Starting May 1, 2026, Korea's mandatory English disclosure rule enters Phase 2: every KOSPI-listed company with assets of 2 trillion won or more — roughly 265 firms — must file English versions of all KRX-required disclosure items, including the full set of material event reports. Bluente translates these DART filings in minutes while keeping tables, financial statements, and footnote numbering identical to the Korean original, so IR teams hit the three-day filing window without manual reformatting.
Bluente is an AI-powered document translation platform used by 30,000+ professionals to translate files in 120+ languages while preserving original formatting.
What Changed in Korea's English Disclosure Rule for 2026?
From May 1, 2026, the Korea Exchange (KRX) expands mandatory English disclosure from the largest KOSPI issuers (assets of 10 trillion won or more) to all KOSPI companies with assets of 2 trillion won or more. The disclosure scope also widens from a starter set of 26 key management items to all KRX-required disclosure items — material information in its entirety, fair disclosure, and inquired disclosure. In practice, that means about 55 categories of filings now need an English version, not just earnings summaries.
This is the second leg of a phased rollout that began in 2024. The first phase covered closing financial statements, major decisions, and trading suspensions for the very largest issuers. Phase 2 pulls in hundreds more companies and the entire disclosure catalogue, which is why IR and disclosure teams across Seoul are rebuilding their translation workflow this year.
How Quickly Must English DART Filings Be Submitted?
Korean issuers must submit the English version within three days of the original Korean regulatory disclosure. For market-moving material events, that window is effectively same-day — investors expect the English filing to land alongside the Korean one. The three-day statutory ceiling is the outer limit, not the target.
That timeline is the core operational problem. A material event report (주요사항보고서) on a capital raise, M&A decision, or supply contract can run dozens of pages with dense financial tables, and a human translation vendor quoting a one-to-two-week turnaround simply does not fit a three-day disclosure rule. Bluente returns a fully formatted English version in minutes, so the disclosure team reviews and files rather than waits.
Why Does Formatting Break When You Translate a DART Filing?
Korean disclosure documents are formatting-dense: multi-column financial tables, KRW figure alignment, footnote references tied to specific line items, and fixed regulatory templates. Generic translation tools strip that structure — text-first engines like Google Translate and DeepL extract the words and discard the table layout, forcing someone to rebuild the document by hand before it can be filed.
Bluente is document-first. It reads the layout of the original Korean filing and rebuilds the English version inside the same structure: the balance sheet stays a balance sheet, footnote 14 still points to the same line, and the KRX template fields land where the exchange expects them. Across the platform, formatting retention is 100%, which is what makes the output filing-ready instead of draft-ready.
What DART Documents Need English Translation Most?
The Phase 2 scope is broad, but a few document types drive the daily workload for cross-border IR teams:
Material event reports (주요사항보고서) covering capital increases, convertible bond issuance, mergers, divestitures, and major supply agreements. These are time-critical and table-heavy.
Periodic disclosures — quarterly and annual business reports (사업보고서), audited financial statements, and the accompanying notes, where IFRS-aligned terminology must stay consistent across hundreds of pages.
Fair disclosure and inquired disclosure responses, often issued under deadline pressure when the exchange or market asks a company to clarify a rumor or price movement.
For terminology that must match house style or prior filings — entity names, segment labels, accounting terms — Bluente's custom glossary locks each term so "주식회사" or a specific subsidiary name renders the same way in every filing, every quarter.
Does the KRX Machine Translation Service Replace This Workflow?
The KRX is launching an AI-based machine translation service on its KIND disclosure system, built with NAVER Cloud's Papago engine, to help issuers meet the Phase 2 mandate. It is a useful baseline, but it is a general translation aid — issuers remain responsible for the accuracy and the filing-ready formatting of what they submit.
For regulated financial disclosure, the risks are specificity and format fidelity: a translated number that shifts a decimal, an accounting term rendered inconsistently across the document, or a table that arrives as flowing text. Bluente pairs format-preserving output with a custom glossary and an optional verification step, so the English filing reads like the company's own work and survives scrutiny from foreign investors and the exchange alike. Many teams use a dedicated platform precisely because the output is theirs to stand behind.
How Bluente Fits a Cross-Border IR Disclosure Team
Bluente translates DART filings across 120+ languages — most often Korean to English, but also into Japanese, Chinese, and others for issuers with diversified investor bases. Documents complete in under two minutes on average, well inside the three-day window. Files never train any AI model, are encrypted end to end, and are automatically deleted within 24 hours, which matters when a material event filing is price-sensitive and embargoed until release.
The platform handles PDF, DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX, so an issuer can move from the Korean source — whether it is the disclosure PDF or the working Excel financial statements — straight to a formatted English deliverable. Security is enterprise-grade: SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and ISO 27001 compliant.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Who has to file English disclosures in Korea from May 1, 2026? All KOSPI-listed companies with assets of 2 trillion won or more — about 265 firms as of end-2024 — must submit English versions of all KRX-required disclosure items. This expands the Phase 1 rule that applied only to issuers with assets of 10 trillion won or more.
Q: How fast must the English version be filed after the Korean disclosure? Within three days of the original Korean filing. For material, market-moving events, investors expect the English version effectively same-day, so most IR teams treat three days as a ceiling, not a target.
Q: Can AI translate a Korean DART filing without breaking the tables? Yes. Bluente is document-first and rebuilds the English version inside the original layout, so financial tables, KRW alignment, and footnote references stay intact. Formatting retention is 100% across the platform, producing filing-ready output.
Q: Is it secure to translate price-sensitive disclosure documents? Bluente is SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and ISO 27001 compliant, with zero data retention, end-to-end encryption, and automatic deletion within 24 hours. Documents are never used to train AI models, which is essential for embargoed material event filings.
Q: Does Bluente replace the KRX Papago machine translation service? The KRX KIND service is a general baseline aid. Bluente adds format preservation, custom-glossary terminology control, and an optional verification step so the English filing is accurate and filing-ready, not just readable.
Q: What Korean disclosure documents can Bluente translate? Material event reports (주요사항보고서), periodic business and annual reports (사업보고서), audited financial statements and notes, and fair or inquired disclosure responses — in PDF, DOCX, or XLSX, with formatting preserved.
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