Korea Ordinary Hourly Wage Calculator

Review salary, bonus and allowance conditions under Korean rules for 2026, choose a monthly divisor and compare ordinary hourly wages and allowances with the company rate.

2026 Korean rules · Initial values are a fictional example

Fixedness is no longer a separate test. Replace amounts and payment conditions with your actual payroll rules. Labor inspectors or courts must review individual facts for a final determination.

1. Pay items and payment conditions

Enter gross contractual pay for the entire payment period. A quarterly bonus covers three months. Use pay promised for full contractual work, before deductions for absence. Expand each item to edit its conditions.

Base salary · 2,700,000 KRW / 1 month(s) · Included

0–1,000,000,000

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Regular bonus · 900,000 KRW / 3 month(s) · Included

0–1,000,000,000

A continued-employment condition alone does not exclude the pay (2020Da247190).

Meal allowance · 200,000 KRW / 1 month(s) · Included

0–1,000,000,000

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Transport allowance · 0 KRW / 1 month(s)

0–1,000,000,000

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Position allowance · 100,000 KRW / 1 month(s) · Included

0–1,000,000,000

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Service allowance · 0 KRW / 1 month(s)

0–1,000,000,000

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Qualification allowance · 0 KRW / 1 month(s)

0–1,000,000,000

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Family allowance · 0 KRW / 1 month(s)

0–1,000,000,000

Dependent-related extra pay. Enter a universal base amount separately as contractual wages.

Performance pay · 0 KRW / 1 month(s)

0–1,000,000,000

0–1,000,000,000

Answer the three tests for the minimum guaranteed independently of performance. It cannot exceed total pay.

Performance-linked pay with no minimum guaranteed independently of performance.

Fixed overtime pay · 0 KRW / 1 month(s)

0–1,000,000,000

Pay for work beyond contractual work is excluded (2020Da247190).

2. Hours used to convert monthly pay

0.01–8

0–1,000,000

209 is not a universal statutory divisor. The weekly formula is (contractual + paid non-work hours) × 365 ÷ 7 ÷ 12. Do not add actual overtime or holiday-work hours. Mixed hourly, daily or piece-rate wage systems need separate review.

3. Allowance and period comparison

0–744

0–744

0–744

0–744

Night work from 22:00 to 06:00 adds only 0.5×. Exclude holiday work from overtime; split each holiday at eight hours before summing. Ordinary monthly salary and pay for the paid holiday itself are outside these allowance totals.

0–366

Choose completed months from January 2025 through August 2026, the last complete month before verification. December 2024 and earlier work need separate review. The three-year limitation period does not make the new case law retroactive for three years.

Ordinary hourly wage calculation statement

Korean rules for 2026 · Verified September 7, 2026 · Screening from entered conditions, not a final legal determination or established claim.

Ordinary hourly wage

15,789.47 KRW

Excludes items awaiting review

Difference from company hourly rate

789.47 KRW

Company rate: 15,000.00 KRW

Monthly included pay ÷ divisor

3,300,000 KRW ÷ 209.0000h

209-hour example selected

Monthly excluded: 0 KRW · Monthly awaiting review: 0 KRW · Daily ordinary wage: 126,316 KRW (8h)

Monthly amounts, included pay and input-based classification by pay item
Item and entered assumptionsMonthly amountMonthly includedAssessment and reason
Base salary
2,700,000 KRW / 1 month(s)
Contractual wages · None
Contractual work / Regular / Uniform: Yes / Yes / Yes
2,700,000 KRW2,700,000 KRWIncluded

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Regular bonus
900,000 KRW / 3 month(s)
Contractual wages · Employed on payment date
Contractual work / Regular / Uniform: Yes / Yes / Yes
300,000 KRW300,000 KRWIncluded

A continued-employment condition alone does not exclude the pay (2020Da247190).

Meal allowance
200,000 KRW / 1 month(s)
Contractual wages · None
Contractual work / Regular / Uniform: Yes / Yes / Yes
200,000 KRW200,000 KRWIncluded

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Transport allowance
0 KRW / 1 month(s)
Contractual wages · None
Contractual work / Regular / Uniform: Yes / Yes / Yes
0 KRW0 KRWIncluded

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Position allowance
100,000 KRW / 1 month(s)
Contractual wages · None
Contractual work / Regular / Uniform: Yes / Yes / Yes
100,000 KRW100,000 KRWIncluded

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Service allowance
0 KRW / 1 month(s)
Contractual wages · None
Contractual work / Regular / Uniform: Yes / Yes / Yes
0 KRW0 KRWIncluded

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Qualification allowance
0 KRW / 1 month(s)
Contractual wages · None
Contractual work / Regular / Uniform: Yes / Yes / Yes
0 KRW0 KRWIncluded

Entered as compensation for contractual work, regular and uniform (Decree Article 6).

