Toss Payments Review

Toss Payments is the online payment gateway (PG) business of Viva Republica, the company behind South Korea's Toss finance app. It began as LG Uplus's electronic payments division, which Viva Republica agreed to buy in December 2019. LG Uplus spun the division off as a new company in August 2020, after postponing a planned 1 June split, and it launched as Toss Payments on 3 August 2020. It is headquartered in Gangnam, Seoul, and serves Korean online businesses. It also offers PayPal and overseas-card acceptance for selling abroad. As of October 2026 the published price is 3.4% on credit and debit cards for merchants on the general tier, 2.0% on bank transfers (minimum ₩200) and ₩400 per virtual-account payment, all plus 10% VAT. On top of that comes a ₩220,000 joining fee and a ₩110,000 annual fee. Smaller merchants that qualify under Korean law get preferential card rates applied automatically. Contracts run for two years and renew automatically for two more unless either side gives written notice a month before the end. In July 2026 Viva Republica filed a decision to absorb Toss Payments by merger, with a scheduled merger date of 30 November 2026, subject to regulatory approval. Toss Payments will then cease to exist as a separate company, and its contracts pass to Viva Republica, which said in the filing that it has no plans to change or discontinue the business. It has not said whether the Toss Payments name will continue. In September 2026 Toss Payments disclosed that 4,131 payment records from one merchant had been viewed without authorisation, and the Financial Supervisory Service opened an on-site inspection.

Estimated annual cost at three realistic processing volumes, using Toss Payments’s published online rate plus monthly fees. Real costs vary with average transaction size, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.

What Toss Payments is

Toss Payments is the online payment gateway business of Viva Republica, the Seoul company behind the Toss consumer finance app. In Korea a PG sits between online merchants and the card companies, banks and mobile carriers. It authorises payments, collects funds and settles them to the merchant. Toss Payments does this for cards, account transfers, virtual accounts, mobile phone billing, gift certificates and the major Korean wallets, under one contract.

Its lineage runs through LG Uplus. Korean press histories trace LG Uplus's electronic payments business back to Dacom, a predecessor of LG Uplus, in the 1990s; they disagree on the year, so we do not state one. Viva Republica signed a share purchase agreement for the division in December 2019; Korean press reported a price of ₩365 billion. On 20 December 2019 LG Uplus disclosed that it would spin the division off as a new company, with a split date of 1 June 2020. On 27 May 2020 it postponed the split to 1 August 2020, citing delays to licensing due diligence caused by Covid-19. Toss Payments was incorporated and formally launched on 3 August 2020, taking over LG Uplus's merchant and partner contracts. At the time LG Uplus was the second-largest PG in Korea, with a 22.1% market share in the first quarter of 2020. We give 2020 as the founding year because that is when the current company was created. Its chief executive, as listed on its website, is Lim Han-wook, and it is based at Teheran-ro 131 in Gangnam, Seoul.

According to Viva Republica's July 2026 merger filing, Toss Payments had revenue of ₩925.1 billion in 2025 and a net loss of about ₩16.0 billion, and Korean press reports that it has made a net loss every year since launch. Its homepage says it is Korea's number one PG by transaction value and has more than 100,000 merchants. Its company page, which carries no date, gives ₩171 trillion of cumulative transactions, 3.7 billion transactions, about ₩3 trillion a month and more than 90,000 partner merchants. The two merchant counts do not match, and we have not seen independent figures for either.

The merger into Viva Republica

On 28 July 2026, Viva Republica filed a major-matters report with Korea's financial regulator (published on the DART disclosure system) announcing that it will absorb Toss Payments by merger, with a scheduled merger date of 30 November 2026. Viva Republica had already taken Toss Payments to 100% ownership in 2026: it bought Ant Group's stake, Ant having become the second-largest shareholder in 2023, and then acquired the remaining minority holders through a share exchange completed by the end of June. Toss Payments' board approved the merger on 26 August, and the creditor objection period ran to 30 September. Before the merger, the VAN business (the network that carries card transactions between stores and card companies) was split off into a separate company, Toss VAN, on 1 September 2026, according to press reports. The filing says the merger still needs government approvals, including from the Financial Services Commission, and that the schedule may change. When it completes, Toss Payments will cease to exist as a company and Viva Republica, as the surviving company, takes on its rights and obligations, so your merchant contract would continue with Viva Republica. The filing says there are no plans to change or discontinue the business either company runs, and that no further restructuring has been decided. It says nothing about the Toss Payments name. Toss Payments' own contract requires a party going through a merger to notify the other in writing 30 days beforehand (Article 12). If you sign up now, expect your contract counterparty, and probably the company details on your invoices and terms, to change at the end of November.

Why we list it as a payment facilitator

Under Korean rules, an online merchant normally contracts with a PG rather than directly with each card company. Toss Payments signs the service agreement with the merchant, contracts with the card companies, banks and carriers itself, collects the funds and settles them to the merchant after deducting its fees. That puts the merchant relationship with Toss Payments, much like a payment facilitator elsewhere. It is not just a gateway, because it handles the money. It is not a merchant of record either, because the merchant sells to its own customers. Toss Payments describes itself as an electronic financial business operator, the category of firm that registers with the Financial Services Commission under Korea's Electronic Financial Transactions Act, and its merger needs that commission's approval. Its contract also covers merchants that act as sub-PGs, and it runs a payout service for marketplaces.

