To check annual leave in Korea, first confirm that the statutory rule covers your workplace and hours, then compare your hiring date, attendance, leave ledger, and any unused-leave payment. Nationality alone does not create a separate leave formula. Your monthly payslip need not show the remaining balance; ask HR for the leave ledger if the numbers do not match.
Initial source review: October 1, 2026. Selected legal sources rechecked: October 20, 2026 (KST): the cited Labor Standards Act provisions, wage-statement decree and three MOEL 1350 guidance pages. The Act version reviewed is effective October 8, 2026. This guide explains general Korean labor rules and is not individualized legal advice. Annual-leave calculations can change depending on workplace size, working hours, employment history, attendance, company rules, and the facts of an individual case.
Quick answer: how much annual leave do workers get in Korea?
Under Article 60 of Korea's Labor Standards Act, the basic statutory structure is:
- Less than one year of continuous employment: generally 1 paid leave day for each month of perfect attendance.
- One full year with at least 80% attendance, with employment continuing on the following day: 15 days of paid annual leave.
- Three years or more of continuous employment: additional leave begins to accumulate based on length of service.
- Maximum statutory annual leave under this rule: 25 days.
But those numbers should not be applied blindly.
Ministry of Employment and Labor guidance explains that the statutory annual-leave provisions generally apply where the workplace ordinarily employs five or more workers and the employee's prescribed working time averages at least 15 hours per week over four weeks (or over the employment period if shorter than four weeks). For eligible part-time workers, leave is calculated proportionately in hours; the day counts above do not automatically mean the same number of full eight-hour days. Labor Standards Act, Article 18; version effective October 8, 2026, checked October 20, 2026.
Official guidance: Ministry of Employment and Labor 1350 — Annual Leave Eligibility
If you work for a very small business or work fewer than 15 hours per week, do not use a standard online leave calculator without first checking whether the same statutory annual-leave rules apply to you.
First-year workers do not simply start with 15 days
This is one of the most common misunderstandings.
If you have worked for your employer for less than one year, Article 60 provides one day of paid leave for each month of perfect attendance.
That means a worker can generally earn up to 11 days during the first year before reaching the one-year anniversary.
If the worker completes the first year with at least 80% attendance and remains employed on the following day, the worker generally receives 15 days of annual paid leave. A fixed-term contract ending on the last day of exactly one year does not create this new 15-day entitlement. MOEL annual-leave guidance; rechecked October 20, 2026.
The leave earned month by month during the first year is not simply deducted from those 15 days under the current system.
For example, assume you started work on March 1 and satisfied the relevant attendance requirements.
- After completing the first month with perfect attendance, one day can arise.
- The same process continues during the first year.
- After completing one full year with at least 80% attendance, 15 days can arise separately if you remain employed on the following day.
This is why someone who says, “Everyone gets exactly 15 vacation days in Korea,” is leaving out an important part of the system.
What if your attendance is below 80%?
The 80% attendance rule matters after one year of employment.
Article 60 states that an employee who worked at least 80% of a full year receives 15 days.
If a worker has been employed for at least one year but did not reach 80% attendance, that does not automatically mean there is no annual leave at all.
The Act also provides one day of paid leave for each month of perfect attendance in this situation.
The Ministry of Government Legislation confirmed in a 2024 statutory interpretation that even a worker with more than one year of service whose annual attendance was below 80% may acquire one day for each month in that year in which the worker had perfect attendance.
Official source: Korea Law Information Center — Statutory Interpretation on Attendance Below 80%
How annual leave increases with long service
Korean statutory annual leave can increase with seniority.
For an employee with at least three years of continuous service, Article 60 provides one additional day for every two years of continuous service beyond the first year.
A simple example, assuming all other statutory requirements are satisfied:
- After 1 year: 15 days
- After 2 years: 15 days
- After 3 years: 16 days
- After 4 years: 16 days
- After 5 years: 17 days
The statutory total, including these additional days, is capped at 25 days.
