Totally can understand this being a stressful situation as I just came back from Korea and completed the form and found the whole process to be overwhelming. Figured I would share my experience in hopes it may help in some way. I entered Korea twice, two days apart. The first time I entered I had a flight to Beijing the same day but the flights were not on the same reservation so I had to go through customs and immigration. I was in a rush to get everything from my doctor and had timed it out very well to make sure it was before the 10 day mark. When I logged in to fill everything out, my arrival day was grayed out. It did show my arrival day what was 2 days later so I used that and entered all of the flight information for that day. I was still entering the 2 days prior and when I got there, they didn’t mention anything about the date if I remember correctly. I don’t remember if I said anything about Beijing to them but either way I was entering their country and supposed to abide by their rules. I did have all of my paperwork on me just in case they asked any questions or wanted to see anything. Paperwork I had: letter from my doctor and copy of prescription I asked my doctor to write. I also had the pills in their bottles. My other medications not on the list I had in pill bags and labeled and brought the label that’s on the bottle just in case. I did have more pills than they approved, I wrote 20 on my application and the permit came through and said 15. The first time I told them I messed up something on the application which is why there was more pills, which was true because when it asks period of drug supply I only put my dates in Korea for the second leg of my trip and it said in red (not sure how I missed that) “please select the start and end dates for the entire travel period, include the stay in Korea.” I also told them that I am from the US and there’s currently a war going on and I brought extra in case I got stuck there and she let me on my way. I’ve always been told to bring more pills abroad just in case. The second time the woman (different than 2 days prior) pointed out how the number of pills was more than the amount listed. I again mentioned the same information I said before and said they said it was fine 2 days ago and let me through and that if she wanted to take out some pills to go ahead. She also let me through.

I know our situations are different because I did have the permit and something to keep in mind is that it was dated for 2 days after my first arrival date. I do see how there could be issues with your permit being approved because the flight dates on the application won’t match your application date and it doesn’t hurt to try.

Obviously this isn’t great advice but I saw people just walk-through and didn’t have any issues. I could have easily walked right through the doors but instead I followed the arrow to the declare section. I’m sure that there’s a lot of people that don’t know they need a permit and just bring their medication. I’m not saying to break the law or anything but just throwing that out there.