From 14 December 2025, wildlife businesses handling live or egg-stage wildlife above the specified possession and sales thresholds are required to obtain a permit from the head of the relevant local government, demonstrate facilities appropriate to the ecological characteristics of the species held and separate from other commercial or residential premises, and complete mandated training. Live wild animals may be sold only through in-person display to buyers or via specialized transport services.

Wildlife exhibition is prohibited at facilities not registered or permitted as zoos or aquariums, and existing zoos, aquariums, and exhibition businesses are subject to grace periods (to December 2027 for exhibition businesses and December 2028 for zoos and aquariums) during which certain stress-inducing interactions with animals, such as visitor climbing or touching, remain prohibited and subject to fines up to 5 million KRW. At least one municipality, Goyang Special City, reports officially implementing the Wildlife Business Permit System as of early 2026, operating a one-year guidance period through December 2026 alongside an active permit application and review process.

Imports of wild animals not on the managed wildlife list, and not intended for food purposes, must be reported to the local government head. No source consulted quantifies the number of animals, facilities, or businesses affected nationally.

Anticipated Effects

If enforced consistently once grace and guidance periods conclude, the licensing and White List system would be expected to condition market participation in wildlife trade and exhibition on permit status and species-list membership, potentially reducing informal or unlicensed trade in non-White-List species while formalizing trade in listed species. Available sources do not establish whether this leads to a net reduction, increase, or redistribution of animals within wildlife trade and exhibition systems, and this remains a conditional expectation pending data from the guidance and grace periods now underway.

Significance Rationale

Assigned Neutral / Administrative for impact direction because the amendment introduces permitting, reporting, and facility-requirement structures for wildlife trade above defined thresholds and for specified species categories, but available sources do not document a material contraction or expansion in the number of animals traded, kept, or exhibited; the system modifies the administrative and legal conditions under which wildlife trade and exhibition occur rather than demonstrating a change in their scale.

Assigned Alters Legal Basis as the primary mechanism, since the amendment creates new legal requirements where none previously existed for most non-CITES wildlife, making trade, breeding for sale, and exhibition above defined thresholds conditional on obtaining a permit and complying with species-list restrictions; the facility, training, and transport conditions attached to licensing are documented in the narrative fields as elaborations of this same mechanism rather than as a separate taxonomy tag.

Assigned Moderate significance because the measure affects a substantial subset of the wildlife trade and exhibition sector nationwide, but its documented effects are institutional and procedural (licensing, facility standards, species listing) rather than a demonstrated change in the volume of wildlife traded or kept, and the duration and persistence of any resulting scale change is not established in available sources.