BTS may be allowed to delay military service to age 30

South Korea is likely to allow the seven members of boy band BTS to postpone their mandatory national military service by two years until the age of 30, with its oldest member Jin approaching his deadline to serve.

“We are considering letting pop artists delay their enlistment to the maximum age limit,” Military Manpower Administration Commissioner Mo Jong-wha said in a Q&A session during a regular parliamentary inspection on Oct. 13.

The government agency is working on a revision to the Military Service Act to raise the enlistment age limit for pop artists to 30 from the current 28.

Under the current law, BTS’ Jin is required to enter the armed forces by the end of this year, to be followed by Suga by the end of next year.

The commissioner's remarks came after a ruling Democratic Party lawmaker recently proposed a law revision to exempt high-profile artists such as BTS members from mandatory military service.

The initial public offering of BTS label Big Hit Entertainment Co, has raised 962.6 billion won this month. It drew 58.4 trillion won from retail investors last week, with its shares oversubscribed by 607 times. 

The seven members of the global boy group may see their shares in Bit Hit rocket to as high as 24 billion won, if the share price surges by its daily limit of 30% on the Oct. 15 stock market debut.

To avoid massive sell-offs on its first trading day, Big Hit allocated a majority of its new shares earmarked for institutional investors to those dedicated to mandatory holding periods ranging from half a month to six months.

Write to Ye-jin Jun at ace@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.