Incheon Airport Lost and Found: The Complete Guide (2026)

If you lost something at Incheon International Airport, the first question is not who do I call — it's where exactly you lost it. Inside the same airport, an item left on the aircraft, in the terminal, or past the duty-free line is held by three different organisations. Contact the wrong one and you'll be told your item isn't there, when it may well be sitting somewhere else in the building.

This guide covers who holds what, how long they hold it, what documents you need to get it back, and what your options are depending on whether you're still in Korea.

1. Work out who holds your item

The Incheon Airport Lost & Found Office is run jointly by the Incheon International Airport Police and Incheon International Airport Corporation. But it doesn't handle everything found at the airport.

Handled by the airport Lost & Found Office

Items lost in the passenger terminals, the concourse, the public areas of the Transportation Center, the curbside, and the car parks.

Handled by someone else

(1) On the aircraft — your airline, not the airport (2) On an airport bus or the Airport Railroad — that operator (3) Items newly purchased in the bonded area (duty-free shops, boarding gates, arrivals hall) — Korea Customs

Point (3) confuses most foreign travellers, so it's worth being precise. If you bought it at a duty-free shop — alcohol, cigarettes, clothing — and then lost it airside, that's Customs. If it's your own belonging you brought with you — your passport, the wallet you've been using, your bag, your phone — that's the Lost & Found Office even if you lost it airside.

2. Lost & Found Office contacts

Both desks operate 07:00-21:30, year-round.

People frequently contact the wrong terminal. Check which terminal your airline uses before calling — Terminal 2 serves Korean Air, Delta, Air France, KLM and, since 2025, Air Busan; most other carriers use Terminal 1.

3. How to search

Lost & Found staff register found items on Police Minwon24 (formerly LOST112), Korea's national lost-property system. You can search it yourself:

https://minwon24.police.go.kr

Search with the found location set to Incheon and the place type set to airport.

One important limitation: non-accepted items are not registered there. If your item falls into the list in section 5 below, searching online will return nothing even when the item is sitting in the office. For those, you have to email or phone.

A "not found" answer is not the end of it. Items do not stay at the airport. Depending on what it is and how long it has been, your item may already have moved to the airport police, to Customs, to your embassy or to the Lost Phone Call Center — see section 4. When an office tells you they do not have it, ask where it was transferred and on what date, not just whether it is there. Ask the same about timing: an item handed in today may not be searchable or logged for several days, so a single early "no" proves very little.

4. How long items are kept — and where they go next

General found items are held for the statutory 6 months, plus a further 3 months during which the finder may claim ownership. After that they pass to the national treasury and are disposed of.

That's the general rule. Several categories leave the airport far sooner.

Why this table matters more than the six-month figure

Passports and phones are the two most commonly lost items, and neither is at the airport after one month. Past that point, contacting the Lost & Found Office will not help — the item is with a different organisation entirely, under a different process.

If you hold a foreign passport, your document goes to your embassy in Korea. Note what that means in practice: an embassy will generally not forward a recovered passport to you overseas, and if you have already reported it lost to your government, the document is void regardless of whether the physical booklet is found. If you have left Korea, recovering the passport itself is rarely the useful outcome — but knowing where it went still matters, because it tells you the item was found rather than stolen.

If you lost a phone, tablet or smartwatch, after one month it goes to the Lost Phone Call Center, run by the Korea Association for ICT Promotion. That system identifies owners by matching the device's IMEI against Korean mobile carrier subscriber records. If you were not a subscriber to a Korean carrier — which is to say, if you're a visitor — there is nothing for it to match against. Your device can sit there indefinitely without anyone being able to connect it to you.

So for both categories, one month is the real deadline, not six.

If your device has already been transferred, contact the Lost Phone Call Center directly (1566-4300, https://www.handphone.or.kr).

5. The non-accepted items list

Hazardous items, items containing personal information, and items unlikely to be claimed are not registered as formal found property. They're logged in an internal system only, which is why they don't appear on Police Minwon24. For these, email or phone is the only way to check.

Retention periods vary by category, and the item is discarded when the period expires.

Three things worth pulling out of that table.

Power banks are discarded immediately. Aviation safety rules prohibit storing them at all. Whether you left it on the aircraft or in the terminal, recovery is not realistic.

ID cards and payment cards are non-accepted items. They're held for one month, but they won't show up in an online search. If you lost a wallet, the wallet itself may be registered while its contents are logged separately.

A single wireless earbud or an earbud charging case is a non-accepted item, held one month. A complete pair in its case is treated as ordinary found property. If you lost one side only, the clock is shorter than you'd expect.

6. The three ways to collect

Before anything else: confirm your item is actually registered. Email or phone the office first. Turning up without checking is a wasted trip, and for non-accepted items there's no way to check online.

