Since the Korea Biocidal Products Regulation (also known as K-BPR) came into force on 1 January 2019, the Korean authorities have established an inventory of existing active biocidal substances, based on the notification of the substances by industry. Any company, who did notify the existing active substance - including its product type (PT) of use – was granted a grace period for substance approval. The biocide industry in South Korea is facing the first approval period which is due by the end of 2022 and potential registrants have little experience in dealing with biocide authorisations according to K-BPR. Compared to Korean-REACH (K-REACH), much higher data requirements are requested for K-BPR, which is basically a replication of the European Biocidal Product Regulation (EU-BPR), encouraging registrants in global data sharing. This article outlines the procedures for active substance approval according to K-BPR, as the first significant tasks in the biocidal approval process in Korea.