Companies can provide more favorable leave than the statutory minimum. The law establishes a minimum standard, not a maximum benefit an employer is allowed to offer.
Your employment contract should address annual leave
This is especially important for foreign workers signing a Korean employment contract.
Article 17 of the Labor Standards Act requires the employer to specify certain working conditions when entering into an employment contract.
Those conditions include:
- Wages
- Contractual working hours
- Holidays
- Annual paid leave under Article 60
The employer must provide the relevant terms in writing, including electronically where permitted.
Official source: Korea Law Information Center — Labor Standards Act, Article 17
What should you actually look for in the contract?
Do not stop after finding the word “vacation.”
Check whether the contract or referenced company rules explain:
- How annual paid leave is granted
- Whether leave is managed by your hiring anniversary or by calendar/fiscal year
- How you request leave
- Whether additional company leave exists beyond statutory annual leave
- How unused leave is handled
- Whether the company operates an annual-leave promotion procedure
A contract may also refer you to the company's rules of employment or HR policy rather than reproducing every administrative detail.
What matters is that you understand which rules apply before a dispute occurs.
Related AllThingsK8282 guide: Employment Contracts in Korea: Questions to Ask Before You Sign
Can your contract give you less leave than the law?
If the statutory provisions apply to your employment, a contract cannot simply take away the minimum protection by writing a less favorable term.
The Labor Standards Act establishes minimum working conditions, and a contractual term that falls below mandatory statutory standards can be invalid to that extent.
This is why a sentence such as “the contract says I only receive five vacation days” does not answer the legal question by itself.
You still need to determine:
- Whether Article 60 applies to your workplace
- Your weekly prescribed working hours
- Your length of service
- Your attendance
- Whether some of the leave in the contract is being described under another category
If the numbers do not make sense, ask HR to explain the calculation in writing.
Your payslip does not necessarily have to show your leave balance
This point is easy to misunderstand.
Korean law requires a wage statement, but it does not generally require every monthly wage statement to display your remaining annual-leave balance.
Article 48 requires an employer to provide a wage statement when wages are paid.
The statement must contain information such as:
- Wage components
- Amounts for those components
- How variable wage components were calculated when applicable
- Deductions
Official source: Korea Law Information Center — Labor Standards Act, Article 48 . Required statement entries are listed in Enforcement Decree Article 27-2 (version effective October 23, 2025; checked October 20, 2026).
So if your payslip does not contain a line saying:
Remaining annual leave: 8 days
that fact alone does not necessarily mean your payslip violates the law.
Many companies track leave separately through an HR portal, attendance system, ERP system, or internal leave-management page.
What you should do is compare the information across three places:
- Your employment contract or company rules
- Your HR leave balance
- Your payslip when annual-leave-related money is actually paid
If annual leave allowance appears on your payslip, check the calculation
You may see Korean terms such as:
- 연차수당 — annual leave allowance
- 연차미사용수당 — compensation for unused annual leave
- 미사용연차수당 — another common wording for unused leave allowance
If an annual-leave-related payment is included in payroll, do not just check whether a number appears.
Ask:
- How many unused days is the payment based on?
- What wage basis was used?
- Which leave period does the payment cover?
- Was any leave carried forward?
- Did the company use the statutory annual-leave promotion procedure?
The wage-statement rules require employers to show wage components and, where applicable, their calculation method.
If the payslip simply shows a large lump sum that you cannot reconcile with your leave record, ask payroll for the calculation rather than guessing.
Unused annual leave does not always mean automatic cash
Many employees assume:
Unused days × daily wage = automatic payment.
That is too simple.
Under Article 60(7), leave generally must be used within one year of arising. Monthly leave earned during the first year must generally be used by the end of that first year of employment, rather than for a separate year after each monthly grant. The expiry rule does not apply where the employee could not use the leave for a reason attributable to the employer. Article 60(7); version effective October 8, 2026, checked October 20, 2026.
In many cases, unused leave that expires can create a claim for unused annual-leave compensation.
However, Article 61 contains an important exception.
