Korean annual leave is easy to remember as “one year, fifteen days”. How many days you actually have is set by the distance between your hire date and today — and what the unused days are worth is set by ordinary wage, not your salary. The calculator below produces both on one screen.
1. How many days. Under one year, one day per full month worked, up to 11. Cross one year and 15 days appear at once, with one more day every two years from year three, stopping at 25 days in year 21 (our own calculation).
2. Where it splits hardest. Leave after exactly one year and you have 11 days; work one more day and you have 26 — fifteen days turn on a single day. The Supreme Court settled this in 2021 and the Ministry of Employment and Labor changed its interpretation to match.
3. What it is worth. A day of ordinary wage = monthly ordinary wage ÷ 209 × 8 hours. On a monthly ordinary wage of KRW 3,000,000 that is KRW 114,833 a day, so those 15 days come to KRW 1,722,488.
Enter a hire date and a reference date; everything else follows. Put your leaving date in the reference field and it switches to a final-settlement basis.
| Item | Days | Value (KRW) |
|---|
This works on the hire-date basis. Many Korean employers run leave on a fiscal-year (1 January) basis instead; that method varies by employment rules, so it is not modelled here — and while it is widely said that a final settlement must fall back to the hire-date basis where that is more favourable to the worker, we could not verify that in a statute or an official interpretation. “Days already taken” means days taken in the current service year. The 80% attendance test has no input field, so 80% or above is assumed. These are estimates.
The figures this calculator uses, and where they come from
| Item | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| One year or more, attendance 80%+ | 15 days | Labor Standards Act, art. 60(1) |
| Under one year, or attendance below 80% | one day per full month worked | same article, (2) |
| Three years or more | one day added every two years of service beyond the first | same article, (4) |
| Overall cap | 25 days — reached in year 21 | same paragraph (year 21 is our calculation) |
| Leaving after exactly one year | 11 days · one more day worked, 26 days | Supreme Court 2021Da227100 · MOEL reinterpretation |
| One day of ordinary wage | monthly ordinary wage ÷ 209 × 8 hours | 209 is our own arithmetic — see below |
| Attendance rate | assumed 80% or above — no input field | the statute does not define the denominator |
It asks for ordinary wage, not salary. Items that move with performance are in principle excluded from ordinary wage, so entering the gross figure from your payslip inflates the result. Which items count turns on your employment rules and payment practice.
One day decides fifteen
The place this calculation goes wrong most often is leaving after completing exactly one year. Read the statute alone and it is not obvious how paragraph (2) — one day per full month — joins up with paragraph (1)'s 15 days. The Supreme Court's decision in 2021Da227100, handed down on 14 October 2021, settled it: the employment relationship must still exist on the day after the first year is completed for the 15 days to arise. The Ministry of Employment and Labor changed its administrative interpretation to match on 16 December 2021.
| Time worked | Accrued under one year | Year-one entitlement | Payable |
|---|---|---|---|
| One year (365 days), then resign | 11 days | 0 days | 11 days |
| One year and a day (366 days), then resign | 11 days | 15 days | 26 days |
Why 11 and not 12 follows the same rule. The day earned by working a full month attaches on the day after that month ends. The day after the twelfth month ends is already past the one-year mark, so stopping exactly at one year leaves you with 11. The same logic is why finishing exactly three years brings no added day.
Where 209 comes from
Unused-leave pay is one day of ordinary wage × the days unused, and getting to a daily figure means dividing a monthly wage by hours. That divisor is 209. Built up, it looks like this.
| Step | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Paid hours per week | 40 contracted + 8 weekly holiday | 48 hours |
| Weeks per year | 365 ÷ 7 | 52.142857 |
| Monthly average | 48 × 52.142857 ÷ 12 | 208.571 hours |
| Rounded | — | 209 hours |
Of those 209, 173.81 hours are actually worked and 34.76 are paid weekly holiday (our calculation). So 209 does not mean “209 hours of work a month” but “209 hours treated as paid”. Anywhere not on a 40-hour week the number differs, which is why it is an editable field.
What this calculator does not do
- It does not convert to a fiscal-year basis. Many employers run leave from 1 January; the method varies by employment rules, so it is not modelled. If your company's figure differs, check the rules.
- It does not ask about attendance. It assumes 80% or above. A year with heavy absence falls under paragraph (2) instead and the arithmetic changes.