(1) Collecting in person

• Your ID
• The report reference number

The report reference number (분실물 접수 번호) is issued when the office registers your enquiry. If you haven't contacted them yet, you don't have one — that's what the initial email or phone call produces. Keep it; every subsequent step needs it.

(2) Collecting by proxy

• A copy of the owner's ID
• The proxy's own ID
• The report reference number
• The proxy's personal details, notified to the Lost & Found Office in advance

That last requirement is the one that catches people. The official guidance states:

To prevent unlawful appropriation, proxy collection may be refused if the proxy's personal details have not been provided to the Lost & Found Office in advance.

Sending someone with the right paperwork is not enough. If you're planning to have a friend, colleague or hotel staff member collect on your behalf, you must contact the office first and register who they are. Doing this out of order means the trip fails.

A copy of your ID is acceptable for the owner — you don't need to be present — but the proxy must bring their own physical ID.

(3) Courier delivery (cash on delivery)

• A copy of the owner's ID
• The report reference number
• A completed courier form

Three conditions apply.

The fee is based on size and weight, with a minimum of ₩7,000. Remote and island regions cost more.

You must agree to a liability waiver for loss or damage in transit. If you don't agree, in-person collection is the only option.

Some items cannot be sent at all — high-value goods, cash and securities, oversized items, and fragile items such as alcohol. Ask whether yours qualifies before assuming this route is open.

And it is domestic only. There is no international shipping option. If your address is outside Korea, courier delivery is not available to you at any price.

7. Contacts for everything the airport doesn't handle

Items left on the aircraft

Low-cost carriers each run their own process, and they differ more than you'd expect. Jeju Air releases items only at its arrival-city office, to you or a proxy with a power of attorney, with no shipping of any kind. Trinity Airways (formerly T'way Air) does offer courier delivery, but only to Korean addresses and with electronics and valuables potentially excluded.

Items newly purchased in the bonded area (Customs)

Airport buses and the Airport Railroad

If language is the barrier on any of these calls

1330 is Korea's tourist help line, run by the Korea Tourism Organization. It is free, answers 24 hours a day, and offers interpretation in English, Japanese, Chinese and other languages. It is not a lost & found office — it holds no items and keeps no database — but it will put a live interpreter on a three-way call with the Lost & Found Office, an airline desk, Customs or a police station, which is usually the step that unblocks this.

8. Which situation are you in?

The right approach depends less on what you lost than on where you are now.

You're still in Korea

The straightforward case. Confirm the item is registered, then choose in-person or courier collection. If you're not near Incheon, courier is usually cheaper than the trip.

You've left Korea, but not far

Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Bangkok, Tokyo, Manila — a return flight is a real option for a valuable item, and some travellers do come back. Weigh it against the retention clock: if it's a phone or a passport, you have a month, and part of that is already gone by the time you notice.

If you're returning to Korea anyway within the window, collecting in person on that trip costs nothing extra.

You've left Korea and you know someone there

Proxy collection is available to you, and it's the cleanest route — but only if you register your proxy's details with the office first. Send them a copy of your ID, have them bring their own, and make sure the office knows who's coming before they travel to the airport.

Bear in mind what you're asking: a weekday trip to Incheon during office hours, which for someone in Seoul is a couple of hours each way.

You've left Korea and you don't know anyone there

Every route above is closed. In-person collection needs you in Korea. Proxy collection needs a person in Korea. Courier delivery needs a Korean address. Phone enquiries go to a Korean domestic number during Korean hours.

This is the situation the next section is for.

9. Barriers foreign travellers hit that Korean travellers don't

Worth knowing before you start, because several of these aren't obvious.

The phone lines are answered in Korean. English support is not guaranteed on either terminal's line. Email is the more reliable channel from abroad, and it also gives you a written record with your reference number.

Time zones. 07:00-21:30 Korea time is the early hours of the morning across Europe and the Americas.

The report reference number is a concept, not a document. You don't have one until the office creates it. Every later step depends on it, so the first email matters more than it looks.

ID copies are expected, not optional. For proxy or courier collection, a copy of your passport photo page is standard. Sending a photo of it by email is normal practice here.

Your passport may be the thing you need to prove who you are — and if the passport is the item you lost, that's a circular problem. Any other government-issued photo ID generally works; ask the office what they'll accept before your proxy travels.

If your item is located but you cannot collect it in person — you have left Korea, or you are nowhere near Incheon — the office will release it to someone acting for you with written authorization and their own ID, and any shipping abroad is arranged by whoever collects it: here's what that takes.

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This page is published by Lost and Found Korea (registered business name: KUSTODY). We are not affiliated with Incheon International Airport Corporation or the Incheon International Airport Police.

The procedures described here are based on Incheon International Airport's official guidance, last verified on 11 August 2026. Policies may change — check the airport's official website or the Lost & Found Office for the current position.