Car Fire Extinguisher Requirement Checker (Korea)

It tells you whether Korean law requires your vehicle to carry a fire extinguisher and, if so, how many and of what fire rating. All you need is the vehicle type on your registration certificate (passenger car, van or bus, truck, or special vehicle), its seating capacity or size class, and when the vehicle became yours. The test follows Article 11 of 소방시설 설치 및 관리에 관한 법률 and 별표 2 of its enforcement rules.

Article 11 was promulgated on 30 November 2021 and took effect three years later, on 1 December 2024. Before that, the vehicle safety rules (Article 57 of 자동차 및 자동차부품의 성능과 기준에 관한 규칙) required an extinguisher only in passenger cars seating 7 or more, in vans and buses, and in medium and large trucks and special vehicles. The rule now reaches passenger cars seating 5 or more and light and small trucks and special vehicles too.

Addendum Article 3 of the Act applies Article 11 to vehicles made, imported or sold after it took effect, and to vehicles re-registered after a change of owner. So two identical 5-seat cars can get different answers. One bought new, or bought second-hand and transferred, on or after 1 December 2024 must carry an extinguisher. One that has belonged to the same person since before then has no duty. If that owner sells it, the duty begins with the buyer.

On the other hand, passenger cars seating 7 or more, vans and buses, and medium and large trucks and special vehicles were already held to the same ratings and numbers under the old rule. They need an extinguisher whenever they were bought, and the calculator does not ask about ownership for them. For example, a 7-seat SUV owned since 2023 comes out as required, while a 5-seat saloon owned since 2023 comes out as not required. That is the whole effect of the transition rule, and it is the part most drivers get wrong when they read news reports that every 5-seat car now needs one.

Passenger cars and light vans need one extinguisher rated 1 or higher. Vans and buses are split by seating. Up to 15 seats it is one rated 2 or higher, or two rated 1 or higher, and from 11 seats one of them must sit near the driver's seat or the seat beside it. From 16 to 35 seats it is two rated 2 or higher. From 36 seats it is one rated 3 or higher plus one rated 2 or higher, and a double-decker adds one rated 3 or higher on the upper deck.

Trucks and special vehicles are split by size class. Medium or smaller needs one rated 1 or higher, and large needs one rated 2 or higher or two rated 1 or higher. The size class appears next to the vehicle type on the certificate, and a truck counts as small when its payload is 1 tonne or less and its gross weight 3.5 tonnes or less. Vehicles carrying dangerous goods or high-pressure gas follow the mobile tank standard in 위험물안전관리법 시행규칙, so this calculator does not rule on them.

The fire rating is a number showing how much fire an extinguisher can put out, printed on its body as something like A1 B2 C. Most vehicle extinguishers on sale are rated 1 or higher, so a single one covers a passenger car. 별표 2 does ask for an extinguisher type-approved for vehicles, though, so a household extinguisher without a marking for vehicle use does not meet the standard.

It has to be kept somewhere easy to use, meaning a spot you can reach at once if the car catches fire, such as beside the driver's seat or under the passenger seat. A corner of the boot under the luggage does not qualify. 소방시설법 sets no fine for breaching this article, but the periodic vehicle inspection checks for the extinguisher and reports the results to the National Fire Agency. A passenger car seats 10 or fewer, and anything larger is registered as a van. We checked the original texts on the national law database on 23 October 2026.