Three questions matter when parental leave is coming up. How much will I be paid, will it cost me anything at work, and how do I apply? This article answers them in that order, from the Ministry of Employment and Labor's Work24 portal, the Employment Insurance Decree, and the Equal Employment Act itself.
1. What it pays. Not a single number but a staircase — months 1–3 capped at ₩2.5M (100%), months 4–6 at ₩2.0M (100%), month 7 onward at ₩1.6M (80%), with a floor of ₩700,000. On a ₩3M ordinary wage that is roughly ₩23.1M over a year.
2. Will it cost you at work. Article 19 of the Equal Employment Act fixes four things — no dismissal during the leave, return to the same job or one paying the same, the period counts toward tenure, and no adverse treatment.
3. How to apply. Not on day one — you apply to your employer, get the leave certificate, and can only claim the benefit once a month of leave has passed. Filing on the first day gets rejected.
Below: the amounts, eligibility, protections and the application sequence.
“Months 1–3: cap 2.5m won, 100% of ordinary wage
Months 4–6: cap 2m won, 100% of ordinary wage
Month 7 onward: cap 1.6m won, 80% of ordinary wage”
— Work24, parental leave benefit guidance (last revised 15 September 2025)
What does a full year come to?
Applying the caps and rates band by band gives this. The Decree also sets a floor of 700,000 won a month whatever the wage.
| Your ordinary wage | Months 1–3 | Months 4–6 | Months 7–12 | 12-month total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5m won | 1.5m | 1.5m | 1.2m | 16.2m won |
| 2m won | 2m | 2m | 1.6m | 21.6m won |
| 2.5m won | 2.5m | 2m | 1.6m | 23.1m won |
| 3m won | 2.5m | 2m | 1.6m | 23.1m won |
| 4m won | 2.5m | 2m | 1.6m | 23.1m won |
The bottom three rows are the striking part. Whether you earned 2.5m or 4m won a month, the total is the same 23.1m won. The caps act as a ceiling, and nothing above them reaches the benefit. Earn 2m won and the first six months come through at the full 100%.
So hitting the cap and not hitting it feel completely different. Someone on 4m won a month loses 1.5m from the first month; someone on 2m loses nothing until month seven. For your own figures, use the parental leave benefit calculator.
Extending the leave adds to the total: eighteen months comes to 23.1m + 9.6m = 32.7m won on the same basis, since the extra six months all sit in the 1.6m band. But eighteen months is not open to everyone — the conditions are below.
| Band | Monthly cap |
|---|---|
| Months 1–3 | 2.5m won (100% of ordinary wage) |
| Months 4–6 | 2m won (100% of ordinary wage) |
| Month 7 onward | 1.6m won (80% of ordinary wage) |
| Single parent, months 1–3 | 3m won |
| Floor, all bands | 700,000 won |
When both parents take leave the caps change: the 6+6 scheme raises the first six months to 2.5m, 2.5m, 3m, 3.5m, 4m and 4.5m won. That is covered in the 6+6 article.
Are you eligible?
Three conditions have to hold together.
| Condition | Detail |
|---|---|
| Employment insurance | 180 days or more of coverage as at the start of leave |
| Leave taken | 30 days or more for the same child |
| Who qualifies | A pregnant woman worker, or a worker with a child aged 8 or under, or in year 2 of primary school or below |
The first line is the trap. It is 180 days of insurance coverage, not 180 days of employment. Coverage carries across a job change, but several periods do not count at all.
| This period | How it counts |
|---|---|
| Unpaid days such as unpaid holidays | Excluded — the total runs shorter than time employed |
| Coverage at previous employers | Aggregated |
| A gap of three years or more between losing and acquiring coverage | Everything before it is not aggregated |
| If you have drawn unemployment benefit | Everything before that is excluded |
| Coverage as a self-employed person, artist or dependent contractor | Not aggregated |
The last row is easy to miss. Paying employment insurance premiums feels like it should count, but coverage as a dependent contractor — insurance agents, courier riders, software engineers and the like — does not. Someone who freelanced before joining a company may find their felt career and their qualifying 180 days are entirely different things.
And leave can be taken during pregnancy. The statute's eligibility clause opens with “a pregnant woman worker, for the protection of maternity.” Many people assume it only applies after the birth.
Will it cost you anything at work?
