Severance Pay Calculator
One year of work earns you roughly one month of pay — but the exact figure depends on a three-month average, a legal floor, and a tax most people forget. See what actually lands.
The law averages the last three months of pay, then pays 30 days of that average for each year you worked. Bonuses and leave allowance count for a quarter of their annual value.
| Service | 3.5 years |
| Average daily wage | 97,826 KRW |
| Severance before tax | 10,283,800 KRW |
| Retirement income tax (est.) | −95,492 KRW |
| You would receive (est.) | 10,188,308 KRW |
A planning estimate using the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s formula. Excluded periods (probation, parental leave, work-injury leave), company schemes above the legal floor, and DB/DC pension plans can all move the real figure — your payroll record decides it. Nothing you enter is stored.
How it works
The one the Ministry of Employment and Labor uses in its own calculator: your average daily wage × 30 days × (days worked ÷ 365). The average comes from the last three months of pay divided by the calendar days in that period — not working days — plus a quarter of your annual bonus and unused-leave allowance.
Anyone who worked at least one continuous year for the same employer and averaged at least 15 hours a week. Both tests must be met. Nationality is irrelevant — the Labor Standards Act forbids treating workers differently because of it, and even workers without valid status keep the entitlement.
Because the law sets a floor: if your three-month average comes out below your ordinary wage (통상임금), the ordinary wage is used instead. That protects anyone whose last months were thinned by unpaid leave or a drop in overtime. Enter your daily ordinary wage in the extra fields to check it.
It follows the National Tax Service’s published method for retirement income: it deducts an allowance for the years you served, spreads what is left across those years, deducts again on that spread figure, then applies the basic rates and adds 10% local tax. It is still an estimate: excluded periods and any earlier interim payout change the real withholding.
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Questions people ask
Within 14 days of your last day, unless you and your employer agree to extend it. After that, unpaid severance accrues 20% a year in delay interest, and the claim itself stays alive for three years — including after you leave the country.
Usually yes — but a work-visa holder who leaves Korea after the job ends is an explicit exception in the enforcement decree, as is any payout of ₩3,000,000 or less. Raise it before your last day; opening a Korean pension account you then have to close from overseas is a genuine headache.
File a complaint (진정) with the Ministry of Employment and Labor — online through its labor portal or at the office covering your workplace. Counselling is available in English and Chinese on 1350, and the Korea Legal Aid Corporation (132) represents foreign workers in wage and severance cases for free.
Figures as of Aug 25, 2026 — every rule, with its statute and official source, is in the full Leaving Korea guide.