K-magpie › Kmagpie Tools › Salary Calculator
Korean Salary Calculator
Find your monthly take-home pay in Korea using the 2026 insurance rates and the National Tax Service's own withholding table. It is the real table rather than an approximation, so the numbers match what your employer actually takes out.
If your contract says severance pay (퇴직금) is included in the annual figure, divide by 13. In most Korean contracts it sits on top of salary, so 12 is the usual choice.
A meal allowance is tax-exempt up to 200,000 won a month. Add anything else you receive that qualifies, such as a car allowance (up to 200,000 won) or a childcare allowance (up to 200,000 won). Tax-exempt pay is taken out before both tax and insurance are worked out.
Count yourself in this number. Living alone is 1, you and a spouse is 2, you, a spouse and one child is 3. In the children box, count only the ones aged 8 to 20.
Monthly take-home pay
| Item | Amount | Share |
|---|
See the calculation step by step
Take-home pay by annual salary (2026)
These rows assume a single employee with no dependants besides themselves, a 200,000 won monthly meal allowance, and severance pay kept separate from salary. Tap any row to load that salary into the calculator above.
| Annual salary | Gross monthly | Deductions | Monthly net |
|---|
More dependants or a different tax-exempt amount will move these numbers. Put your own details into the calculator to see your figure.
How the calculation works
Your annual salary is divided by 12, or by 13 when severance pay is bundled into it, to get monthly pay. Tax-exempt items such as the meal allowance come off next, and what is left is your taxable monthly pay. Income tax and the four major insurances (4대보험) are all calculated on that figure, which is why entering the right tax-exempt amount changes the result more than people expect.
Income tax is not derived from a formula. Your employer looks it up in a government table: the simplified withholding tax table (근로소득 간이세액표), Table 2 of the Income Tax Act Enforcement Decree, indexed by monthly pay and the number of dependants registered to you. This page carries that table in full, all 588 pay brackets across 11 dependant columns. Because it is the real table and not one of the approximate formulas floating around online, the figure here lines up with your company's payroll system.
What changed in 2026
The headline change is the national pension (국민연금) rate rising from 9% to 9.5%. That is the first increase since 1998, and it will keep going up by 0.5 percentage points a year until it reaches 13% in 2033. Employer and employee split it evenly, so your share is 4.75%. On 3,000,000 won a month, that is roughly 7,500 won more leaving your pay each month.
Health insurance also went up, from 7.09% to 7.19%, and long-term care insurance from 0.9182% to 0.9448%. From July 2026 the pension income ceiling rises to 6,590,000 won a month, so anything you earn above that adds nothing further to your pension contribution.
How tax works for foreign employees
Foreign workers in Korea can choose between the normal progressive rates and a flat rate of 19% on gross employment income, with local income tax on top. At higher salaries the flat rate often costs less, but it comes with a real trade-off: electing it means giving up almost every deduction, exemption and tax credit, including the dependant and child credits this calculator applies. The election is generally available for a limited number of years counted from your first day of work in Korea, and you claim it through your employer at year-end settlement or on your own return.
Your residency status matters too. If your home or the centre of your life is in Korea, or you spend 183 days or more here in a tax year, you are normally taxed as a resident on the same footing as Korean employees. Non-residents are taxed on Korean-source income only and receive far fewer deductions, and some people are covered by a tax treaty or by the temporary relief that can apply to teachers and researchers. This calculator uses the standard progressive withholding table, so if you have elected the flat rate, or you are not sure which residency status applies to you, confirm the number with your employer's payroll team or the National Tax Service.
Why your payslip may not match
This calculator covers the standard case. When a real payslip comes out different, it is usually one of the reasons below.
Bonuses
Holiday bonuses and performance pay land in particular months, and income tax jumps in those months. The withholding table assumes you receive the same amount every month, so at a company that pays bonuses your deductions will swing from month to month.
An adjusted withholding rate
You can ask your company to withhold 80% or 120% of the table amount instead of 100%. Withholding less leaves more cash in your hand each month but usually means paying at year-end settlement, and withholding more works the other way round. If you have never filed that request, you are on 100%.
Different tax-exempt items
Some companies pay no meal allowance at all, and others have extra tax-exempt items such as a vehicle upkeep allowance or a research allowance. Find the tax-exempt total (비과세) on your payslip and put that number in the box above.
The month you join or leave
Pay is prorated by days worked in your first and last month, and depending on the date your health insurance coverage begins, that month may carry no health premium at all.
What happens at year-end settlement
The income tax taken each month is only a provisional amount. It takes no account of your credit card spending, medical bills, insurance premiums, donations or pension savings. In February of the following year your employer runs the year-end tax settlement (연말정산), recalculates a full year of tax properly, and either refunds what you overpaid or collects what you still owe. Read the income tax line here as the monthly withholding, not as your final tax bill.
What this calculator does not do
Every calculation happens inside your browser. The salary you type is never sent to a server, never stored, and disappears when you reload the page. Pay is private information, so the page was built to collect nothing at all. There is no sign-up and no login.
Related tools
Try the Magpie TestsYour birth date is the only input and it takes 30 seconds — zombie survival rate, past life, idol position, guardian spirit. Made to compare with friends.
→