The no-home period in Korea’s subscription score is not the time you have gone without a home. Fifteen years of renting from age 20 counts as zero years if the start date has not arrived. The item is worth 32 points at 2 points a year, and most of the errors in it come not from adding wrong but from picking the wrong date.
The start date is the latest of three. ① The day you turn 30 — or ② the day a marriage was registered, if that came first. And ③ if the household sold a home later than that, the count restarts on the day of the sale.
Between ① and ② the earlier date wins; between that result and ③ the later one does. The two comparisons run in opposite directions.
Three dates, two rules
That there are two rules rather than one is what makes this item slippery.
The first comparison — age 30 against the marriage date. The period runs from age 30, except that a marriage registered before then starts it instead. In effect, the earlier of the two. So for someone who registered a marriage at 33, the marriage does nothing to this item at all.
The second comparison — that date against the sale. If the household owned a home at any point after the date settled above, the period restarts on the day it was sold. However early a date you secure in the first comparison, the second can erase it.
Four people born in March 1991
Born on the same day, applying to the same notice dated 1 September 2026. All four are 35.
| Circumstance | Count starts | Period | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Unmarried | 15 Mar 2021 (age 30) | 5 years | 12 |
| B | Marriage registered 1 Jun 2019 (age 28) | 1 Jun 2019 | 7 years | 16 |
| C | Marriage registered 1 Jun 2024 (age 33) | 15 Mar 2021 | 5 years | 12 |
| D | As B, but sold a home 20 Oct 2022 | 20 Oct 2022 | 3 years | 8 |
B and C differ by four points. Both married; only one gained anything — whether it happened before 30 decided it. B and D differ by eight, and here owning a home once erased not three years but four, because the sale becomes the start date and everything before it disappears wholesale.
The household owns it, not you
Whether there is a home is judged across every member of the household, not the applicant alone. Article 2 of the Rules on Housing Supply defines a member of a household without a home as someone in a household where no member owns a home.
The household is the applicant, the spouse, and the ascendants and descendants on the same residence registration. A spouse is included even on a separate registration — this is where it most often goes wrong. Conversely, siblings and cohabitants are not household members even on the same registration.
So a home in a spouse’s name cannot be waved off as somebody else’s. A separate registration does not separate the household, and the no-home status breaks.
Owning one and still counting as none
Article 53 of the same Rules sets the test for ownership, and one small, low-priced home is treated as no home. The 18 December 2024 revision put the thresholds here.
| Type | Floor area | Assessed value — capital region | Assessed value — elsewhere |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apartment | 60㎡ or less | KRW 160m or less | KRW 100m or less |
| Non-apartment | 85㎡ or less | KRW 500m or less | KRW 300m or less |
The non-apartment row widened sharply at the end of 2024 — area from 60 to 85㎡, and the capital-region value from KRW 160m to 500m. Anyone who wrote off subscription because they own one villa or officetel should look again.
How far this exception reaches across supply types, we could not verify against the regulation itself. Some sources describe it as applying only to the scored share of private housing; others include special supply. If it might apply to you, read it off the notice for the development you are applying to.
Finding your start date in three steps
Two documents will do it. The order matters, so keep to it.
① Write down the day you turn 30. Thirty years from the birthday, counted the Korean legal way — from the birthday itself. Someone born 1 September 1996 starts counting on 1 September 2026; someone born on the 2nd still scores zero on that notice.
② If a marriage was registered earlier, use that instead. Not the wedding day — the registration date, which appears on the marriage certificate. Later than age 30, and step ① stands.
③ If the household sold a home after ②, use the sale. The date of transfer registration on the property register. Not only yours — the spouse and the registered ascendants and descendants too. If there were several, the last one.
From that date to the date of the notice of tenant recruitment is the period. The notice date, not the application date and not the announcement of winners.
The whole table — seventeen steps to 32
Two points per step, one step a year, stopping at fifteen years.
| Period | Points | Period | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owns a home · unmarried under 30 | 0 | 8 to under 9 years | 18 |
| Under 1 year | 2 | 9 to under 10 years | 20 |
| 1 to under 2 years | 4 | 10 to under 11 years | 22 |
| 2 to under 3 years | 6 | 11 to under 12 years | 24 |
| 3 to under 4 years | 8 | 12 to under 13 years | 26 |
| 4 to under 5 years | 10 | 13 to under 14 years | 28 |
| 5 to under 6 years | 12 | 14 to under 15 years | 30 |
| 6 to under 7 years | 14 | 15 years or more | 32 |
| 7 to under 8 years | 16 |
Note that zero is followed by two, not one. Turning 30 skips a step rather than climbing one. And the ceiling is 32, so past 45 there is nothing left to earn here — only dependents and the account remain.
