Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, announced on July 7 that the collection rate of non-tax revenue arrears from foreign residents has nearly doubled compared to the same period last year after the city began sending payment notices in their native languages.

To improve convenience for foreign taxpayers and enhance the effectiveness of managing non-tax revenue arrears, Suwon City produced and sent multilingual payment notices in seven languages: English, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Khmer, Russian, and Uzbek.

The city also improved the accuracy of its mailings by updating address information and excluding individuals who have already left the country or are deceased.

In the first half of this year (February to June), Suwon City sent these multilingual notices to 3,383 foreign residents with outstanding payments. As a result, 867 people (25.63%) paid their arrears.

In terms of the amount, the city collected 118.6 million won out of 513.7 million won in arrears, marking a collection rate of 23.09%.

This figure is double the 11.57% collection rate recorded during the same period last year and is close to the 26% total collection rate achieved for the entire year of 2025.

Suwon City plans to send a second round of multilingual payment notices next month and will continue to strengthen the management of foreign tax arrears by conducting on-site investigations of high-amount delinquents.

An official from the Non-Tax Revenue Collection Team at Suwon City's Collection Division explained, "While payment notices for local taxes have been provided in three languages, non-tax revenues such as parking violation fines were previously only notified in Korean. We believe that foreign residents responded more actively after receiving notices in their native languages."

(Photo courtesy of Suwon City, Yonhap News)