Chuseok 2026 runs Thursday 24 September to Sunday 27 September — four days. This article is for anyone who will be at work on one of them.
Search for what a Korean holiday shift pays and the answer that comes back is 1.5×. That is right, but a condition is missing in front of it. If you fall on the wrong side of that condition, the premium is not 1.5× but zero.
1. The first question. Not the amount but “does the workplace have five or more staff?” Table 1 of the Enforcement Decree lists the Chapter 4 provisions that apply below five — articles 54, 55(1) and 63 only. The premium provision, article 56, is not there.
2. Above five, it splits in two. Within the same holiday shift, the first 8 hours carry 50%, anything beyond carries 100% (art. 56(2)). Night hours (22:00–06:00) add another 50%.
3. One thing changed this year. Labour Day (1 May) has been added to the public holiday list — amended 30 April 2026, in force 11 May.
| Paid holiday already inside the monthly salary | 0 won |
| Pay for hours worked 100% | 0 won |
| Holiday premium 50% up to 8h, 100% beyond | 0 won |
| Night premium 50% | 0 won |
| Total | 0 won |
The premium rates and the hourly-rate formula come straight from the statute (Labor Standards Act art. 56, Enforcement Decree art. 6(2)). The split between monthly and hourly pay is a practice convention that the statute does not state, and it is marked as such — whether your monthly salary already contains the paid-holiday portion has to be read off the work rules and the wage ledger. Figures are before tax and social insurance, and what actually lands depends on your employer's own rules.
Four days off, and no substitute holiday
Article 2(9) of the Regulation on Public Holidays for Government Offices sets the holiday as “the day before Chuseok, Chuseok, and the day after Chuseok (the 14th, 15th and 16th of the 8th lunar month)”. In 2026 that lands like this.
| Date | Day | What |
|---|---|---|
| 24 September | Thu | Day before Chuseok |
| 25 September | Fri | Chuseok |
| 26 September | Sat | Day after Chuseok |
| 27 September | Sun | Sunday (art. 2(1)) |
| The day after Chuseok falls on a Saturday and yet no substitute holiday is created. The reason is in the article below. | ||
Article 3(1) of the same regulation splits substitute holidays into three cases, and Lunar New Year and Chuseok are the odd ones out.
| Item | Which holidays | Overlap that creates a substitute day |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | National days · Buddha's Birthday · Labour Day · Children's Day · Christmas | Saturday or Sunday |
| 2 | Lunar New Year and Chuseok holidays | Sunday only |
| 3 | Two of the above falling on the same day | — |
| Children's Day on a Saturday does produce a substitute day. Chuseok on a Saturday does not. 2026 is exactly that case. | ||
Enforcement Decree article 30(2) then pulls the whole regulation across — the “holidays prescribed by Presidential Decree” are the public holidays in article 2 (excluding item 1) and the substitute holidays in article 3. That is how the government calendar becomes a paid holiday in private workplaces.
The first fork is headcount, not money
Article 11(1) of the Labor Standards Act says “this Act shall apply to all businesses or workplaces that ordinarily employ five or more workers”, and paragraph 2 says that for four or fewer, only some provisions apply. That “some” is table 1 of the Enforcement Decree.
| Chapter | Provisions applying to workplaces with 4 or fewer |
|---|---|
| Ch. 1 General | arts. 1–13 |
| Ch. 3 Wages | arts. 43–45, 47–49 |
| Ch. 4 Working hours and rest | arts. 54, 55(1), 63 |
| Ch. 5 Women and minors | arts. 64–69 and others |
| Article 56 is absent from the Chapter 4 cell. And article 55 appears only as paragraph 1 (one paid day off a week) — paragraph 2, the paid public holiday, is left out. | |
Two things follow.
- In a workplace with four or fewer staff, Chuseok is not a paid holiday. Article 55(2) does not reach it. Taking the day off can mean taking it unpaid.
- Working that day carries no premium. Article 56 does not apply, so it is the ordinary hourly rate — night hours and overtime included.
“Ordinarily five” is not the headcount on the payroll. It is total person-days over a period divided by days of operation (Enforcement Decree art. 7-2). The owner is excluded; part-timers and fixed-term staff are counted. If you are near the line, start with that sum.
The rate bends once, at eight hours
Article 56 has three paragraphs. Paragraph 2 was inserted on 20 March 2018, which is when the eight-hour line entered the statute itself.
| Provision | Applies to | Premium |
|---|---|---|
| art. 56(1) | Overtime | 50/100 or more of the ordinary wage |
| art. 56(2)1 | Holiday work within 8 hours | 50/100 |
| art. 56(2)2 | Holiday work beyond 8 hours | 100/100 |
| art. 56(3) | Night work (22:00–06:00) | 50/100 or more of the ordinary wage |
| The night premium stacks on top of the holiday premium. A pre-dawn Chuseok shift carries both. | ||
Note that the statute says “or more”. The 50% is a floor; a collective agreement or work rules that set a higher figure govern instead.
209 hours is not written in the law
The 209 hours the calculator starts from is not a number the statute states. It falls out of the formula in Enforcement Decree article 6(2)4.
