EXO's Kai Completes Military Service February 10 — The Second-to-Last Step in EXO's Full Reunion

EXO's Kai is set to complete his mandatory military service on February 10, 2025, marking the moment when all but one of EXO's nine members will have returned from service. Kai's discharge, which arrives four days from now, brings the group's long military service period into its final phase: only Sehun remains active, with his expected discharge scheduled for September 20, 2025. When Sehun returns, EXO will be positioned for their first full-member activity since the group entered its extended hiatus period in 2021 — a return that has been anticipated across three years of staggered individual discharges.

The rhythm of EXO's service completions tells the story of how third-generation K-pop's biggest groups have navigated mandatory military requirements in South Korea. Unlike earlier generations, in which artists could defer service indefinitely through entertainment industry accommodations, the enforcement that tightened across the late 2010s and early 2020s brought EXO's service timeline into alignment with their military eligibility windows. The nine members entered and exited service on nine separate schedules, creating a years-long sequence of individual returns that has gradually rebuilt the group's complete roster.

The Road Back: Eight Discharges and One Remaining

The eight discharges that preceded Kai's complete the main body of EXO's return sequence. Six members — Xiumin, D.O., Suho, Chen, Chanyeol, and Baekhyun — came back between December 2020 and February 2023, a two-year window during which EXO operated as a progressively reconstituting ensemble. Their returns were staggered by months, each one reducing the gap between the active roster and the full nine-member lineup that EXO's audience has been waiting to see assembled again.

The timeline maps the slow reconstruction of a group whose full lineup has been unavailable for collective activity since mid-2021. Each discharge arrived in a different context: Xiumin's in December 2020 predated the tightened enforcement environment; D.O.'s in January 2021 came as SM Entertainment's management of the group was adjusting to an indefinitely partial roster. By the time Baekhyun returned in February 2023, the group had been operating as a fractured ensemble for two years. Kai's return on February 10 will leave only one seat unfilled.

What Kai's Return Represents

Kai's position within EXO makes his return particularly significant. As the group's primary dancer and one of its most recognized solo brand presences — his 2023 solo album "Rover" accumulated strong streaming performance and solidified his individual commercial standing — Kai's discharge brings back the member most associated with EXO's performance identity. His absence has been a visible gap during partial-group activities: the choreographic weight that Kai carries in EXO's stage performance is not easily redistributed across the remaining available members.

More broadly, Kai's discharge advances the timeline to EXO's full reconvening. SM Entertainment has indicated that EXO's eighth studio album is expected within the first quarter of 2026 — a schedule that allows for Sehun's September 2025 discharge, followed by a preparation period for the full group's return. That timeline places Kai's February 2025 discharge as the second-to-last milestone before EXO can begin the full-group creative process. It is not yet EXO's return; it is the arrival of the second-to-last piece.

The Third-Generation Return Cycle

EXO's gradual reconvening is part of a broader pattern reshaping K-pop's commercial calendar in 2025 and 2026. The third generation of K-pop — groups that debuted between roughly 2012 and 2017 — entered its mandatory military window collectively, and is now emerging collectively. BTS's phased returns, BIGBANG's scattered timeline, and EXO's staggered discharges are all chapters in the same story: how the most commercially significant generation in K-pop history navigates a two-year interruption while maintaining brand presence and fanbase engagement. What distinguishes EXO's case is the scale of anticipation concentrated in a single pending event: the moment when all nine members are simultaneously available for the first time since the service period began. February 10 is not that moment — but it is the moment that makes it visible on the calendar.

Kai's Solo Career During the Hiatus

Between Baekhyun's February 2023 discharge and his own return, Kai maintained visibility as a solo artist under the name KAI. His 2022 mini album "Peaches" and the 2023 "Rover" release gave SM Entertainment a vehicle for keeping Kai's market presence active while full-group EXO activity remained on hold. "Rover" in particular accumulated strong streaming numbers and demonstrated that Kai's individual brand retained substantial commercial pull independent of his group context. His return on February 10 is therefore not simply a roster addition — it is the return of a member who has been commercially active in the intervening period, with a solo fanbase that has been maintained and grown.

That dynamic complicates SM Entertainment's management challenge in an interesting way. Kai returns not as a member who has been in storage, waiting to rejoin the group machine, but as an individual artist with his own recent trajectory. The integration of that solo momentum into EXO's collective return will require SM to balance Kai's individual brand equity against the group's need to reestablish a unified identity after years of fragmented activity. How that balance is managed will be one of the defining questions of EXO's 2025-2026 promotional period.

Context: The Third-Generation Return

EXO's discharge sequence fits within a broader pattern unfolding across Korean popular music in 2024 and 2025: the return of third-generation male groups from mandatory service at scale. BTS members have been returning on their own staggered schedule; BIGBANG's members completed service on misaligned timelines with significant gaps; WINNER and iKON have similarly navigated partial-roster activity periods. In each case, the question of how a group re-presents itself to an audience after a mandatory interruption — while some members have built solo careers and the fandom landscape has shifted — becomes the central creative and commercial challenge. EXO's version of that challenge is among the most anticipated in this generation, if only because the scale of their pre-service commercial footprint sets a high bar for what "return" is expected to look like.