This is usually the real worry, and the statute nails down four things. Article 19 of the Equal Employment Act:
| Protection | Provision |
|---|---|
| No dismissal | “an employer shall not dismiss the worker during the period of parental leave” (para. 3). Adverse treatment is also prohibited |
| Return to the same job | the employer “shall reinstate the worker in the same work, or in a position paying the same level of wages” (para. 4) |
| Service counted | parental leave counts toward length of service (para. 4) — it does not drop out of severance or annual leave calculations |
| Contract preserved | for fixed-term and dispatched workers, the leave is excluded from the contract or dispatch period (para. 5) — the contract is not shortened by it |
The third matters most in money terms. A year away still accrues a year of service, so severance is not reduced by it.
What can cost you is working during the leave. Two tests apply.
| Test | Threshold |
|---|---|
| ① Hours | contracted hours of 15 or more per week |
| ② Money | self-employment income or payment for work of 1.5m won or more a month |
They are joined by “or.” Short hours still fail if the money passes 1.5m won, and low pay still fails if the hours pass fifteen. Clearing one is not enough. By number of breaches, the benefit is withheld for the period worked (first), the month of the second instance, and all subsequent periods from the third; filing false information can bring up to a year's imprisonment or a fine of up to 3m won.
A decision can be appealed to employment insurance review within 90 days of receiving it.
How to apply — not on day one
The order is fixed, and missing the window means missing the money.
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| Before the leave starts | Apply to your employer; the employer issues a parental leave certificate |
| From one month in | Only now can the benefit be claimed. A claim on day one is not accepted |
| Where | The Work24 site or app, or an employment centre in person, with the certificate |
| Deadline | Within 12 months of the leave ending |
| If the end date changes | Early return and similar changes must be notified to your employment centre |
Missing the deadline does not reduce the payment — it removes it. The guidance states that “where the filing deadline passes, the parental leave benefit is not paid.”
Splitting the leave carries its own catch. Any parental leave used within the previous 12 months is aggregated. Take three months, return to work and take more, and the second stretch starts from month four — on the 2m won cap.
There is also a counting rule. “The one-year period is calculated in months (12 months), not in days (365).” Part-months are divided by the actual length of that month — three days left in April is 3/30, twenty-four days in July is 24/31. So three days left in February and three left in July are worth different amounts. In Work24's own worked example, a leave split into two stretches comes to 9.874 months.
Who can take eighteen months?
Work24 says only “up to 1 year and 6 months.” The statute sets out three routes.
Article 19(2) <amended 22 October 2024>
The period of parental leave shall be within one year. Provided that a worker falling under any of the following may take up to a further six months:
1. a father or mother where, for the same child, both parents have each taken three months or more of parental leave
2. a father or mother under article 4(1) of the Single-Parent Family Support Act
3. a father or mother of a child with a disability as prescribed by Ministry of Employment and Labor ordinance
The first route catches most people and is the easiest to misread. It is “both parents” and “each three months or more.”
| Situation | Eighteen months? |
|---|---|
| Mother takes 12 months, father takes none | No |
| Mother 12 months, father 2 months | No — each must exceed three months |
| Mother 6 months, father 3 months | Yes — either parent takes the further six |
| Single parent | Eligible from the outset, regardless of a spouse's use |
| Parent of a child with a disability | The same — though “child with a disability” is defined by ministerial ordinance |
One parent taking a long leave alone does not qualify. That is the point to carry away.
What happened to the deferred payment?
The rule that part of the benefit was held back until six months after returning to work is widely remembered. Current law contains no provision for it.
The last line of article 95 of the Employment Insurance Decree reads “(4) Deleted <24 December 2024>.”
What remains is paragraphs 1 to 3, with no mention of “six months after returning” or of paying anything later. The parent statute, article 70 of the Employment Insurance Act, contains no split-payment provision either; its paragraph 4 delegates the whole benefit amount to the Decree.
That said, the text marks the provision only as “Deleted” without showing what it said, so we will not assert that paragraph 4 was the deferred-payment rule. The transitional provisions did not appear on the article-level page either. For leave that began before 2024, check with an employment centre. Work24's own simulation page still carries the sentence “the figure in parentheses is the deferred balance, paid six months after returning to work.”
Questions people ask
What does a year actually pay?
23.1m won on an ordinary wage of 2.5m or above, 21.6m at 2m, and 16.2m at 1.5m. Past 2.5m the total stops rising because all three bands hit their caps. These are our own sums from the statutory caps and rates.
Does taking leave reduce my severance?
No. The statute requires parental leave to count toward length of service (article 19(4)). The same paragraph requires reinstatement in the same work or a position paying the same level of wages.
Can I work part-time during the leave?
The benefit is restricted at 15 hours a week or 1.5m won a month — either one triggers it — and filing false information can bring up to a year's imprisonment or a fine of up to 3m won.