If the employer properly completes Korea's statutory annual-leave use promotion procedure (연차유급휴가 사용촉진) and the worker still does not use the leave, the employer may not be required to compensate the unused leave covered by that procedure.
The procedure is formal. It is not simply a manager saying:
“You should use your vacation before December.”
Article 61 requires specific written steps and deadlines.
So if HR tells you that your unused leave disappeared because of “use promotion,” ask which Article 61 notices were issued and when.
Can a company force you to use annual leave?
The general rule under Article 60 is that annual leave should be granted at the time requested by the employee.
However, the employer may change the timing if granting the leave at that exact time would seriously interfere with business operations.
This does not mean that every busy week automatically allows a company to refuse annual leave indefinitely.
It means the timing rules and the facts matter.
There is also a separate system under Article 62 that allows annual leave to be substituted for specific working days when there is a written agreement with the employee representative.
That is different from an individual manager simply deciding that a particular day will consume everyone's annual leave.
Calendar-year leave and hire-date leave can look different
This causes a lot of confusion in Korean companies.
The statutory calculation is generally based on the employee's date of hire.
However, companies may manage annual leave using a common accounting or calendar-year system—for example, resetting leave on January 1—for administrative convenience.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor has explained that this approach can be used if employees are not put at a disadvantage compared with their statutory entitlement.
This becomes especially important when you resign.
If the total leave granted under the company's calendar-year method is less than the amount due when calculated using the employee's hire date, the difference may need to be settled.
Official guidance: Ministry of Employment and Labor 1350 — Calendar-Year vs. Hire-Date Annual Leave
This is why two screens can both appear correct:
Your HR portal may show the company's calendar-year balance, while your legal entitlement at resignation may require a separate hire-date calculation.
What happens to unused leave when you resign?
Resignation is one of the most important times to verify annual leave.
When the employment relationship ends, leave that can no longer be used may have to be converted into an unused annual-leave payment, depending on how the leave arose and whether a valid exception applies.
For a departing employee, unused annual-leave compensation that becomes payable at the end of employment is generally due within 14 days after retirement or termination. Article 36 allows an extension by agreement between the parties where special circumstances exist. Labor Standards Act, Article 36; version effective October 8, 2026, checked October 20, 2026.
Official guidance: Ministry of Employment and Labor 1350 — Unused Annual Leave Compensation
Before your final day, ask HR for:
- Your total leave granted
- Leave already used
- Remaining leave
- Whether any leave expired
- Whether Article 61 use-promotion procedures were applied
- How many unused days will be included in the final settlement
- The wage basis used to calculate the allowance
Keep a screenshot or PDF of your HR leave balance before your employee account is disabled.
Do not confuse annual leave with public holidays or company vacation
Several kinds of time off can appear together in a Korean employment contract.
They are not necessarily the same thing.
You may see:
- 연차 — statutory or company annual paid leave
- 공휴일 — public holidays
- 회사휴무 — company shutdown or company-designated day off
- 경조휴가 — leave for family events such as weddings or funerals
- 병가 — sick leave
- 여름휴가 — summer vacation, which may be additional leave or may be deducted from annual leave depending on company rules
Do not assume that a company giving you “five summer vacation days” means those five days are automatically additional to your statutory annual leave.
Ask whether those days are:
additional company leave
or
days deducted from your annual leave balance.
That distinction should be clear before you plan a long trip.
What if your company says annual leave is already included in your salary?
This is another situation that requires careful checking.
Some employment arrangements include an annual-leave-related allowance in monthly pay.
That does not automatically mean the employee loses the right to actually take annual leave.
Ministry of Employment and Labor guidance has explained that even where unused annual-leave compensation is paid in advance under an agreed arrangement, the worker's right to use annual leave must still be protected.
Official guidance: Ministry of Employment and Labor 1350
If your contract says that your salary includes annual leave allowance, check:
- The amount allocated to annual leave
- The number of leave days connected to the payment
- Whether you can still request and use leave
- How the company handles a change in your wage
- How the final settlement is calculated when you leave
A vague sentence saying “all allowances included” is not enough for you to understand the calculation.
