Cosmetics Registrations by Year

How many cosmetics registrations by year are there?

Businesses with a registration year of 2025 come to 4,431 entries: 4,035 registrations of responsible sellers (화장품책임판매업), 357 registrations of manufacturers (화장품제조업) and 39 notifications of customized cosmetics sellers (맞춤형화장품판매업).

2026 has 3,721 entries through registrations dated October 2, 2026. The year is not over, so it cannot be compared directly with earlier years.

How are cosmetics registrations by year distributed?

They cluster in the last five years. Businesses registered from 2022 through 2026 come to 18,459 entries, or 56.4% of the 32,750 entries in total.

Each figure is the number of businesses registered that year and still on the list. Businesses that registered that year and later closed are not included, so older years come out lower than their actual registrations.

Which year had the most cosmetics registrations?

Among completed years, 2025 for responsible sellers (4,035 registrations) and 2020 for manufacturers (637 registrations).

For manufacturers, 2020 alone has 637 registrations, nearly double the years on either side. The registration list states no reason.

How has the mix of responsible sellers and manufacturers changed in cosmetics registrations by year?

The later the registration year, the more the list tilts toward responsible sellers. The 2012 registrations work out to 1.8 responsible sellers per manufacturer, and the 2025 registrations to 11.3.

Overall, there are 6.8 responsible sellers per manufacturer. This ratio is also calculated from businesses still on the list, so it may differ from the actual ratio of registrations in a given year.

Why do cosmetics registration dates pick up from 2012?

The registration list states no reason. What can be confirmed is that registration dates before 2012 account for only 22 entries, all of them manufacturers.

2012 has 806 entries and 2013 has 1,688 entries. No responsible seller has a registration date before 2012. A company operating before then may still show a registration date of 2012 or later, so a registration date should not be read as a founding year.

When do customized cosmetics sellers first appear in registrations by year?

In 2020. Customized cosmetics sellers that filed that year and are still on the list come to 53 notifications, out of 235 notifications in total.

Article 3-2 of the Cosmetics Act (화장품법), which sets the notification for customized cosmetics seller businesses, was added on March 13, 2018. Customized Cosmetics Sellers has counts by year and region.

What should you watch for when reading cosmetics registrations by year figures?

Yearly counts are not new-registration statistics. They divide businesses still on the list by registration year, so businesses that closed are missing.

The 2026 figure runs through October 2, 2026. It cannot be set beside full-year figures to say that registrations rose or fell.

The registration date is the day the business was registered. It can differ from the date a company was founded or a product was launched.

How were the cosmetics registrations by year figures counted?

We counted the registration list retrieved on October 4, 2026 through the cosmetics manufacturer information function of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety dataset "Cosmetics Information" on Korea's Public Data Portal. The list holds the business type, company name, registration (permit) date, and the city, county or district of the location.

• The list retrieved has 32,927 entries. Lines with the same company serial number and business type (177 entries) were counted once, leaving 32,750 entries.
• Figures count business registrations and notifications. A company registered as both a manufacturer and a responsible seller counts as 2.
• Lines whose location used a former administrative name (Jeollabuk-do 14, Jeollanam-do 18, Gangwon-do 9, Gwangju 12) were merged under the current name.
• The latest registration date is October 2, 2026. Totals and shares were calculated by Korea Cosmetics Safety Information Group by counting the list.