Cheongnyangni, and Suseo — plus Seoul Express, Dongseoul, and Nambu terminals — get the same treatment. Add it up and the two nights combine for 128 extra subway runs, 64 a day.

Quote card: "The whole country's return trip is getting squeezed into two nights instead of three, because Monday isn't a holiday this year." — Korea Travel Planner verdict

Compare that to 2024, the last time Chuseok needed this fix: buses and trains ran until 2 a.m. that year, per Korea JoongAng Daily's coverage at the time, with subway trips increased by 121 runs a day, according to Kyunghyang Shinmun's report from that Chuseok. This year's window is an hour shorter but carries more runs, which tells you the city expects the traffic packed tighter into fewer hours, not lighter overall. Don't plan a 1:30 a.m. subway ride back from Hongdae on the 26th or 27th.

That train already left.

One route this doesn't touch: AREX, the airport rail link between Incheon and Seoul Station. It's not on the extended list in either the Kyunghyang Shinmun or Korea Duty Free News reporting, so treat its normal last-train time as final on those two nights. Landing after midnight on the 26th or 27th, budget for a taxi from the airport rather than assuming the train will still be running when you clear immigration.

The Highway Side: 751 Extra Buses a Day

Rows of long-distance coaches parked outside Seoul Express Bus Terminal, Korean route signage lit above the building ⓒ한국관광공사 포토코리아-이범수 (Korea Tourism Organization, KOGL Type 1)

If your trip involves an intercity bus rather than the subway, the bigger number is on the highways. From September 23 through 27, Seoul runs 751 additional express and intercity bus departures every day, moving roughly 25,000 more passengers than a normal day — figures that show up consistently across Kyunghyang Shinmun and Korea Duty Free News's report on the same city announcement. That's the fraction-of-normal-wait-time version of the story: a bus that might run every 20 minutes on a regular Saturday is running closer to every 15 through that five-day window.

It's fine to just book a hotel near Seoul Station for the 26th instead of gambling on a smooth return trip that night. Plenty of visitors skip the last-bus math entirely and eat one extra night's accommodation instead. Nobody's grading you on toughing it out.

If your dates are flexible at all, moving your Seoul-bound leg to the 25th (Chuseok day itself) instead of the 26th or 27th sidesteps the whole squeeze. Korail's advance-reservation window for the September 23–27 travel period already closed on the 11th, so at this point don't expect to book a seated KTX ticket for the return days cold. Standing tickets and last-minute cancellations still move through the Korail app right up to departure, and SRT, the competing high-speed line out of Suseo, is worth checking separately since it runs its own booking system with its own leftovers.

If You Need a Doctor While Everyone Else Is Traveling

Seoul keeps 74 emergency facilities open around the clock through the holiday: 51 designated emergency medical institutions plus 23 general hospitals running their own ERs, a split confirmed in the same Kyunghyang Shinmun report. If you're traveling with kids, 8 of those are designated "우리아이 안심병원" (child-safe hospitals) with 3 more counted as pediatric emergency centers, so pediatric ER capacity specifically isn't an afterthought this holiday.

I haven't found an English-language list naming which 74 hospitals those are, so I can't hand you specific addresses here. The Korean articles report the count, not the roster. Your travel insurance provider's Korea hotline, or the front desk of wherever you're staying, is the faster route to an actual address at 2 a.m. than trying to translate a government PDF on your phone.

Walk past Seoul Station on either of those two nights and you'll hear it before you see it — the terminal announcements running back-to-back in Korean, Mandarin, and English, competing with the low rumble of idling buses out front. It's the one week of the year the station sounds busier at midnight than at noon.

None of this changes anything if your trip lands outside September 26–27. But if your flight home or your last KTX happens to fall on one of those two nights, build in the extra hour you'd otherwise lose assuming last service runs to 2 a.m. like it used to. Book the earlier train if you can — the later one exists, it just ends sooner than you'd guess.

This is a running news series, not a one-off post — new stories go up twice a day, roughly 7am and 7pm Korea time.

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You might also like: What Koreans Eat on Chuseok: Songpyeon, Jeon, the Flour Mistake (Korean Table)

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