Objective Early cancer detection and remarkable improvements in cancer treatment have seen the cancer survival rate grow steadily for the past 40 years. Despite expectations regarding treatment effectiveness, acceptable quality of life, and a comfortable death, patients with cancer generally have a decreased quality of life. The study aim was to examine the factors influencing health‐related quality of life among South Korean cancer survivors for future development of an intervention to enhance their survivorship. Methods Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2008–2012 data regarding 1020 cancer survivors were used for analysis. Health‐related quality of life was measured using the EuroQol 5‐Dimension. Results The factors influencing health‐related quality of life were age, educational status, employment status, income, smoking, time since diagnosis, subjective health status, stress, depression, and suicidal ideation. Conclusions Individual‐centered clinical interventions that consider dimensional‐influencing factors, including subjective health status, are needed to improve cancer survivors' health‐related quality of life. Subsequent systematic studies are needed regarding dimension‐specific differences according to cancer types and time since diagnosis. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.