A tourist on Aug. 28, 2025, listens to an explanation of cosmetics at the 2025 Seoul Beauty Week held at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul's Jung-gu District. (Lee Jeongwoo)

By Kim Seon Ah

Record-high overseas shipments last year made Korea the world's second-largest exporter of cosmetics, with the trade surplus in the sector breaking USD 10 billion for the first time.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on May 22 said its analysis of the country's 2025 cosmetics output, exports and imports found that overseas shipments of domestic cosmetics reached USD 11.4 billion last year, up 11.8% from 2024. Over the same period, imports fell 2.3% to USD 1.29 billion, pushing the trade surplus to USD 10.1 billion.

This is the first time for the trade surplus in the sector to exceed USD 10 billion. Korea has seen steady growth in the industry's black figure since recording its first trade surplus in 2012.

Korea is now the world's No. 2 exporter of cosmetics, trailing only behind top-ranked France, which had USD 24.3 billion of exports last year. The U.S. slipped to third with USD 10.8 billion.

Basic skincare and color cosmetics were the main drivers of exports. The former accounted for USD 8.53 billion, or 74.7% of the total, and color cosmetics USD 1.51 billion (13.2%).

By market, the U.S. was the largest buyer of Korean cosmetics at USD 2.2 billion, followed by China at USD 2 billion and Japan USD 1.1 billion.

The number of export destinations also shot up to 202, a jump of 30.

Domestic cosmetics output also reached a record high of KRW 17.93 trillion, up 2.3%, with basic skincare comprising KRW 10.31 trillion (57.5%) and color cosmetics KRW 2.83 trillion.

sofiakim218@korea.kr