Kim Yo Jong and the other North Korean officials were scheduled to depart for Pyongyang on leader Kim Jong Un's private jet, a day after they delivered his hopes for a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in during a lunch at Seoul's presidential palace.
Their final schedule in South Korea was joining Moon at a Seoul concert of a visiting North Korean art troupe, led by the head of the immensely popular Moranbong band, whose young female members are hand-picked by Kim Jong Un.
Accepting North Korea's demand to transport more than 100 members of the art troupe by sea, South Korea treated the Mangyongbong-92 ferry as an exemption to the maritime sanctions it imposed on the North, a controversial move amid concerns that the North is trying to use the Olympics to poke holes in international sanctions.
South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon hosted the North Koreans for lunch Sunday.
Kim Yo Jong, 30, is an increasingly prominent figure in her brother's government and the first member of the North's ruling family to visit the South since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The North Korean delegation also included the country's 90-year-old head of state Kim Yong Nam.
In dispatching the highest level of government officials the North has ever sent to the South, Kim Jong Un revealed a sense of urgency to break out of deep diplomatic isolation in face of toughening sanctions over his nuclear program, analysts say.
The North Koreans went through a busy schedule in South Korea as the world watched their every move. They were whisked back and forth between capital Seoul and the Olympic towns of Pyeongchang and Gangneung.
They shared the VIP box with world leaders at the opening ceremony and joined Moon in cheering for the first ever inter-Korean Olympic team as they debuted in the women's ice hockey tournament. It ended in a crushing 8-0 loss to Switzerland.
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