Buildings are equipped with fire compartments to prevent the spread of fire. However, the fire compartment regulations in South Korea are simplistic and standardized, and the exception and mitigation also have ambiguous criteria, requiring adaptations to accommodate changes in architectures. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the contents related to exception and mitigation for fire compartments in South Korea and propose to make up for the limitations. To identify limitations, this study investigates how fire compartments are implemented in South Korea and analyze international cases to compare fire compartment regulations. The comparative analysis reveals that domestic exception and mitigation have ambiguous spatial criteria, and international cases solve this issue by specifying regulations based on specific uses. Consequently, this study proposes the need to formulate and detail regulations of exception and mitigation considering both building use type and space characteristics, because of fire hazard levels changed by building use type.