North Korea has stopped South Koreans from crossing the border to work at the jointly run Kaesong industrial zone, for the first time since 2009.
Seoul said about 800 South Koreans who had stayed overnight at the complex were being allowed to return.
Kaesong is a crucial revenue source for the North, which has not indicated how long the entry ban will last.
Pyongyang has threatened the South and the US in recent weeks, and has vowed to restart a mothballed nuclear plant.
The border into Kaesong is the last functioning crossing between the two Koreas, and the complex is the last significant symbol of co-operation.
The industrial park is home to more than 120 factories that employ more than 50,000 North Koreans and several hundred managers from the South.
Permission is granted on a daily basis for workers to cross into the complex, where they can stay overnight.
More than 850 South Koreans were at Kaesong when the ban was announced, and very few have returned.
Many have decided not to return immediately because they fear they will not be allowed back in.
One South Korean worker who returned from the complex said some of his colleagues had been held up because they had no transport.
"Other people couldn't return because they were supposed to be taken home on trucks scheduled to carry supplies into North Korea, but the trucks couldn't get into the North," said the worker.
The South's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-seok told reporters he wanted the ban to be lifted immediately.
"Ensuring the safety of our citizens is our top priority and the South Korean government will take necessary measures based on this principle," he said.
South Koreans were briefly denied access in March 2009, in an apparent response to annual US-South Korea military exercises.
Seoul says the South's firms pay $80m in wages each year to workers in the North.
The complex sustains the city of Kaesong, with an estimated population of 300,000.
Source: BBC News
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