Can You Still Put Locks On The Love Lock Bridge?
Yes, the love locks at N Seoul Tower are still active, still promoted by the city, and still sold at the summit. Here is the current state of the ritual at Namsan.
Can You Still Put Locks On The Love Lock Bridge?
Yes, you can. The love locks at N Seoul Tower are still active, and the strongest evidence is fresh: in September 2026 the Seoul city government launched a free guided night walk over the Namsan summit that routes walkers past the love lock deck by name, between the tower and Palgakjeong. A city channel putting the locks on an official route settles that they are neither removed nor off limits. No ban, restriction or closure exists.
That single fact answers the question more firmly than any travel blog can. When a municipal government builds a new official walking tour and writes the love lock deck into the route description, the practice is not just tolerated, it is part of the city's own programming. Seoul's visitor page for the tower still lists the Locks of Love among the mountain's attractions, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government's own Namsan feature groups the locks alongside the heart chairs and the photo booths as things to do up there.
The confusion is understandable, because love locks have been banned and physically removed at famous sites elsewhere in the world, and rumours about Namsan circulate every year. None of those rumours holds up. No statement from the tower operator, the city, or news coverage restricts the locks or asks visitors to stop attaching them. from the operator, from YTN Seoul Tower or from the Seoul Metropolitan Government restricting or ending the practice.
What follows is the honest current picture: where the locks sit, what the city and the operator actually say, how the ritual works when you arrive, and what a first-time visitor tends to get wrong about it. If you are planning a visit and want the deck view from inside the tower as well, the observatory ticket is the paid part of the summit; everything around the base, the locks included, costs nothing.
Where the locks actually are, and who promotes them
The locks sit on the open terraces around the tower base, in the summit plaza area, not inside the paid observation deck. The city of Seoul promotes them by name: its Namsan feature lists the Locks of Love alongside the heart chairs and the sticker photo booths, and its new night walking tour passes the love lock deck between N Seoul Tower and Palgakjeong. The cable car company lists them as one of its three attraction cards.
Three separate organisations publish information about this mountain, and all three acknowledge the locks. The Seoul Metropolitan Government's own April feature on Namsan names them. The city's tourism portal keeps them on the tower's attraction page. The Namsan cable car company presents the love locks as one of the headline reasons to ride up. When every official voice attached to the mountain treats the locks as a live attraction, the question stops being whether you can attach one and becomes simply how the ritual works.
The location detail matters for planning. Because the locks are on the open ground around the tower, you do not need an observatory ticket to see them, photograph them or add one of your own. The summit plaza, the terraces around the tower base, the Palgakjeong pavilion area and the walking trails are all free. The ticket gates the observation deck inside the tower and nothing else. Visitors who arrive expecting to pay for the locks, or expecting the locks to be inside the paid area, are getting the mountain backwards.
The city's own Namsan feature is the clearest single source on this: it prices only the observatory and treats the locks, the heart chairs, the photo booths and the Palgakjeong night view as free things to do on the mountain. Our longer guide to the Namsan love locks ritual covers the spot in detail, and the free versus paid boundary at Namsan is worth reading before any visit, because it is the single fact visitors most often get wrong.
Has anyone banned or removed the locks at Namsan?
No. No ban, restriction or closure exists at Namsan, and no removal programme has been announced. Neither of the two research reads behind this article found any operator, city or news announcement of a periodic clear-out, a scheduled cutting, a weight or safety programme, or a recycling scheme. No source says the locks are cleared on a cycle. The honest position is that no removal programme exists, and nothing suggests one is coming.
This is the part of the question where most online answers go wrong, in both directions. Some pages claim the locks were cut down years ago. Others confidently describe a regular removal schedule. Neither claim survives contact with a primary source. The tower operator says nothing about removal. YTN Seoul Tower, which owns the tower building, says nothing about removal. The Seoul Metropolitan Government says nothing about removal. The absence is not suspicious, it is simply the absence of any such programme.