Family allowance
0 KRW / 1 month(s)
Dependent-related extra · None
Contractual work / Regular / Uniform: Yes / Yes / Yes
0 KRW0 KRWExcluded

Dependent-related extra pay. Enter a universal base amount separately as contractual wages.

Performance pay
0 KRW / 1 month(s)
Performance-linked pay · None
Contractual work / Regular / Uniform: Yes / Yes / Yes
Guaranteed minimum: 0 KRW
0 KRW0 KRWExcluded

Performance-linked pay with no minimum guaranteed independently of performance.

Fixed overtime pay
0 KRW / 1 month(s)
Pay for extra work · None
Contractual work / Regular / Uniform: Yes / Yes / Yes
0 KRW0 KRWExcluded

Pay for work beyond contractual work is excluded (2020Da247190).

Allowance comparison · recalculated using the company rate

Monthly overtime / night / holiday within 8 / beyond 8: 20 / 10 / 8 / 2h. Total leave: 5 days. Premium scope: Assumed confirmed. Leave liability: Assumed confirmed.

Recalculated allowances compared with allowances at the company rate
AllowanceRecalculatedCompany rateDifference
Monthly overtime (excludes holidays)473,684 KRW450,000 KRW23,684 KRW
Monthly night premium only78,947 KRW75,000 KRW3,947 KRW
Monthly holiday work252,632 KRW240,000 KRW12,632 KRW
One-time unused leave631,579 KRW600,000 KRW31,579 KRW

Recurring monthly allowance difference: 40,263 KRW

One-time leave difference: 31,579 KRW

2026-01 ~ 2026-08 (8 months) · Period comparison difference

353,684 KRW

Same monthly allowance difference × months + leave difference once. Reconcile changing wages, actual hours, prior payments and limitation before use. Missing salary or bonus principal and fixed-overtime offsets are excluded. A negative value does not establish repayment liability.

  • Gather the employment contract, work rules, bonus rules and recent payslips.
  • Confirm items awaiting review and the divisor, then reconcile attendance and paid allowances month by month.
  • Give this statement to payroll and request confirmation of included items and recalculation grounds.

Labor Standards Act Enforcement Decree Article 6 · 2020Da247190 · 2024-12-19

Related calculators

Which hourly wage should you check on a Korean payslip?

Ordinary hourly wages provide a reference for overtime, night-work and holiday-work allowances under Korean labor rules.
This is a different calculation from dividing take-home pay by actual attendance hours.
First identify the pay items that qualify for full contractual work, then divide their monthly equivalent by the corresponding wage-conversion hours.

If the company uses only base salary, check whether a regular bonus, meal allowance or position allowance has been left out.
Conversely, adding expense reimbursements or fixed overtime pay merely because they recur monthly may overstate the base.
This calculator asks about purpose, recipients, frequency and payment conditions instead of deciding from the name of an allowance.

When this comparison helps

Employees working frequent overtime can see how a small hourly difference affects recurring allowances.
Payroll staff can review a disputed bonus and the monthly divisor in the same statement.
This is a Korea-specific estimate using rules checked for 2026, intended to support a discussion with payroll.
It is not a final legal determination or an established claim: labor inspectors, courts or qualified advisers must review the individual evidence.

Fixedness is no longer a separate test after the 2024 decisions

The Supreme Court of Korea revised its approach in the en banc decisions 2020Da247190 and 2023Da302838, both delivered on December 19, 2024.
The previous fixedness requirement was removed.
The relevant questions concern compensation for contractual work, regularity and uniformity.
A condition requiring continued employment on the bonus payment date, by itself, therefore does not exclude a regular bonus.

Attendance within contractual working days

A condition satisfied by completing the agreed working days does not by itself disqualify the pay.
Even where absence prevents actual payment, the promised amount for full contractual work may still satisfy the ordinary-wage tests.
Enter the amount promised for full contractual work, before absence deductions, rather than the reduced amount actually received.

Extra work and performance conditions

Pay requiring work beyond contractual days is compensation for additional work and must be distinguished.
Pure performance-linked pay generally does not qualify.
A minimum amount guaranteed independently of performance is assessed separately.
Removing fixedness does not automatically include every bonus or allowance.