- It ignores the leave-promotion procedure. If the employer completes the written steps in Article 61, unused leave lapses with nothing payable. Those steps and their deadlines are set out with the rule text in the annual leave explainer.
- It does not screen for employer size. Article 60 applies to workplaces with five or more regular employees (art. 11(1)).
- It does not judge what counts as ordinary wage. It uses the figure you enter.
Severance settled at the same time is in the severance calculator, and net pay in the take-home pay calculator. The statute itself is covered in the annual leave explainer.
Questions that remain
I have been here six months — how many days do I have?
One day per full month, so up to six. Each day attaches on the day after the month ends — hired on 2 March, the first day appears on 2 April. And this leave lapses at the end of the first year of service if unused (art. 60(7), parenthetical). The 15 days that arrive at one year are a separate grant; the 11 do not turn into 15.
I am in year three — why 16 days and not 17?
The addition is “one day for every two years of continuous service beyond the first” (art. 60(4)). In year three, two years have passed beyond the first, so one day is added for 16; year five brings a second day for 17. One day every two years means it only moves in odd years. Follow it out and year 21 reaches 25 days, where it stops (our calculation).
My salary is KRW 3,000,000 — why ask for ordinary wage separately?
Because they are not the same. Ordinary wage is pay agreed to be paid regularly and uniformly, which in principle excludes performance-linked items. Entering gross pay overstates the result. Which items count turns on your employment rules and payment practice, so for an exact figure, take your payslip to payroll or to the labor helpline (1350).
My employer will not give me leave. Can I report it?
Leave is not at the employer's discretion; the statute says it “shall” be given. But art. 60(5) also lets an employer change the timing where granting it would seriously disrupt operations — so “not that day” and “not at all” are different things. If leave is refused outright or left out of a final settlement, you can file a complaint with your regional labor office. Wage claims are subject to a three-year limitation period (art. 49).
If I used all the leave I earned in my first year, is my settlement zero?
For that portion, yes. But if you passed the one-year mark by even a day, a separate 15 days exists and remains. The “days already taken” field expects days taken in the current service year, so mixing first-year days with later ones will throw the figure off. If in doubt, split your leave record by service year.
Sources
- Labor Standards Act, article 60 (annual paid leave) — source for 15 days in (1), one day per full month in (2), the two-year addition and 25-day cap in (4), requested timing and the employer's right to change it in (5), and lapse after one year in (7). The text was read from two separate sources and the wording and figures matched.
- Labor Standards Act, article 61 (promotion of leave use) — the written procedure that lets unused leave lapse with nothing payable. This calculator does not model it.
- Labor Standards Act, article 11(1) — application to workplaces with five or more regular employees.
- Supreme Court 2021Da227100 (14 October 2021) and the Ministry of Employment and Labor's reinterpretation of 16 December 2021 — source for the rule that the employment relationship must exist on the day after the first year is completed for 15 days to arise, hence a maximum of 11 days on leaving at one year and 26 on leaving at one year and a day. Read from two summaries of the decision rather than the judgment itself.
- Enforcement Decree of the Labor Standards Act, article 6 — the definition of ordinary wage.
- 209 hours appears in no statute. It is (40 + 8) × 365 ÷ 7 ÷ 12 = 208.571 rounded, a convention, and the arithmetic here is our own.
Where to check further
- Whether your employer uses the hire-date or fiscal-year basis. This calculator uses the hire date — check your employment rules or HR first, because the two produce different numbers year by year.
- What your ordinary wage actually is. This article stops at the definition — which allowances count needs your payslip and employment rules together, and the labor helpline (1350) will read them and decide.
- The denominator of the 80% attendance test. The statute says only “80 per cent or more of one year” and does not define the denominator — if you had absences, check your own case on 1350.
- Leave in a workplace with fewer than five employees. Article 60 does not apply, but if your contract or employment rules provide for leave, those govern — read the contract. A staged extension of the Act to smaller workplaces has been reported as under discussion, but we could not confirm it from a government source and have not put a date in this article.
Written as at August 2026. The day-counting rules are read from the text of the Labor Standards Act, and the year-21 cap, the composition of the 209 hours and every won figure are our own calculation. Fiscal-year conversion and the 80% denominator are not modelled, because we could not verify them. A real settlement turns on your employer's rules and payment practice, so confirm with payroll before you leave. Other tools are grouped by situation in the calculator collection. This is general information, not legal advice.