Is eighteen months open to everyone?
No. Either both parents take three months or more each, or you are a single parent, or you are the parent of a child with a disability. One parent taking a long leave alone does not qualify.
What counts as ordinary wage?
Work24 defines it as “the hourly, daily, weekly or monthly amount agreed to be paid regularly and uniformly for contracted or total work.” Variable items such as performance bonuses are outside it. For take-home pay generally, see the salary calculator.
Does my spouse get anything?
There is a separate spouse's maternity leave: 20 paid days, splittable three times, to be used within 120 days of the birth, with benefit capped at 1,684,210 won for workers at priority-support businesses. The mother's own 90 days of maternity leave carry a separate benefit, split between state and employer according to firm size — the maternity-leave benefit calculator shows the three-way split.
Can I cut my hours instead of taking leave?
Yes — that is covered in reduced working hours for childcare.
Sources
- Korean Law Information Center — Equal Employment Opportunity and Work-Family Balance Assistance Act, article 19 (parental leave) [in force 1 October 2025]. Source for the three routes to the additional six months in paragraph 2 (amended 22 October 2024), the eligibility in paragraph 1 (child aged 8 or under or in year 2 or below, adopted children included, and pregnant women workers), the prohibition on dismissal in paragraph 3, the counting of service and reinstatement in paragraph 4, and the exclusion from contract and dispatch periods in paragraph 5.
- Korean Law Information Center — Employment Insurance Decree, article 95 (parental leave benefit) [in force 1 July 2026]. Source for the 2.5m / 2m / 1.6m won caps and the 700,000 won floor (“where the amount is less than 700,000 won, it shall be 700,000 won” appears in all three bands), and for “(4) Deleted <24 December 2024>.”
- Ministry of Employment and Labor, Work24 — parental leave benefit guidance (last revised 15 September 2025). Source for the 180-day coverage and 30-day use requirements, the child eligibility, the “up to 1 year 6 months” figure, the three benefit bands, the 3m won single-parent cap, the 6+6 monthly caps, the filing window (from one month in to 12 months after the end), and the 12-month aggregation rule. The same page carries “the one-year period is calculated in months (12 months), not in days (365)” with the 9.874-month worked example, the exclusions from coverage (unpaid days, three-year gaps, prior unemployment benefit, and coverage as a self-employed person, artist or dependent contractor), and the restrictions on working during leave (15 hours, 1.5m won, penalties, and withholding by number of breaches) with the 90-day appeal window.
- Ministry of Employment and Labor, Work24 — parental leave benefit simulation guidance. Source for the definition of ordinary wage and for the sentence still on the page reading “the figure in parentheses is the deferred balance, paid six months after returning to work.”
- Ministry of Employment and Labor, Work24 — spouse's maternity leave and benefit (last revised 5 February 2026). Source for the 20 paid days, three splits, use within 120 days of the birth, and the 1,684,210 won cap with the minimum wage as the floor.
- The totals are our own calculation. The 12-month totals in the table and chart (16.2m, 21.6m and 23.1m won) and the 32.7m won 18-month figure were summed by us from the caps, rates and floor in article 95 applied to an assumed ordinary wage; no agency publishes them. Actual payments depend on how the ordinary wage is assessed and on individual circumstances.
- What we read into it. “Past 2.5m won the total stops rising” is what comes out of adding the caps band by band; neither Work24 nor the statute puts it that way. On “(4) Deleted,” the text does not show the deleted content, so we have not asserted that it was the deferred-payment provision. Government pages also disagree with each other — employment insurance pages still show a 1.5m won cap and the older 3+3 scheme — and we followed the page carrying a revision date.
Where to check further
This article goes as far as the statute and Work24 allow. The rest is best looked at here.
- Your own ordinary wage and actual payment — checked here. The table above assumes a wage, so run your own through Work24's simulation or our calculator.
- Deferred payments on leave that began before 2024 — call an employment centre (1350). We confirmed paragraph 4 was deleted but could not open the transitional provisions, and timing is exactly what matters here.
- The disability definition, and public servants and private school staff — separate rules. “Child with a disability” under the third route is delegated to ministerial ordinance, and this article is written for employment-insured workers, so different rules apply to public servants and teaching staff.
As of August 2026. Amounts and deadlines come from Work24's guidance, the caps, floor and deletion of the deferred payment from the Employment Insurance Decree, and the protections against dismissal and for reinstatement from the Equal Employment Act; the totals are our own sums from those figures. For both parents taking leave together see the 6+6 scheme. The rules change often, so check Work24 once more immediately before filing.
