There's a common misconception about tap water in Korean homes. Which is closest to the truth?

Korean tap water, such as Seoul's Arisu supply, meets official drinking-water standards and is technically safe straight from the faucet, but many households still boil it, run it through a purifier, or drink bottled water instead, largely from lingering concerns about old building pipes or simple taste preference rather than any actual safety failure. So the water is legally potable even though habits around it vary widely.

The claim that drinking tap water is banned by law is false — no such prohibition exists — and water is billed by metered usage like any utility, not withheld unless paid per glass, so 'it only comes out for a fee' misreads ordinary utility billing as some pay-per-use restriction.

Several Korean cities run public campaigns encouraging residents to trust and drink tap water directly, precisely because the widespread habit of boiling or filtering it persists more from perception and old-pipe worries in some buildings than from any measured safety problem citywide.