How to enter salary, allowances and performance pay

The ten starting items are base salary, regular bonus, meal allowance, transport allowance, position allowance, service allowance, qualification allowance, family allowance, performance pay and fixed overtime pay.
These are starting labels, not legally conclusive classifications.
Expand each item and adjust its actual nature and conditions, or add separate items where a payment contains different elements.
Up to twenty items are supported.

Amounts and payment periods

Enter one month of monthly pay, the full three-month contractual amount of a quarterly bonus, or the full twelve-month amount of an annual bonus.
Available periods are 1, 2, 3, 6 and 12 months; the amount is divided by that period.
Do not enter an already monthly-converted bonus and then select a three-month period, which would divide it twice.

Meals, transport and family allowances

Distinguish reimbursement against receipts from contractual compensation for agreed work.
A tax exemption does not decide whether an item qualifies as ordinary wages.
Separate dependent-related family extras from a base amount paid to everyone.
Where both exist, enter the universal base and the dependent-related extra as two items, assessing the base as contractual wages.

Performance pay and the guaranteed minimum

Enter total performance pay and the minimum guaranteed independently of performance for the same payment period.
For example, KRW 6,000,000 of annual performance pay with an independently guaranteed KRW 1,200,000 minimum contributes KRW 100,000 per month if the minimum satisfies the tests.
The other KRW 4,800,000 is excluded.
A guarantee larger than total pay produces an error so you can check for mismatched amounts or periods.

Regularity asks whether payment recurs at defined intervals.
Uniformity asks whether everyone, or everyone meeting defined work-related criteria, receives it.
Different amounts by grade or qualification do not alone defeat uniformity.
The contractual-work question asks whether the pay compensates the agreed work itself.
For performance pay, answer all three questions for the independently guaranteed minimum.

When 209 hours is appropriate and when to use another divisor

Article 6 of the Labor Standards Act Enforcement Decree requires monthly pay to be divided by the monthly hours used to calculate ordinary wages.
This reflects contractual weekly hours together with additional time treated as paid.
It is not simply actual attendance, including all overtime, or the number of days worked in a month.

The 209-hour example

A common example assumes 40 contractual hours and 8 paid weekly-rest hours.
The underlying expression (40 + 8) × 365 ÷ 7 ÷ 12 gives approximately 208.5714 hours.
The 209-hour example and the weekly-formula choice are deliberately separate.
The formula keeps fractional hours without rounding, and the calculator does not force a 209-hour divisor onto every workplace.

Part-time or different paid-hour arrangements

For 20 contractual weekly hours and 4 paid non-work hours, the formula gives approximately 104.2857 hours.
This example does not determine an individual right to weekly rest pay.
Enter hours confirmed from the contract and applicable rules.
If payroll has verified a monthly divisor, use the manual option and keep its supporting explanation.

This calculator covers monthly salary and period-based pay that can be converted consistently to monthly amounts.
Mixed hourly, daily or piece-rate systems, or pay items using different conversion hours, require separate treatment under Article 6.
Omitting paid hours can overstate the hourly rate; adding actual overtime to the divisor can understate it.

A practical step-by-step workflow

  1. Gather the employment contract, work rules, bonus rules and payslips.
    The initial amounts and scope confirmations are fictional assumptions; replace them with your circumstances.
  2. Enter each full-period amount and its payment conditions.
    Choose Unknown where evidence is missing instead of assuming a definitive classification.
  3. Check the monthly divisor and contractual daily hours.
    Daily hours convert the leave allowance, so eight hours should not be used automatically for everyone.
  4. Enter the company hourly rate and overtime, night and holiday hours.
    Confirm ordinary statutory-premium applicability and leave liability under an ordinary-wage basis separately.
  5. Select the comparison period and review every assessment and difference.
    Print the statement and ask payroll to explain the divisor and rules for any missing item.

Needs review is different from a definite exclusion.
Uncertain candidate amounts are held out of the main hourly result, with a separate hypothetical rate assuming they all qualify.
That sensitivity scenario is not a legal ceiling or a guaranteed range.
Confirm the payment rules and update the answers before relying on an amount.

