Korean Law in English — Statutes & Articles (법령 영문)

Look up South Korean laws in English from the official source. Give a law name in English or Korean — "Personal Information Protection Act", "개인정보 보호법", "Labor Standards Act", "Commercial Act" — and get:

• the official English title, Korean title, type (Act, Presidential Decree, …) and responsible ministry;
• the English text of specific articles (e.g. Article 15, Article 15-2), articles containing given words, or the full text;
• the effective date of the English translation and of the current Korean law, with an englishMayBeOutdated flag — Korean law changes often and English translations can lag months behind;
• a link to the current Korean text on law.go.kr.

Data: English translations published by the Korea Ministry of Government Legislation (법제처) through the National Law Information Center (law.go.kr), about 3,250 laws (about half are flagged as older than the current Korean text). Refreshed nightly. No API key or Korean account needed.

Why use this Actor

The official Korean law API only works from servers registered in Korea. This Actor gives developers, compliance teams, lawyers and AI agents the same official English translations in clean JSON, in one call.

Typical questions it answers:

• "What does Article 15 of Korea's Personal Information Protection Act say?"
• "Which articles of the Korean Labor Standards Act mention overtime?"
• "What is the official English name of 상법?"
• "Is the English translation of this Korean law up to date?"

Input

Field	Description
query	Law name in English or Korean, full or partial.
lawId	Optional 6-digit Korean law ID (법령ID) from a previous result, for an exact lookup.
articles	Optional article numbers for the best match: "15", "15-2", "제15조의2".
searchText	Optional words; returns articles of the best match containing all of them.
includeFullText	Return every article of the best match. Default false.
maxLaws	How many matching laws to list (1–20). Default 5.
maxArticles	Cap on returned articles (1–500). Default 20.

{ "query": "Personal Information Protection Act", "articles": ["15", "17"] }

Without articles, searchText or includeFullText, the Actor only lists matching laws (cheaper).

Output

One dataset item per matching law. Example:

{
  "query": "Personal Information Protection Act",
  "found": true,
  "matchRank": 1,
  "lawId": "011357",
  "nameEn": "PERSONAL INFORMATION PROTECTION ACT",
  "nameKo": "개인정보 보호법",
  "abbreviationKo": null,
  "type": "Act",
  "typeKo": "법률",
  "ministryKo": "개인정보보호위원회",
  "englishVersion": {
    "effectiveDate": "2025-10-02",
    "promulgationDate": "2025-04-01",
    "promulgationNo": "20897"
  },
  "koreanCurrent": {
    "effectiveDate": "2026-09-11",
    "promulgationDate": "2026-03-10"
  },
  "englishMayBeOutdated": true,
  "lawGoKrUrl": "https://www.law.go.kr/LSW/lsInfoP.do?lsiSeq=283839",
  "articles": [
    {
      "article": "Article 15",
      "title": "Collection and use of personal information",
      "text": "Article 15 (Collection and use of personal information) (1) A personal information controller may collect personal information in any of the following cases, and use it within the scope of the purpose of collection: <Amended on Mar. 14, 2023>1. Where consent is obtained from the data subject;2. Wher …"
    },
    {
      "article": "Article 17",
      "title": "Provision of personal information",
      "text": "Article 17 (Provision of personal information) (1) A personal information controller may provide (or share; hereinafter the same shall apply) the personal information of a data subject to a third party in any of the following cases: <Amended on Feb. 4, 2020; Mar. 14, 2023>1. Where consent is obtaine …"
    }
  ],
  "articlesMatched": 2,
  "source": "Korea Ministry of Government Legislation (법제처) — National Law Information Center (law.go.kr), English translation",
  "disclaimer": "English translations are provided for reference only; the Korean text is the only legally binding version. Check englishMayBeOutdated: translations can lag behind the current Korean law.",
  "cacheUpdatedAt": "2026-10-02T09:33:21+00:00"
}

Pricing

Pay per event:

• law-search-result — per matching law listed
• law-text — per law returned with article text

See the Pricing tab for current prices.

Important

• English translations are for reference only. The Korean text is the only legally binding version.
• Always check englishMayBeOutdated and koreanCurrent.effectiveDate. When the flag is true, the current Korean law has been amended after the translated version.
• Occasionally the official source lists two English texts for the same article number (for example an amendment with a different effective date). Both are returned, labelled version: "1 of 2" and "2 of 2" with a note — check the Korean original.
• Coverage is limited to laws that have an official English translation (statutes and many decrees; not every regulation).
• This is legal information, not legal advice.

Use with AI agents

Designed to be called by AI agents (MCP, tool calling). Pass the law name you have — English or Korean — plus the article numbers you need, and read articles[].text.