Buying a home in Korea puts more than one tax on the notice. Local education tax and special rural development tax ride along with the acquisition tax. And between KRW 600m and 900m the rate is not in any table — it comes out of a formula, so “1 to 3%” will not produce a figure.
1. The same KRW 900m home runs from 29.7m to 120.6m — 4.06 times. What separates them is not the home but the number of homes after the purchase and the 85㎡ line.
2. The 600m–900m band is a slope, not a step. Rate = (price × 2 ÷ 300m − 3) × 1/100, rounded at the fifth decimal to four places (art. 11(1)8(b)) — the formula ends in × 1/100, so 700m is 1.67%.
3. The 85㎡ line is worth KRW 1.8m on a 900m home — and 9m under the 12% heavy rate. There is a reason the standard Korean apartment is 84㎡.
Price, homes, region and floor area produce all three taxes separately, plus the effective rate.
Purchases only. Inheritance, gifts and newly built property use different rates. The count is of homes AFTER the purchase, across the whole household — a first-time buyer holds one home. The rate is set by the value of the whole home, not by what you paid: buying a share means running the statute’s conversion first (whole value = share value × whole assessed value ÷ share assessed value). First-home and childbirth reliefs are not applied — their conditions and caps are set out in the acquisition tax guide. Agent and conveyancing fees are not taxes and sit outside this. An estimate.
The numbers this calculator uses, and where they come from
The three taxes come from two different acts. Which is why one percentage cannot produce the notice.
| Tax | Formula | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Acquisition tax (up to 600m) | 1% | Local Tax Act art. 11(1)8(a) |
| Acquisition tax (600m–900m) | (price × 2 ÷ 300m − 3) × 1/100 | same, (b) |
| Acquisition tax (over 900m) | 3% | same, (c) |
| Local education tax | (rate × 50%) × 20% 0.4% when heavy | Local Tax Act art. 151 |
| Rural development surtax | 10% of the tax computed at 2% exempt at 85㎡ or less | Rural Surtax Act art. 5(1)6 |
The heavy rates turn on the number of homes AFTER the purchase and whether the area is regulated.
| Homes after purchase | Regulated area | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1–3% | 1–3% |
| 2 | 8% | 1–3% |
| 3 | 12% | 8% |
| 4 or more · corporate | 12% | 12% |
The same KRW 900m home spans 4.06 times
| KRW 900m home | Acquisition | Notice total |
|---|---|---|
| 1 home · 85㎡ or less | 27m | 29.7m |
| 1 home · over 85㎡ | 27m | 31.5m |
| 2 homes, regulated · 85㎡ or less | 72m | 75.6m |
| 2 homes, regulated · over 85㎡ | 72m | 81m |
| 3 homes, regulated · 85㎡ or less | 108m | 111.6m |
| 3 homes, regulated · over 85㎡ | 108m | 120.6m |
The gap between the two columns is the two surtaxes. Local education tax takes only two values — 2.7m for one home, 3.6m under a heavy rate — while the rural surtax is nil at 85㎡ or less and 1.8m · 5.4m · 9m above it. Those are the three layers in the chart above.
Top to bottom is 4.06 times. And notice that the education tax only moves from 2.7m to 3.6m — it is fixed at 0.4% under the heavy rates. The acquisition tax quadruples while the education tax rises 1.33 times. How the two surtaxes diverge is set out in the rural surtax and the 85㎡ line.
600m to 900m is a slope, not a step
The ends meet exactly. Feed in 600m and the formula returns 1.00%, matching paragraph (a); feed in 900m and it returns 3.00%, matching (c). So nothing jumps at 601m.
What does change is what another KRW 10m of price costs — 527,000 won at 600m, 923,000 at 890m, and then 300,000 once past 900m. That is worked through in the marginal rate inside the slope.
The heavy rate reaches outside the target areas too
The column people skip in the rate table above is the right-hand one. “Heavy rates are a target-area thing” is the common reading, but outside a target area a third home still pays 8% and a fourth 12%.
The statute reads that way. Local Tax Act art. 13-2(1) pairs them: item 2 is “two homes in a target area or three outside one”, and item 3 is “three or more in a target area or four or more outside one”. The designation only moves the line by one.
This is where capital gains tax differs. Its heavy rate for multiple homes (Income Tax Act art. 104(7)) bites only on a home sold in a target area — outside one there is no heavy rate at all, as the four limbs set out in where the long-term deduction never starts show. The instinct that “heavy rate means target area” comes from capital gains, and carrying it across to acquisition tax gets it wrong.
The statute also writes the rate itself differently. 8% is not written as “8%” but as “a 4% standard rate plus 200% of the 2% heavy base rate”. That form is why the rural surtax lands at 0.6% and not 0.8%.
What this calculator does not do
First-home and childbirth reliefs are not applied. Their conditions (no home in the household, a price ceiling) and caps vary by region, so applying them automatically would produce a wrong figure. The conditions are in the acquisition tax guide.
It will not count your homes for you. Whether purchase rights, occupancy rights, officetels and inherited shares count is where this calculation starts, and that judgement is human.
Inheritance, gifts and new construction use different rates. This covers purchases only.
Agent fees, conveyancing and stamp duty sit outside the tax notice. A full cost of buying has to add those separately.
Questions that remain
Contract date or completion date?
The Decree says “balance”. Local Tax Act Enforcement Decree art. 20(2): “in the case of acquisition by onerous succession, the property is deemed acquired on the «actual date of payment of the balance»”. Which means when you set completion can change the rate — if another home was bought or sold in between, the count differs. The filing deadline runs from it too.
