The concept of vegetation freeboard equivalence (VFE) is presented from the comparison between the rise in stage with/without vegetation and the freeboard height under design discharge conditions. In South Korea, the freeboard height of large, medium and small rivers is defined as a function of river discharge. Two models are used for this analysis of flood stage with and without vegetation: the 1-D model HEC-RAS and the 2-D model RMA-2. Both models are applied to three river study sites of the Geum River in South Korea as representative sites for a large, a medium and a small river. The analysis shows that without vegetation, both models provide comparable results and the calculated results are in very good agreement with the design configuration. The vegetation effects on the medium river are less significant, and the freeboard is adequate to contain the rise in stage from the added floodplain vegetation in large rivers. The concept of vegetation freeboard equivalence is therefore useful for the analysis of flood river stages after the restoration of channels with increased floodplain vegetation.