Korean groundwater quality standards were established in 1994, and revised in 2003 and 2010. The substances for which standards have been developed are classified into two groups, general pollutants, 4, and specific pollutants, 15. The standards have been applied to household water use, agriculture, aquaculture, and industrial use. However, there is no systematic methodology for either selecting candidate substances or establishing groundwater standards. We investigated various derivation methodologies for groundwater standards used by the European Commission and 27 member states and compared their methods for determining threshold values. The European Commission presented to their member states groundwater standards for two substances and a list of required substances for derivation of threshold values along with the member states. Interestingly, they first considered national background levels and then considered other criteria for water protection, such as drinking water standards, environmental quality standards, and irrigation standards. We suggest that Korean background levels in groundwater should be included in the methodology for establishing groundwater quality standards. These results may be useful in developing a systematic methodology for establishing Korean groundwater quality standards.