A social media story claiming the locks had been cut down has circulated, but it could not be verified in either direction and does not appear here. What can be said, plainly, is what the evidence shows: the locks are present, the practice is active, and the city's newest official tourism product walks visitors right past them.
The contrast with other love lock sites around the world is real, even though Namsan's own story is a quiet one. Cities elsewhere have removed locks from bridges over structural and safety concerns. Namsan has no bridge and no comparable structural pressure: the locks attach to fencing and railings on an open mountainside plaza, on ground the city actively maintains as a park. That may explain why the practice has survived here while it has been curtailed elsewhere, though that is interpretation, not a claim any official source makes.
The question of removal comes up often enough that we answer it separately in whether the locks ever get removed at Namsan Tower. The short version is the same as above: no removal programme has been announced, and no source says the locks are cleared on a cycle.
How the ritual works when you arrive
Visitors report buying padlocks at the tower and attaching them to the fencing on the spot, including branded locks engraved there and then. What visitors describe in 2026 accounts is a simple ritual: buy a lock, engrave or write on it, clip it to the terrace fencing, and in the classic version throw the key away. Nothing about the ritual requires a ticket, a booking or a guide.
The 2026 visitor accounts, from February and April of that year, describe locks sold on site with engraving done there, so a visitor does not need to bring a padlock from home. Where exactly they are sold and what they cost is not verified, so this article will not guess. What is verified is the experience itself: you arrive on the free summit ground, you buy or bring a lock, and you attach it. Other pages covering the same trip are gathered on Namsan Tower Seoul.
A few practical points make the visit smoother. The summit is reachable on foot by trail, by cable car, by the free Namsan Ormi inclined elevator from the Namsan Tunnel 3 side, or by the circular bus, and everything at the top except the observatory deck, the food and the shopping is free. The whole area is non-smoking under the National Parks Act, with a stated fine of KRW 100,000. Visitors with packed food are directed by the operator to the plaza in front of Palgakjeong rather than inside the tower. None of this touches the locks, but all of it shapes the hour you spend around them.
The table below sums up what the summit costs, because the free-versus-paid line is the planning fact that matters most here.
| At the summit | Free or paid |
|---|---|
| Namsan Park trails and the summit plaza | Free |
| Love locks and the terraces around the tower base | Free |
| Palgakjeong pavilion area and the beacon mound | Free |
| Seoul Tower Plaza shops and cafes | Free to enter, you pay for what you buy |
| Namsan Ormi inclined elevator | Free |
| Cable car company's Myeongdong shuttle bus | Free |
| Observation deck inside the tower | Paid ticket |
| Cable car, if you ride it | Paid fare |
| Circular bus 01A / 01B | Paid fare, KRW 1,500 |
The observatory ticket itself starts at US$15.25 per adult for the deck on its own, rated 4.6 across 34,365 reviews. There is also a package combining the observatory with the cable car at US$28.05, which requires collecting a physical ticket at a partner shop in Myeongdong first, and collection closes at 18:00. A fast-track version exists at US$40.85, though a buyer reported no visible fast-track lane, so treat it as a ticket that skips the ticket counter and nothing more. A fourth option pairs the deck with a cocktail, with the price on the live listing.
What else is around the locks, for free
The love locks share the summit with a surprising amount of free sightseeing: the restored Joseon-era beacon mound at Bongsudae, the Seoul City Wall trail, Baekbeom Square with its Kim Koo statue, Waryong Shrine, the Ahn Jung-geun Memorial Museum, and the Namsan Sky Forest Trail, a barrier-free timber deck path the city opened in October 2025. None of it needs a ticket, and the city's new night walk ties several of these stops together.
The beacon mound is the historical anchor of the summit. It is a restored signal station from the Joseon era, designated Seoul Monument No. 14, sitting below the tower near Palgak Square. The Seoul City Wall trail runs from Sungnyemun to Jangchung Gymnasium as Historic Site No. 10. The Ahn Jung-geun Memorial Museum at 91 Sowol-ro opens 10:00 to 18:00 from March to October and 10:00 to 17:00 from November to February. All of it is free, and all of it is within the same park as the locks.