What it costs

• Credit and debit cards: 3.4% on the general tier, as of October 2026. Qualifying small and mid-size merchants get preferential rates under Korean law, applied automatically twice a year with a refund.
• Korean wallets (Toss Pay, Naver Pay, Kakao Pay and others): 3.4%, with an extra fee on some wallets set by the wallet provider.
• Account transfer: 2.0%, minimum ₩200. Virtual account: ₩400 per payment.
• Mobile phone billing: 3.5% for physical goods, 7.0% for digital content, 8.0% for app-only goods. Gift certificates: 9.0%.
• BrandPay (own-brand wallet): 4.3% on cards. Escrow: 0.2% on cards and transfers, ₩200 per virtual-account payment. Account verification: ₩50.
• PayPal: 4.0% + US$0.30 per transaction plus a 2.5% conversion and withdrawal fee. The original fee is not refunded when a payment is cancelled.
• All of the above are plus 10% VAT. On top come a ₩220,000 joining fee, paid once, and a ₩110,000 annual fee. The page says these two can vary with the contract type, and does not say whether VAT is included in them. Merchants that sign up through a hosting platform pay that platform's rates.

VAT matters here. A merchant on the general tier pays 3.74% all-in on a card payment: ₩3,740 on a ₩100,000 sale. The fixed fees add ₩330,000 in the first year and ₩110,000 a year after that. Toss Payments' homepage offers custom quotes, and its contract lets it change fees and settlement cycles with notice. Get any negotiated rate in writing as part of your contract.

Getting approved

The standard route is to apply, pay the joining fee, sign the contract, and wait for review by nine major Korean card companies before you can accept payments. Card companies check the live site, the type of goods, whether there are subscription products and whether the payment window works. Quick Open lets a sole trader new to Toss Payments take payments immediately while that review runs. However, money taken in the meantime is held until 90 days after the review result is announced, and payments may be cancelled if the business turns out to be ineligible or a serious violation is found. Quick Open is not yet available to companies, or to merchants on hosting platforms such as Cafe24 and imweb. Sign-up asks for a Korean business registration number, and we found no route for a business without one.

Settlement, bonds and holds

Toss Payments' fee page says it settles within five days on average, against what it calls an industry average of 15 days. Its developer documentation says its settlement cycle is a minimum of one week, so treat the five-day figure as the company's own average rather than a promise. Your cycle is fixed in your contract. It counts business days only, and can be daily, weekly or monthly. PayPal funds are paid weekly, four business days after the Sunday cut-off. The contract normally requires a performance guarantee insurance policy sized by Toss Payments, and allows your monthly payout limit to be set equal to the bond. Payouts above the limit can be withheld. Toss Payments can waive the bond, and its fee page advertises a waiver for settlements up to ₩10 million.

The hold clauses are wide. Toss Payments can withhold all or part of a settlement for customer disputes or non-delivery claims, abnormal increases or falls in sales, fraud-system flags, deteriorating credit, unpaid collateral, payouts above your limit, or any suspected breach of the contract or the law. Held funds are paid back in instalments after a period of three months or more set by the company, with only the principal returned. Refunds and cancellations after settlement are deducted from the next payout. If the balance goes negative, you must pay the difference within five business days, or within seven days of a request for cancelled amounts.

Contract terms

The electronic payment service contract runs for two years and renews automatically for another two years on the same terms unless either side gives written notice at least one month before the end. We found no early-termination fee in the contract, but also no general right for the merchant to leave mid-term. The merchant can terminate if it rejects an amended version of the contract. Toss Payments must announce changes seven days in advance, or 30 days in advance and by direct notice if they are unfavourable or important. Toss Payments can restrict service or terminate for breach, heavy complaint volume, insolvency risk, 15 days without approval requests, or failure to apply required security updates. Its liability for holds is limited to cases of intent or gross negligence. Disputes are governed by Korean law, and merchants based abroad must use the Seoul Central District Court.

Reputation, complaints and regulators

On 9 September 2026, Toss Payments disclosed that 4,131 payment records from a single merchant, covering 2,671 people, had been viewed without authorisation. Buyer names, masked card numbers and approval numbers were exposed, but card passwords and expiry dates were not. The company said its systems were not hacked: an integration key used on the merchant's website had been exposed, and a third party used it to collect further information. It blocked the access route and notified affected customers, and said no fraudulent payments had been confirmed. The Financial Supervisory Service began an on-site inspection of Toss Payments and another PG, and on 16 September the Financial Services Commission held a meeting on payment security with the FSS, card companies and PG companies, at which the Toss Payments case was discussed. As of October 2026 no outcome or sanction against Toss Payments has been published, so we record this as an open inspection rather than an enforcement action. We found no other regulator sanction naming Toss Payments itself. Toss Payments has no Trustpilot or BBB profile, which is normal for a Korean B2B payments company, so we have no comparable independent review score.

Who should use Toss Payments

Toss Payments suits a Korean-registered online business that wants every common Korean payment method from one PG, with modern developer tools and a price list it can read before it signs. It is a particularly natural fit for sole traders who would qualify for the small-merchant card rates and want to launch quickly, and for subscription and app businesses that need billing and wallets. Read the contract before you sign. Budget for VAT and the fixed fees, note the two-year auto-renewal date, and ask what bond and monthly payout limit will apply to you. Businesses in restricted categories, and foreign companies without a Korean business registration, will need another route into Korean payments.