Inheriting a parent’s country house, keeping the house you left when you gave up farming, or buying one to return to farming can leave a Korean household with two homes. Article 155(7) of the Income Tax Act Enforcement Decree says a household owning one of each — an inherited, ex-farmer or return-to-farm home in an eup (outside urban zones) or myeon outside the capital region (a rural home) and any other home (an ordinary home) — is treated as owning one home when it sells the ordinary home, so the one-home exemption under Art. 154(1) can apply. An inherited home needs the deceased, and an ex-farmer’s home the ex-farmer, to have lived there 5 years or more; a return-to-farm home works only if the ordinary home is sold within 5 years of buying the farm home. The checker below goes through the conditions.
1. One rural + one ordinary home: selling the ordinary one counts as selling your only home — rural eup or myeon outside the capital region only.
2. Inherited and ex-farmer homes need 5 years’ residence — by the deceased, or by the ex-farmer.
3. Return-to-farm homes need a site of up to 660 square metres and more, a sale within 5 years, and 3 years of farming and living there.
Checker
Updates as you choose. It checks only the para. 7 conditions; whether the ordinary home meets the one-home rules (2 years’ holding, the KRW 1.2bn line) is a separate question. Lines in [brackets] are read only for that kind of home.
Article 155(7) — the text
| Type | What the source says | Worth noting (ours) |
|---|---|---|
| Main text | A household owning one each of a home below located outside the capital region in an eup (not an urban zone) or a myeon (rural home) and another home (ordinary home) is treated, when it sells the ordinary home, as owning one home for Art. 154(1) | The paragraph doesn’t cover selling the rural home (our reading) |
| Proviso | For an item 3 home (return-to-farm), only where the ordinary home is sold within 5 years of buying that home | No such deadline for items 1 and 2 |
| Item 1 | An inherited home, only if the deceased lived there 5 years or more after buying it | The deceased’s residence |
| Item 2 | An ex-farmer’s home (fishing included) where the ex-farmer lived 5 years or more after buying it | The ex-farmer’s own residence |
| Item 3 | A return-to-farm home bought to farm or fish | Conditions in para. 10 |
What the two homes mean — paras. 9 and 10
| Type | What the source says | Worth noting (ours) |
|---|---|---|
| Ex-farmer’s home (9) | A home owned by someone who farmed or fished and, on changing trade, moved to another city, district, eup or myeon so that they, their spouse and family can no longer live in it | The house left behind |
| Return-to-farm (10) item 2 | Not a high-value home when bought | The KRW 1.2bn line in Act Art. 89(1)(3) |
| (10) item 3 | A site of 660 square metres or less | — |
| (10) item 4 | Bought to farm or fish, and (a) bought in the farmland’s area by someone (or their spouse) owning 1,000 square metres+ of farmland, (b) bought in that area within 1 year before such farmland was acquired, or (c) bought by a fisher as defined by ministry rule (or spouse) | One of the three |
| (10) item 5 | The whole household moves in (including where some can’t because of schooling, work, medical treatment or similar) | — |
After the move — paras. 11 and 12
| Type | What the source says | Worth noting (ours) |
|---|---|---|
| Once only (11) | When the whole household moves to the rural home to farm, para. 7 applies only to the first ordinary home sold after the move | A second ordinary home doesn’t qualify |
| Clawback (12) | If the owner doesn’t farm or fish, or doesn’t live there, for 3 years in a row from the move-in date, the ordinary home sold is not treated as a one-home sale | Move-in date = date of registered residence |
| Report and pay (12) | Within 2 months from the end of the month the cause arises, report and pay the amount under the set formula. If an inheritance occurs within the 3 years, the deceased’s and heir’s farming periods are added | We did not set out the formula |
The move-in date in paragraph 12 is the day the owner registered and began living in the farm home; where the home was bought before the farmland (para. 10 item 4(b)), it is the day the farmland was acquired after moving in.
Three cases — our example
| Case (our example) | Result | Worth noting (ours) |
|---|---|---|
| Inherit a myeon house your mother bought and lived in for 4 years; sell your Seoul flat | Doesn’t apply | Short of item 1’s 5 years |
| Farm home bought 10 March 2022; city home sold 20 May 2027 | Doesn’t apply | 5 years ran to 10 March 2027 (our sum) |
| Farm home in a myeon in Gyeonggi Province | Doesn’t apply | Must be outside the capital region |
The cases and dates are our example. We counted 5 years from the day after purchase to the same date 5 years on (our reading of the Civil Act period rules).
Checklist
- ☐ Is the country house in an eup (outside urban zones) or myeon outside the capital region?
- ☐ Inherited: did the deceased live there 5 years+? Ex-farmer: did you?
- ☐ Return-to-farm: site up to 660 square metres, farmland of 1,000 square metres+, whole household moved, sale within 5 years
- ☐ Is this the first ordinary home sold since the move?
- ☐ Can you keep farming and living there for 3 years from the move-in date?
Questions that remain
What if I sell the country house first?
Paragraph 7 covers only selling the ordinary home; selling the rural home reads as outside it (our reading). The general one-home rules are in one-home capital gains tax exemption.
What if the inherited home isn’t rural?
That is the inherited-home rule in paragraph 2, covered in the inherited home exemption checker.
Sources
- Korean law database (law.go.kr) — Income Tax Act Enforcement Decree Art. 155(7), (9)–(13) — source (current text, effective 1 October 2026, Presidential Decree No. 36737; checked 28 October 2026). Rural home (eup or myeon outside the capital region) plus ordinary home, sale of the ordinary home, the 5-year proviso for return-to-farm homes, 5 years’ residence for inherited and ex-farmer homes, the meanings in paras. 9–10 (not high-value, site up to 660 square metres, farmland of 1,000 square metres, whole household), first sale only, the 3-year clawback and 2-month report, the four documents in para. 13.
- Korean law database — Income Tax Act Art. 89(1)(3) — source (current text, effective 1 July 2026, Act No. 21221; checked 28 October 2026). High-value homes over KRW 1.2bn excluded; item (b), two or more homes through replacement, inheritance, caring for parents or marriage.
- Not read. The para. 12 formula; the form and deadline in para. 13; ministry rules on fishers and unavoidable reasons; what counts as an urban zone; the Restriction of Special Taxation Act rural home relief.
- What we added. The “worth noting” column and the Korean everyday gloss.
Where to check further
- Your tax office — the para. 13 documents (resident register, ledgers and registry certificates for both homes, farmland registry) and when to file them.
- City or county office — whether the address is in an urban zone (we did not read the planning act this time).
Written on 28 October 2026. The content is from the source; the glosses are ours.