The newest addition is the Namsan Sky Forest Trail, which the Seoul Metropolitan Government opened on 25 October 2025. It is a barrier-free timber deck path built with the Korea Forest Service so that wheelchair users, older visitors and anyone who cannot manage the steep old paths can get up Namsan, linking the Huam-dong Namsan Fitness Center to the Namsan Library. Named stops along it include the Sunset Observatory, a glass-fenced photo point, the Wind View Bridge over a metasequoia stand, and Sowol Garden at the library entrance. The same works closed the unofficial side paths that had been worn into the mountain and restored them ecologically, so walkers are now directed onto the official trails only.
Then there is the night walk. From September 2026, Seoul's free guided walking-tour programme runs a Namsan City Wall night course with two evening departures, at 18:00 and at 20:00, every day. A licensed city culture-and-tourism guide leads it, starting at the Sky Forest Trail entrance near the Sowol poetry monument garden, passing the Zelkova Observatory, the Sunset Observatory and the Wellness Garden, then N Seoul Tower and the love lock deck, and finishing at Palgakjeong, deliberately linked to a descent toward Namdaemun Market. It is booked in advance through the city's own walking-tour site at dobo.visitseoul.net, and it is free.
For visitors building a fuller evening around the ritual, our guide to N Seoul Tower at night covers the after-dark summit, and the question of morning versus night at Namsan Tower is worth settling before you pick a time. The tower's exterior lighting comes on after dark, though no operator or city source publishes a switch-on time, so treat any precise lighting hour you read elsewhere with caution.
Can You Still Put Locks On The Love Lock Bridge?
To close the loop on the question in the title: yes, in 2026 the ritual at Namsan is fully alive. The locks are present, the city promotes them, its newest official tour walks past them, and visitors are still buying and attaching locks on the spot. There is no ban, no removal programme and no sign of either coming. The locks are also free to visit, on open ground around the tower base.
If you want the full summit experience, the paid part is the observation deck inside the tower, and the free part is everything else, locks included. The three options below cover the main ways visitors combine the two.
Common questions about the Namsan love locks
Can You Still Put Locks On The Love Lock Bridge?
Yes. The love locks at N Seoul Tower are still active in 2026. The city of Seoul still promotes them, its new free night walking tour passes the love lock deck by name, and visitors report buying and attaching locks on site. No ban or removal programme exists.
Do you need a ticket to see the love locks at N Seoul Tower?
No. The locks sit on the open terraces and fencing around the tower base, in the free summit plaza. Only the observation deck inside the tower requires a ticket. The park, the trails, the locks and the views from the base all cost nothing.
Can you buy a padlock at the tower?
Visitors report buying padlocks at the tower, including branded locks with engraving done on site, in 2026 visitor accounts. Where they are sold and what they cost is not verified, so check on the day. Bringing your own lock is also an option.
Do the locks ever get removed at Namsan?
No removal programme has been announced. Neither of the research reads behind this article found any operator, city or news statement about a periodic clear-out, a scheduled cutting, a weight or safety programme, or a recycling scheme, and no source says the locks are cleared on a cycle.
Is the love lock spot at Namsan the same as the famous bridges in Europe?
No. Namsan has no bridge. The locks attach to fencing and railings on an open mountainside plaza around the tower base, on ground the city maintains as a park. That difference in setting is likely why the practice has continued here while some bridge sites elsewhere have banned it.
When is the best time to visit the love locks?
Weekdays and the quieter ends of the day are the calmer windows, according to visitor reports, while weekends, public holidays and evenings are busier at both the tower and the cable car. The city's free night walk passes the locks at 18:00 and 20:00 daily, so a scheduled group now crosses the summit in the evenings.