How many companies are listed in Korea? Fewer than quoted
Korea's stock market has 2,767 stock lines — but 115 are preferred shares (one company, two tickers) and 134 didn't trade today. The company count is lower.
AI-assisted, human-reviewed sourcing. Figures are pulled programmatically from the official sources listed at the end of this article and checked by an editor before publication.
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“How many companies are listed in Korea?” has a number attached to it — usually somewhere near 2,800 — and the number is not wrong so much as imprecise. It answers a different question than the one most people are asking. Here is the exact count, and why the honest answer is a range, not a figure.
The headline count: 2,767
On 26 August 2026 the Korea Exchange’s own daily files carry 2,767 stock lines: 944 on KOSPI and 1,823 on KOSDAQ. That is the number to reach for if you want “how many stocks can I trade today” — every ticker, large and small, that the exchange lists.
But “stock lines” is not the same as “companies,” and the gap is worth knowing.
Subtract the preferred shares: about 2,652 companies
115 of those 2,767 lines are preferred shares — 109 on KOSPI, 6 on KOSDAQ. A preferred share is not a different company; it is a second class of stock in a company whose ordinary shares are already on the list. Samsung Electronics and Samsung Electronics preferred are one firm with two tickers.
Strip the preferred lines out and you are left with 2,652 ordinary stock lines — a close approximation of the number of listed companies. It is not exact to the last name (a few firms carry more than one common line), but it is far closer to the real answer than 2,767 is. The preferred shares cluster almost entirely on KOSPI, which is why the blue-chip board looks larger by ticker count than it is by company count.
And on any given day, some do not trade at all
A listing is a standing status, not a daily event. 134 of the 2,767 lines — about one in twenty — recorded zero trades on 26 August. Many of them are the thinly held preferred lines; some are small companies that simply had no buyer and no seller that day. They are listed, and they are quoted, but on that date nothing changed hands.
So the count has three honest answers, depending on what you mean:
| The question | The number |
|---|---|
| Tradable stock lines | 2,767 |
| Of those, that actually traded today | 2,633 |
| Companies (ex-preferred lines) | ~2,652 |
None of these is the “right” one. They are answers to three different questions that get asked with the same words. The number a market-cap table needs is not the number an index provider needs, and neither is the number you want if you are asking how many distinct businesses a Korean investor can actually buy a share of.
That is the whole point of counting carefully: the figure people quote is a stand-in for a question they have not quite pinned down. Pin it down and the exchange’s own file will answer it — three different ways, each of them true.
Counts read directly from the Korea Exchange daily issue files for 26 August 2026. Free to reproduce with attribution — cite as SeoulMarkets (seoulmarkets.com) and link back.
Data & Verification Notes
- Data as of
- Sources
- Korea Exchange (KRX) — Daily trade by issue — stk_bydd_trd (KOSPI) and ksq_bydd_trd (KOSDAQ), 26 August 2026
- Cross-checks
- Counted from the exchange's own daily issue list for 26 August 2026: 944 stock lines on KOSPI and 1,823 on KOSDAQ, 2,767 in total — every traded and untraded issue, read directly from the file, not from a summary figure
- Preferred lines were identified by name — Korean preferred shares end in 우 (or 우B) — giving 109 on KOSPI and 6 on KOSDAQ, 115 in all; these are additional share classes of companies whose common stock is already counted
- Untraded issues are those with a reported trading volume of exactly zero for the day: 134 of the 2,767
- Excluded figures
- ETFs, ETNs and real-estate trusts (REITs). These trade on the same exchange but sit in separate KRX files; this count is ordinary company stock only, so it is smaller than a headline 'number of listed securities'
- An exact company count. Removing preferred lines gets close, but a handful of firms list more than one common line, so 2,652 common issues is a near-count of companies, not an audited register
- Delistings and new listings since 26 August; this is one day's snapshot, and the roster changes by a few names a month
- This is not investment advice
The full dataset behind these figures — every listed company, every row — is available to license. SeoulMarkets data for licence →
Not investment advice. SMarkets publishes data journalism for general information only. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any security — any investment you make is at your own risk and responsibility. Figures are derived from official public data sources and may be revised by the issuing agency. Verify independently before acting.
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