One day is worth two points
The score is a staircase, so where the notice date falls against the anniversary of the start date moves a whole step.
| Count starts | Notice date | Period | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Mar 2021 | 14 Mar 2026 | 4 years (one day short) | 10 |
| 15 Mar 2021 | 15 Mar 2026 | 5 years | 12 |
Two points across one day. You cannot choose the notice date, but you can know in advance when your step arrives. If it is days away, waiting for the next notice can be the better move — assuming nothing else changes in between.
The account has the same staircase at one point a year, half the width. When both steps fall near each other, waiting a month can be worth three points. The calculator reports both dates together.
Can separating the household avoid it?
When a parent’s home makes the household an owner, splitting the registration is the obvious thought. There are two branches here and they answer differently.
Ascendants do drop out of the household when the registration splits. The household covers ascendants and descendants on the same registration, so a parent on a different one takes their home with them. But they leave the dependent count at the same moment — two parents is ten points. Restoring the no-home item to 32 while losing ten dependents points nets the difference, not the 32. Running both cases through the calculator is quicker than reasoning about it.
A spouse does not drop out. A spouse belongs to the household regardless of registration, so a home in their name cannot be split away. Descendants on the spouse’s registration come along too.
And a separation has to reflect where people actually live. Moving an address on paper conflicts with the reporting duty under the Resident Registration Act, and in subscription it ends in an ineligibility finding. The precise test applied here we could not verify — before weighing the arithmetic, it is worth checking whether the arrangement is real.
Questions that remain
I have had no home since I was 20. Why does none of it count?
Because the table is built that way. The start is fixed at age 30, so no amount of no-home time before it registers. What happens instead is a jump from 0 to 2 on that birthday, then 2 more each year. At 45, fifteen years in, the ceiling of 32 arrives and it stops.
Is registering a marriage always an advantage?
In this item, only before 30. A registration after that does not move the start date, because age 30 is already earlier. Separately a spouse adds one dependent, worth 5 points — and, in the other direction, if the spouse owns a home the household owns one and this item goes to zero. It opens both ways.
What happens to the start date after a divorce?
We could not establish this. Where a marriage registered before 30 started the count and the marriage later ended, whether that start date survives or reverts to age 30 is not something we could confirm in the regulation. The same for remarriage. We are leaving it open rather than asserting — better to ask the subscription service or the developer directly.
Does an inherited home count as owning one?
Article 53 lists cases that are not treated as ownership, and inheritance is described as among them. Conditions and disposal deadlines attach, and we could not open the text. Do not file it under “inherited, so fine” — check the property register and the notice together. Getting this item wrong comes back as ineligibility after a win.
Which day exactly counts as the sale?
The date of transfer registration on the property register is described as the usual reference. It can differ from the contract date and the balance-payment date, so writing it from memory invites an error. Pull the certified copy of the register and read it off. A few days can move a whole step, and a step is two points.
Sources and where to check
Appendix 1 to the Rules on Housing Supply — the bands for the 32-point no-home item. The version in force took effect on 15 June 2026 (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ordinance No. 1592).
Article 2 of the same Rules — the definition of a household without a home and the scope of the household. Article 53 — the ownership test and the small, low-priced home thresholds (revised 18 December 2024).
The table and the counting rules were cross-checked against two unrelated sources. One source cannot reveal that it is stale. The statute itself could not be opened — the national law portal blocks automated retrieval.
Where to check further
The certified copy of the property register. The date of a sale lives here, and it can differ from the contract and balance dates.
Your residence registration, and your spouse’s. The household is not complete from the applicant’s registration alone. A spouse on a separate one has to be checked separately.
The notice for the development. Whether the small, low-priced exception reaches that supply type is settled there.
To add the parts up, put the dates straight into the subscription score calculator. The remaining item is in how the dependent count is drawn.
