The relocation of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense to Sejong is expected to reorganize South Korea's central administration around the city. The government aims to concentrate key ministries in one place to improve policy coordination and ease the concentration of population and functions in the greater Seoul area. But because the timelines for moving the Presidential Office and the National Assembly do not align, an administrative structure split between Seoul and Sejong is likely to persist for a considerable period. The relocation of diplomatic, security and investigative agencies will also require rebuilding cooperation channels with related institutions, and the government has yet to clearly demonstrate that earlier moves to Sejong eased concentration in the capital region.
Under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's second central administrative agency relocation plan, released on the 13th, 44 agencies and 9,929 public officials will move to Sejong between 2027 and 2031. Added to the 43 agencies and 14,731 officials already there, the total will reach 87 agencies and 24,660 people. The relocation, which has centered on economic and social ministries since the 2005 law establishing the Multifunctional Administrative City, will now extend to diplomacy, security and criminal investigation.
Next year, 27 agencies and 2,995 officials will move first into leased private office space. In the first half, six bodies will relocate: the Korea Media and Communications Commission, the Personal Information Protection Commission, the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, the National Education Commission and the Overseas Koreans Agency. In the second half, 19 bodies including the Financial Services Commission along with advisory committees and affiliated organizations will follow. Schedules for the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family will be fixed in line with the revision of the Multifunctional Administrative City law.
The remaining 17 agencies and 6,934 officials, which require stand-alone buildings and specialized facilities, will move in stages through 2031. They include 4,171 officials from five agencies — the Korean National Police Agency (2,160), the Board of Audit and Inspection (1,059), the Public Prosecution Agency (471), the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency (396) and the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (85) — as well as 2,106 officials from three ministries: Foreign Affairs (1,024), National Defense (746) and Unification (336). Another 657 officials from nine affiliated organizations, including the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, are also covered.
Total project costs come to about 3.2 trillion won ($2.2 billion), with roughly 3.1 trillion won going to construction of government buildings alone. Next year's budget bill allocates 118.3 billion won, including 89.7 billion won for setting up and operating leased offices and supporting relocation, and 28.6 billion won for basic design work on new buildings. Temporary offices will have to be run for three to four years until the new buildings are completed, meaning rent and operating costs will continue to accrue. The government is also reviewing plans to move special regional administrative bodies serving the capital area into the Seoul and Gwacheon complexes that will be vacated.
Although the government has cited greater efficiency in running the country, work will inevitably remain split between Seoul and Sejong for some time. The presidential office in Sejong is targeted for completion in 2029 and the National Assembly's Sejong chamber in 2033, while no decision has been made on whether to move the Presidential Secretariat, the National Security Office and the Presidential Security Service. Ministries may continue shuttling between the two cities to report to or consult with the Presidential Office and the National Assembly.
The Foreign Ministry's move is also expected to affect foreign embassies, which are clustered in Seoul. A senior official at one major country's embassy in Seoul said that if the ministry goes down to Sejong, embassies will ultimately have no choice but to follow. "The lifeblood of diplomacy is routine face-to-face networking, and being physically separated from the host country's foreign ministry could disrupt coordination on urgent diplomatic and security issues," the official said. The official added that the embassy is also watching for the possibility that the project, which runs through 2031, could be delayed or changed after a transfer of power.
During the period when the foreign, defense and unification ministries are based apart from the Presidential Office and the National Security Office, information sharing on urgent issues and the chain of command and reporting will also need to be reorganized. Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University, said there is merit in moving the diplomatic and security control tower together with related organizations at once, as in Washington, D.C. "Senior ministries such as foreign affairs and defense, along with their affiliated organizations and state-funded research institutes, must not be scattered between Seoul and Sejong," the professor said. "They need to be gathered completely in one place to produce clustering effects."
For the police agency, the Public Prosecution Agency, the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency and the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, the key issues are continuity in investigation and trial-related work and securing specialized personnel. The Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court will remain in Seoul. Interior and Safety Minister Yoon Ho-jung said the government will come up with measures to prevent any deterioration in court services and will address the risk of losing specialized personnel while drawing up detailed relocation plans.
Settling in will not be easy for staff either. An official at the Justice Ministry's Correctional Service said many employees have built their lives in the capital region, so it will not be easy for entire families to move to Sejong. At the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, concerns have been raised about childcare and commuting burdens. The government is considering moving expenses, initial relocation allowances and temporary transportation services, but has not determined the scale or duration of the support. Five ministries — Justice, Gender Equality and Family, Foreign Affairs, Unification and National Defense — are currently exempt from relocation under the Multifunctional Administrative City law. The government plans to push the revision through during the current regular session of the National Assembly, but a delay in legislation could affect the relocation schedule starting next year.
Assessing the results of earlier relocations is another task. Yoon said it was "difficult to confirm any major effect" in easing concentration in the capital region, and the government said it had not found clear data showing the economic effects of dispersing administrative functions and would explain later. The government's position is that the effects of the Sejong move should be assessed together with the relocation of public institutions to the provinces and the "five hubs, three special zones" policy. Choi Hyun-sun, a professor of public administration at Myongji University, said the first round of relocation lacked policy continuity, so results did not materialize as much as expected, and stressed the need to expand residential infrastructure and communicate with local communities and the relocating agencies.