Chuseok 2026: There Is No Substitute Monday, and the Train Tickets Sold Out in a Nine-Day Window

Everyone explains what Chuseok means. Almost nobody publishes the two dates that decide whether you can actually move during it.

The first is that the holiday is three days — Thursday to Saturday — and the Monday that many foreign guides quietly add does not exist this year. The second is that the rail booking window opened on 3 September and closed on 11 September, which is very likely before you started planning.

If you are in Korea between 23 and 27 September, those two facts shape your week more than anything about songpyeon.

Three days, and the fourth one people expect does not exist

Chuseok falls on Friday 25 September 2026. The holiday runs Thursday 24 to Saturday 26.

There is no substitute holiday. The rule catches people out because it is narrower than they assume: for Seollal and Chuseok, a substitute weekday is granted only when the holiday period overlaps a Sunday. The 2026 run is Thursday, Friday, Saturday — no Sunday inside it — so Monday 28 September is an ordinary working day. Offices open, banks open, and the people who went home come back on Sunday night.

Date	Day	Status
24 Sep	Thursday	Public holiday
25 Sep	Friday	Chuseok
26 Sep	Saturday	Public holiday
27 Sep	Sunday	Weekend
28 Sep	Monday	Normal working day

That gives most Korean employees four consecutive days off, not five. It also means the return crush lands on Sunday the 27th rather than spreading over a long Monday.

If you are planning further ahead, the two long weekends in October behave differently, and that difference is worth reading before you book anything.

So the dates are fixed. Why can you not buy a seat?

The rail booking window was nine days long, and it has closed

Korail sold the holiday seats between 3 and 11 September, for travel between 23 and 27 September.

It was not one sale. Priority booking for designated groups — people with disabilities, senior citizens, pregnant travellers and national merit recipients — ran on 3 and 4 September, 09:00 to 15:00. General booking ran 7 to 11 September, 07:00 to 13:00, and each day released a different set of lines.

Date	What went on sale
7 Sep	All conventional lines except KTX
8 Sep	KTX on Gyeongbu, Gangneung, Donghae, Jungang, Jungbu Naeryuk
9 Sep	KTX on Honam and Jeolla
10 Sep	KTX departing from and arriving at Suseo
11 Sep	KTX on Gyeongbu departing from and arriving at Seoul

The cap was twelve tickets per person for the holiday period, six per transaction.

Read that table again if you were hoping to take a train to Busan on the 24th. The Seoul–Gyeongbu seats — the single busiest corridor in the country — went on sale on the last morning of the window.

And there was a new condition this year that stopped some people from buying at all.

KTX and SRT became one booking system this year

From this Chuseok, KTX and SRT tickets are sold through a single membership.

Only a Korail integrated rail member can book holiday tickets. Existing Korail members were converted automatically. Anyone who had registered with SR alone — the operator of SRT, the Suseo-departing high-speed service — had to complete a separate signup or conversion before they could buy anything.

This is the kind of change that costs you a holiday. Someone who had used SRT for two years, and assumed their account still worked, found out at 07:00 on a morning when seats disappear in minutes.

If you have never booked Korean rail with a foreign card, the Seoul to Busan KTX guide covers the card rejection problem separately — and it is a different problem from the membership one.

What is still open

Cancellations, and the modes that never ran a lottery.

Returned tickets go back on sale, and they keep appearing up to departure. Check repeatedly rather than once, and treat a full screen as a snapshot rather than a verdict.

Buses and domestic flights are sold on each operator's own schedule, which varies by terminal and by airline, so check the route you actually want rather than looking for a single national announcement. The Seoul to Busan bus and domestic flights in Korea both cover how those bookings work outside a holiday week.

The other plan is to not move at all

Seoul empties out, and that is the argument for staying.

A large share of the city leaves for family, traffic inverts, and the places that are unbearable in normal weeks become walkable. I have written the case for that separately in why an empty Seoul is the best time to be here, and what actually closes.

If you stay, the food is the part worth planning. Chuseok food is not on any restaurant menu, which is a genuine problem if you assumed you could order it.

FAQ

When is Chuseok 2026?

Friday 25 September. The public holiday runs Thursday 24 to Saturday 26 September.

Is Monday 28 September a holiday?

No. For Chuseok and Seollal a substitute weekday is granted only when the holiday overlaps a Sunday, and the 2026 period does not. Monday is a normal working day.

Can I still buy a KTX ticket?

Not through the advance sale, which closed on 11 September. Returned tickets reappear continuously, so check the app repeatedly rather than assuming it is full.

Do I need a special account to book?

Yes. From this Chuseok, KTX and SRT are booked through a single Korail integrated rail membership. An SR-only account had to be converted first.

One sentence is enough

The holiday is 24 to 26 September, Monday is a working day, and the seats you wanted were sold in a window that closed on the 11th.

What is left is cancellations and buses, and both reward someone who checks ten times over someone who checks once.

References

• 비건뉴스 — 2026 추석 연휴 24~26일, 28일 대체공휴일 아니다 — 연휴 날짜와 대체공휴일 미지정 사유

• 국제뉴스 — 2026 추석 코레일 기차표 예매 총정리 — 노선별 예매일, 교통약자 사전예매, 통합회원 요건

• 위기브 — 2026년 추석 기차표 예매 가이드 — 예매 대상기간과 매수 제한