The parentheses in that sentence fix an order: if the actual balance date cannot be established, the balance date in the contract; if the contract does not state one, the day on which 60 days have passed from the contract date. Leaving it blank does not push it back — it fixes it.
If registration comes «before» the balance
Local Tax Act Enforcement Decree art. 20(14) Where registration or recording is made «before» the acquisition date under paragraphs (1), (2) and (5), the property is deemed acquired on that date of registration or recording.
Not “whichever is earlier” — it runs one way only. If registration comes first, the date moves back to it; if the balance comes first, it stays the balance date — registering later does not push the acquisition date later.
In practice balance and registration often happen the same day, so this rarely shows, but if you take registration before paying the balance, your home count rises that day and the filing clock starts that day.
A gift is acquired on the contract date and an inheritance on the date succession opens (para. (1)) — there is no balance, so it is measured elsewhere.
What does “homes after the purchase” mean?
The count once this home is yours. A first-time buyer holds one; an existing owner buying a second holds two. And it is counted across the whole household — homes not in your name still count if they are in your household. That single line separates 8% from 1–3%.
Does temporary two-home status really get the one-home rate?
It applies on condition that the existing home is sold within a set period. Setting the calculator’s temporary option to yes computes it that way.
The period is in Local Tax Act Enforcement Decree art. 28-5(1), and it is «three years» — dispose of the earlier home within three years of acquiring the new one. It does not vary by region (as amended 31 December 2025).
- The reasons are listed — the new home must be acquired for moving house, study, employment, a job relocation or a similar reason.
- It is not only homes that count — if the earlier holding is a home, a union-member occupancy right, a pre-sale right or an officetel, it counts as “holding one”.
- The start date can differ (para. (2)) — if the earlier holding is an occupancy or pre-sale right, the three years run from the day the home is «acquired» under that right, not from when the right was bought.
- Moving can count as disposing (para. (3)) — if the earlier home is in a redevelopment zone with an approved management-disposal or project plan and the household living there moves into the new home, the earlier home is treated as disposed of on the day of the move.
Miss the period and the difference is clawed back, which between 8% and 1–3% is a large sum. The status has to be declared when filing.
Why 85㎡?
Only the rural development surtax looks at that line; acquisition tax and education tax ignore floor area. On a 900m home it is 1.8m won, and 9m under the 12% heavy rate. There is a reason the standard Korean apartment is 84㎡ — set out in the rural surtax and the 85㎡ line. It is exclusive area, not supply area.
Is the rate 1.67% or 1.6667%?
1.67%. The formula in the statute ends in × 1/100, so what it produces is a decimal (0.0166666…), and “four decimal places” means four places of that decimal — 0.0167, not four places of the percentage. Material provided by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and the tax trade press, both give 1.67% at 700m and 2.33% at 800m. This site previously wrote 1.6667%; the articles were opened and read on 26 August 2026 and the figures corrected. The two readings differed by at most about 40,000 won.
Sources
Local Tax Act Enforcement Decree art. 20 (timing of acquisition) — para. (1) (gift: contract date; inheritance or bequest: date succession opens), para. (2) (onerous succession: actual balance date → contractual balance date → 60 days after the contract date), para. (14) (registration «before» the acquisition date moves it to the registration date). This fills the place where the page said it could not verify how a differing registration date is treated (checked 18 September 2026).
Local Tax Act Enforcement Decree art. 28-5 (temporary two homes, as amended 31 December 2025) — the three-year period, the listed reasons (moving, study, employment, job relocation and similar), the inclusion of occupancy rights, pre-sale rights and officetels, the start date in para. (2), and disposal deemed on the day of the move in para. (3). The page had said the period varies by region; it does not.
Local Tax Act art. 11(1)8 (paragraph (a) 10/1,000, (b) the formula, (c) 30/1,000, plus the conversion for buying a share) · art. 13-2 (heavy rates for multiple homes) · art. 151 (local education tax).
Rural Special Surtax Act art. 5(1), item 6 of the table — 10% of “the acquisition tax computed applying the standard rate in arts. 11 and 12 of the Local Tax Act as 2/100”. Because a heavy rate is written as “standard rate plus a heavy-base add-on”, only the standard half is swapped (2% + 4 points at 8%, 2% + 8 points at 12%).
Rural Surtax Act art. 4(9) → Decree art. 4(5) → Housing Act art. 2(6) — the basis for the 85㎡ exemption. This calculator uses only that 85㎡ and does not apply the 100㎡ exception (which needs all three of: outside the capital region, not an urban area, an eup or myeon). If it might apply, see the rural surtax and 85㎡.
On 26 August 2026 ten items were compared against the statute on the national law portal. Nine held; one was wrong and was fixed — the rounding in the 600m–900m band (1.6667% → 1.67%). The other nine: 10/1,000 up to 600m, 30/1,000 above 900m, the formula, the share conversion, local education tax at (rate × 50%) × 20%, the 0.4% heavy education rate, the 8% and 12% heavy tests, “10% of the acquisition tax computed at 2%”, and the 0.6% and 1.0% heavy surtax rates.
On 11 September 2026 art. 13-2(1) and arts. 4 and 5 of the Rural Surtax Act were reopened. This calculator’s heavy-rate test (two in a target area or three outside → 8%; three or more in a target area or four or more outside → 12%) matched items 2 and 3 of the provision exactly. The same reading filled the gap the rural surtax article had left open.
Where to check further
The Wetax acquisition tax calculator. It is the reference for the actual assessment.
The exclusive floor area on the register or contract. Not the supply area.
Every home held by the household. Where this calculation starts, and where it most often goes wrong.
The local authority. Regulated-area status, temporary two-home deadlines and relief conditions all change with time.
