South Korea annual leave
Count paid annual leave in South Korea (연차) on the hire-date or the fiscal-year basis and the allowance for unused days.
South Korea — Labor Standards Act art. 60 (annual paid leave) and the Ministry of Employment and Labor guideline on the fiscal-year basis. Rules in force on 10/24/2026.
Estimate for guidance only: check the official sources or a licensed professional before relying on it.
Frequently asked questions
How many days do I get in the first year?
One paid day for each month of full attendance, up to 11 days, which must be used within the first year.
How many days after one year?
15 days with at least 80 % attendance, plus 1 day for every 2 years after the first year, up to 25 days.
What is the fiscal-year basis?
Many employers grant leave to everyone on 1 January. For the hire year you receive 15 days in proportion to the days worked that year; from the second 1 January the normal 15 to 25 days apply.
Are unused days paid?
Yes, as an allowance of the ordinary daily wage per day, unless the employer used the legal leave-use promotion procedure.
Related calculators
How South Korean annual leave is counted
This page counts the paid annual leave (연차) of an employee in South Korea and values the days that were not taken. It is meant for employees who work at least 15 hours a week in a workplace with five or more employees. Enter the hire date, the calculation date (or last working day) and the way your employer counts the leave, and you get the days available in the current leave year, the totals granted since hire on both bases, the date and size of the next grant and, if you give your ordinary wage, the allowance for unused days (연차수당).
Under art. 60 of the Labor Standards Act you earn one paid day for each month of full attendance in the first year, up to 11, which lapse after that year. After one year of service with at least 80 % attendance you receive 15 days at each anniversary, plus 1 day for every two years after the first year, up to 25 days. On the fiscal-year basis (1 January) the Ministry of Employment and Labor sets the hire year at 15 days times the days worked divided by 365, granted on the next 1 January, then the normal scale; if the hire-date basis would have given more, the difference is paid when you leave. The allowance is days times the daily ordinary wage: monthly ordinary wage divided by the monthly paid hours, times the daily hours.
Example: hired on 1 July 2023 and calculated on 24 October 2026. On the hire-date basis you received 11 monthly days, 15 days on 1 July 2024 and 2025 and 16 days on 1 July 2026, 57 days in total, and 16 days are available now. On the fiscal-year basis the grants are 7.56 days (184 days worked in 2023), 15 and 15 days, which with the 11 monthly days make 48.56, so 8.44 days would be owed if you left. With an ordinary wage of ₩ 3,000,000 the daily wage is ₩ 114,833 and 5.5 unused days are worth ₩ 631,579. Limitations: full attendance is assumed, workplaces with fewer than five employees are exempt and the leave-use promotion procedure is not modelled.