Olive Young Sale Dates: Planning a Korea Trip Around the Four Big Weeks
Olive Young sale dates follow a steady pattern: the chain's big Olive Young Sale runs four times a year, in March, June, September and December, for about seven days each. In 2026 it ran March 1 to 7, May 31 to June 6 and August 30 to September 5, all starting on a Sunday. The December edition is the one still ahead, and its dates are announced only shortly before it opens, so land in Seoul inside that window and pair the discounts with the immediate tax refund at the counter.
How the Olive Young Sale Calendar Works
Ask a Seoul office worker when the next Olive Young sale is and you will usually get a month, not a date. That is because the chain's headline event, the Olive Young Sale (shortened at home to "Olyoung Sale"), arrives on a fixed rhythm: four times a year, in March, June, September and December. CJ Olive Young describes it in its own press releases as its regular quarterly sale, and the pattern has held for years.
Each edition runs for about a week. In 2026 the first sale ran from March 1 to 7, the summer sale from May 31 to June 6, and the autumn sale from August 30 to September 5. Look closely and a second pattern appears: all three opened on a Sunday and closed the following Saturday. The last two Decembers followed the same shape, opening on December 1, 2024, and on November 30, 2025, which is why the "December" sale can begin in the final days of November.
Scale is the other constant. The March 2026 edition covered roughly 30,000 beauty and wellness items, and the late-summer edition about 34,000, across stores nationwide and the official app and website. Discounts vary by brand and product rather than applying one flat rate, so the useful question is less "how much off" and more "is the thing on my list part of it this time".
As of mid-October, Olive Young has not announced the dates for the December sale. Recent years point to a start in the last days of November or the first days of December, and the company typically confirms the exact week only days ahead, through its app, website and press releases. Treat any specific December date you see online as a guess until that announcement lands.
Timing Your Trip Around the Sale Week
Plenty of visitors already plan this way. In June 2026, Olive Young and the tax refund operator Global Tax Free reported that the number of foreign shoppers in Korea during the March and June sales was eleven times higher than three years earlier, and that more than 6,200 visitors had come back for three or more sale weeks during 2025. The sale has quietly become a reason to book a flight.
If your dates are flexible, aim to be in the country for the first two or three days of a sale week. Popular items can sell out as the week goes on, and the daily "Today's Special" offers, which put a handful of brands on extra discount for a single day, rotate from the first morning, so a full week gives you every one of them. Arriving midweek still works; arriving the Sunday after it ends does not.
For a December trip, keep the plan loose until the announcement. A practical approach is to book a stay that covers the last days of November and the first week of December, then confirm once the dates appear. The December edition also has a theme of its own: Olive Young announces its annual Olive Young Awards at the end of November, and the last two December sales were built around the winning products, with stores dressed for the holidays.
Outside the four sale weeks, Olive Young is still worth a visit. Individual brands run their own promotions throughout the year, and one-plus-one bundles turn up often. The sale week simply stacks more of those offers into the same seven days, which matters most if you are shopping for friends back home as well as yourself. If you are building a broader shopping list, our guide to Daiso in Korea is a good companion for the same shopping day.
The Olive Young Tax Refund, Step by Step
For visitors, the sale discount is only half the saving. Many Olive Young branches, especially in areas popular with tourists such as Myeongdong, Hongdae and Seongsu, offer immediate tax refund at the register. Instead of claiming at the airport, the tax portion is taken off your bill on the spot.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization's VisitKorea guide, immediate tax refund applies to a single purchase of at least 15,000 won and under 1 million won, and your immediate-refund purchases can total up to 5 million won. It is open to visitors who are not Korean citizens and are staying in Korea for less than six months, and the goods must leave the country within three months of purchase. Anything above those limits can still be claimed through the general refund process, at a downtown refund booth or at the airport before you fly.
The practical steps are simple. Look for a Tax Free sign at the entrance or the counter, bring your physical passport (a photo on your phone will not do), and pay at a staffed counter, telling the cashier before you pay that you want the tax refund. Keep the receipt with your passport until you leave Korea.
One point worth knowing before you start adding things up: the amount you get back is a share of the tax built into the price, less a processing fee, not a flat percentage of your total. Treat it as a pleasant extra on top of the sale price rather than a number to plan a budget around.
Inside a Store During Sale Week
The first thing you notice is the sound: scanners beeping in a steady rhythm, staff calling the next number, the rustle of the chain's green shopping bags. In the Myeongdong flagships, checkout stretches across long rows of numbered counters, and during sale week every one of them earns its number.
Recent editions have followed a familiar structure. Each day a rotating set of brands goes on "Today's Special" for that day only. In March 2026, Olive Young also issued app coupon packs worth up to 40,000 won in total for in-store shopping, released online coupons at midnight, noon and 6 p.m., and ran a short list of discounted picks for foreign shoppers in its stores in Myeongdong, Seongsu, Hongdae, Busan and Jeju. The details change each time, so open the app on day one and read that week's program before you walk in.
Timing your visit within the day helps as much as timing the trip. Weekday mornings, shortly after opening, tend to be calmer than evenings and weekend afternoons, when the Myeongdong flagships fill with visitors and local office workers alike. Go with a written list, check the shelf tags for the sale price, and leave the browsing for a quieter branch away from the main shopping streets.
If the sheer number of brands is the hard part, our rundown of makeup brands worth checking at Olive Young is a good way to narrow the aisles before sale week begins, and for the full experience, Seongsu-dong is where Olive Young N Seongsu sits among the neighborhood's pop-ups and cafes.
Korean Stores or the Global Mall?
If you cannot make it to Korea, the sale still reaches you. Olive Young Global, the company's international online store, runs its own seasonal sale four times a year in the same months, and in March 2026 it ran on the same dates as the sale in Korea, from March 1 to 7. Discounts there are set by country, with region-specific cart coupons and a daily time deal.
The two are not mirror images, though. The Global Mall carries its own selection, so a product you saw on a Seoul shelf may not ship to your country, and shipping rules, customs and delivery times all come into the final cost. Shopping in person adds the immediate tax refund, the chance to see the full range, and the small pleasure of walking out with the bag in hand.
Visitors are buying in a big way. CJ Olive Young said in August 2026 that foreign customers' purchases at its stores in Korea had passed 1 trillion won for the year, three months earlier than in 2025, with buyers from 192 countries and the United States, Singapore, Japan, China and Thailand at the top of the list. Growth has been strongest outside Seoul, in places such as Gangwon, Gyeongju, Daejeon and Jeonju, so a sale week does not have to mean a Myeongdong queue.
For the bigger picture of when the rest of Korea discounts, the sale calendar sits inside a wider shopping season that runs from the autumn department store sales to the winter shopping festival. For the November and December stretch, from K-Sale Festa to the Korea Grand Sale, see our guide to Black Friday in Korea.
Haru's Note
The best sale-week purchase is often not the discounted bestseller. It is the second branch. Once the flagship has given you your list, step into a neighborhood Olive Young near your hotel, the one next to the subway exit where students stop on the way home. Same sale, shorter line, and a cashier who has time to process the tax refund without the queue behind you sighing.
And keep one evening free of shopping. A week of green bags is fun right up to the moment you have to fit them in a suitcase.