What foreign workers should save
You do not need to become a labor-law expert.
You do need enough records to reconstruct what happened.
Keep:
- Your signed employment contract
- Company rules or HR annual-leave policy
- Your hiring date
- Annual leave grant history
- Leave requests and approvals
- Current remaining balance
- Written annual-leave use-promotion notices, if any
- Payslips showing annual-leave-related payments
- Your final leave settlement when resigning
This matters especially if the HR system is available only in Korean or if you will lose access immediately after leaving the company.
A simple annual-leave check for foreign workers
If you are unsure whether your numbers are correct, work through these questions in order.
- How many workers does the workplace ordinarily employ?
- Do my prescribed hours average at least 15 per week over four weeks (or my shorter employment period)?
- What is my exact hiring date?
- Have I completed one full year?
- What was my attendance rate?
- Does the company calculate leave by hiring date or calendar year?
- How many days were granted?
- How many days did I actually use?
- Did the employer issue formal annual-leave use-promotion notices?
- Was any unused leave allowance paid through payroll?
If HR cannot explain those ten points, ask for the leave ledger or calculation in writing.
Where to get help if the numbers do not match
If you think your annual leave has been calculated incorrectly, begin by asking HR or payroll for the calculation in writing.
Include:
- Your hiring date
- Your weekly working hours
- Your leave granted
- Your leave used
- Your current balance
- The specific number you believe is incorrect
For questions about Korean labor law, the Ministry of Employment and Labor operates the 1350 counseling service.
Official source: Ministry of Employment and Labor — Labor Standards
The Ministry explains that the Labor Standards Act establishes minimum working conditions covering areas including wages, working hours, holidays, and leave.
Foreign workers who need additional multilingual administrative support can also contact the Immigration Contact Center at 1345, although detailed labor-law questions should be directed to the labor authorities.
Bottom line
For foreign workers in Korea, annual leave should not be treated as just a number inside an HR app.
You should be able to understand:
- Why you received that number of days
- Whether your employment contract correctly addresses annual paid leave
- Whether your company uses your hiring date or a common calendar-year system
- How unused leave is handled
- Whether statutory leave-use promotion was applied
- What an annual-leave-related payment on your payslip actually represents
And remember the most important payslip point:
Your monthly payslip does not necessarily have to show your remaining leave balance. But if money related to annual leave is being paid, you should be able to understand what was paid and how it was calculated.
The best time to ask those questions is not after a dispute or after you leave the company.
Check them while you still have access to your contract, HR portal, leave records, and payroll team.
Related AllThingsK8282 guides
- Employment Contracts in Korea: Questions to Ask Before You Sign — Check salary, working hours, termination terms, benefits, and other clauses before accepting a job.
- Korean Severance Pay for Foreign Workers: Eligibility and Claims — Annual leave and severance are separate calculations, especially when you leave a company.
- Freelancing in Korea: Rules for Foreign Residents — Useful if you are considering freelance or side work instead of standard employment.
Official sources checked
- Korea Law Information Center — Labor Standards Act, including Articles 17, 48, 60, 61, and 62
- Ministry of Employment and Labor — Labor Standards
- Ministry of Employment and Labor 1350 Counseling Center — Official guidance on annual-leave eligibility, unused leave compensation, and calendar-year calculations
Editorial note: This article provides general information from an initial source review on October 1, 2026, with the selected legal-source recheck described above on October 20, 2026. Individual results can differ depending on workplace size, weekly hours, attendance, employment period, company rules, leave-use promotion procedures, and the facts of the employment relationship. For an actual pay or leave dispute, confirm your case with the Ministry of Employment and Labor or the competent local labor office.
Editorial update: October 20, 2026 (KST). Clarified the following-day employment condition for the 15-day entitlement, the four-week hours test and part-time calculation, first-year leave expiry, and the 14-day final-payment rule; added the specific wage-statement decree source. This recheck covers those statutory provisions and the cited MOEL 1350 examples, not an individual employment dispute.
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