Wages set as a monthly amount: that amount divided by the number of hours used to compute the monthly ordinary wage (the weekly figure multiplied by the average number of weeks in a year, divided by 12)
And the weekly figure is defined in item 3 of the same paragraph as “contracted weekly hours plus hours treated as paid outside contracted hours”. A 40-hour week plus the 8-hour weekly paid rest day makes 48. Substituting:
| Step | Value |
|---|---|
| Weekly basis | 40 contracted + 8 paid = 48 hours |
| Average weeks in a year | 365 ÷ 7 = 52.142857 |
| Monthly basis | 48 × 52.142857 ÷ 12 = 208.571 hours |
| Figure used in practice | 209 hours |
| On a 35-hour week it becomes (35+7) × 52.142857 ÷ 12 = 182.5 hours. 209 is the 40-hour-week figure (our own working). | |
Get the hourly rate wrong and every number after it is wrong with it. That is why the calculator leaves the field editable. What your salary actually leaves you with is a separate question — see the Korean take-home pay calculator.
Same ten hours, different money
| Item | 5 or more staff | Fewer than 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Pay for 10 hours worked | 143,541 won | 143,541 won |
| Holiday premium, 8 hours × 50% | 57,416 won | none |
| Holiday premium, 2 hours × 100% | 28,708 won | none |
| Total | 229,665 won | 143,541 won |
| A gap of 86,124 won, about 1.6× — for the same day and the same hours (our own working). | ||
Night hours push it up again. Four hours from 22:00 to 02:00 add 14,354 × 4 × 0.5 = 28,708 won.
It is a paid holiday, so one day is already in hand
A public holiday is a day that pays even if you do not work it (art. 55(2)). This is where monthly and hourly pay part ways.
| Pay basis | The paid-holiday portion | Working that day adds |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly salary | already inside the monthly figure | 100% worked + 50% premium = 150% |
| Hourly or daily | paid separately from the hours worked | 100% holiday + 100% worked + 50% premium = 250% |
| This split is not written into the statute. See “Where to check further” below. | ||
For the same reason the weekly holiday allowance in the hourly wage calculator is only visible on hourly pay. On a monthly salary it is already dissolved into the figure.
What changed in 2026 — Labour Day became a public holiday
The Regulation on Public Holidays for Government Offices was amended on 30 April 2026 (Presidential Decree 36290) and took effect on 11 May, adding item 6, “Labour Day (1 May)”, to the article 2 list.
1 May was already a paid holiday for workers under the Act on the Designation of Workers' Day. What changed is that it is now on the government holiday list, which routes it through Enforcement Decree article 30(2) into the paid holidays of article 55(2) — and under article 3(1)1 it now generates a substitute holiday when it falls on a Saturday or Sunday.
| The 2026 public holiday list (art. 2) |
|---|
| Sundays / national days / 1 January / three Lunar New Year days / Buddha's Birthday / Labour Day (1 May) / Children's Day / Memorial Day / three Chuseok days / Christmas / general election days / days designated by the government |
| Only item 1, Sundays, is excluded from the paid holidays of the Labor Standards Act (art. 30(2) parenthetical). |
Common questions
Past eight hours, does the overtime premium stack too?
Article 56(2)2 already sets the beyond-8-hours figure at 100% on its own. On the structure of the article, the paragraph 1 overtime premium is not read as stacking again on top of that. The calculator follows the same reading.
Can the employer give a day off instead of the money?
The proviso to article 55(2) allows a holiday to be “replaced with a specified working day where agreed in writing with the workers' representative”. The load is carried by “with the workers' representative” and “in writing”. An individual notice or a verbal understanding does not meet it — the same shape as the notice procedure in the annual leave article.
I took Chuseok off and my pay went down
At five or more staff the holiday is paid, so it should not. At four or fewer, article 55(2) does not apply and it can be unpaid. Check the headcount first.
What if the employer simply does not pay?
Unpaid wages go to the Ministry of Employment and Labor's labour portal as a wage arrears complaint — the same channel as dismissal notice pay and workplace harassment.
Sources used
- Statute — Labor Standards Act [in force 23 Oct 2025] [Act 20520, amended 22 Oct 2024], arts. 11, 55, 56. Source for the 50%/100% premiums and the eight-hour line.
- Statute — Enforcement Decree of the Labor Standards Act, art. 6 (ordinary wage), art. 7 with table 1, art. 30 (holidays). Source for the 209-hour formula and the under-five scope.
- Statute — Regulation on Public Holidays for Government Offices [in force 11 May 2026] [Presidential Decree 36290, amended 30 Apr 2026], arts. 2, 3. Source for the Chuseok range and the substitute-holiday conditions.
- Our own calculation — deriving 209 hours, the 14,354 won hourly rate, and the 229,665 vs 143,541 won comparison are ours, substituting into the provisions above.
Where to check further
- The monthly-versus-hourly split — we could not confirm it in the statute. Article 55 goes as far as “shall be guaranteed as paid”; the premise that a monthly salary already contains the paid-holiday portion is not stated there. Read it off the wage ledger and work rules, or take it to the Ministry of Employment and Labor labour portal.
- Counting “ordinarily five” — read Enforcement Decree article 7-2 yourself. It is not “how many people are here” but person-days over the period divided by days of operation, and workplaces near the line flip on that sum.
- If the money never arrives — file a wage arrears complaint through the labour portal. The calculator gives an estimate; the amount actually claimable is fixed by the wage ledger and the employment contract.
Written as of August 2026. The premium rates, the ordinary-wage formula and the scope of public holidays are taken from the three statutes above; the 209 hours and the money comparison are our own working and are marked as such. This calculator produces a pre-tax estimate, and where work rules or a collective agreement are more favourable, those govern. It is not legal advice. How these payments feed into average wage at separation continues in the severance pay calculator.