Worked example using a fictional payslip

KRW 3,300,000 of included monthly pay and 209 hours

Assume qualifying base salary of KRW 2,700,000, a quarterly bonus of KRW 900,000, monthly meals of KRW 200,000 and a monthly position allowance of KRW 100,000.
The bonus converts to KRW 300,000 monthly, bringing included monthly pay to KRW 3,300,000.
Dividing by 209 gives approximately KRW 15,789.47 per hour, or KRW 789.47 above the company rate of KRW 15,000.

Recurring monthly allowances

Assume 20 overtime hours excluding holidays, 10 night hours, 8 holiday hours within the daily eight-hour threshold and 2 holiday hours beyond it.
The combined coefficient is 20 × 1.5 + 10 × 0.5 + 8 × 1.5 + 2 × 2 = 51.
Recalculated monthly allowances total about KRW 805,263, compared with KRW 765,000 at the company rate: a difference of about KRW 40,263.

Leave is added only once

Assume five unused days payable using ordinary wages and eight contractual hours a day.
Recalculated leave pay is about KRW 631,579, compared with KRW 600,000 at the company rate: a difference of about KRW 31,579.
If the same monthly allowance difference repeats from January through August 2026, the period difference is about KRW 353,684, including leave only once.

Calculations retain fractional won and division results internally, rounding only for display.
Multiplying displayed integers may produce a small discrepancy; the period result uses the unrounded formula.
These example amounts are neither typical wage estimates nor statutory minimum amounts.

Avoid double counting overtime, night and holiday pay

Where ordinary application of Labor Standards Act Article 56 is confirmed, the comparison uses 1.5× for overtime, an additional 0.5× for night work, 1.5× for holiday work within eight hours per day and 2× beyond eight hours.
Night work runs from 22:00 to 06:00 and may overlap overtime or holiday work.
Only the additional night premium is counted, avoiding another copy of the base wage.

Split each holiday before summing

Two holidays with eight hours of work each produce sixteen hours in the within-eight-hours category.
Splitting the entire monthly holiday total at eight hours would incorrectly treat some ordinary holiday hours as hours beyond the threshold.
Exclude holiday work from the overtime input.
Pay for the paid holiday itself is not added to these work-allowance totals.

The premium calculation is withheld if headcount or exceptions are unconfirmed, or the ordinary scope does not apply.
This does not mean there is no entitlement: agreed premiums, approved surveillance or intermittent work and other special arrangements require separate review.
Leave also requires confirmation of ordinary-versus-average-wage rules, leave-use promotion, unused days and part-time treatment.
The calculator does not determine leave accrual or liability itself.

A period comparison is different from the three-year limitation period

The new ordinary-wage interpretation generally applies to overtime and related work provided on or after December 19, 2024.
Earlier work requires the previous interpretation, except for the decided cases and qualifying parallel litigation pending at the time of the decisions.
The three-year wage-claim limitation under Labor Standards Act Article 49 does not justify applying the new interpretation to every month of the preceding three years.

The same assumptions repeated over completed months

The calculator accepts January 2025 through August 2026, the last complete month before the verification date.
It does not automatically handle the partial month of December 2024, earlier rules or litigation status at the decision date.
Both the first and last months count.
The same monthly difference is repeated, then the entire entered leave difference is added once.

Establishing actual unpaid wages requires checking salary increases, bonus-rule changes, actual hours, payments already made and any fixed-overtime reconciliation month by month.
The company-rate column is a recalculated comparison, not the amount actually deposited.
Missing salary or bonus principal, interest, tax, insurance and retirement benefits are outside the total.
A negative result means the entered company rate is higher; it does not establish repayment liability.

Frequently asked questions

Is a tax-exempt meal allowance excluded?

Tax exemption is a tax classification.
Ordinary wages use separate tests concerning contractual work, regularity and uniformity, so check the actual payment rules.

Does every retention-conditioned bonus qualify?

A retention condition alone no longer excludes it.
The purpose of payment, regularity and uniformity still need individual confirmation.

What if the guaranteed performance-pay amount is unclear?

Check the amount and period guaranteed independently of results in the payment rules.
Choose Unknown for an unresolved test to hold the candidate amount for review.

Why do 209 hours and the weekly formula give different rates?

209 is a commonly used example, while the formula retains fractional hours such as 208.5714.
Select the method that matches the verified divisor and wage structure.

Can the new rate be used directly for unused leave?

The tool calculates leave only when liability, days and the ordinary-wage basis are confirmed.
Check average-wage rules, leave-use promotion, the assessment date and part-time provisions separately.

Can I submit the result directly as a wage claim?

First verify included pay and the divisor, then reconcile actual attendance, prior payments, due dates and limitation month by month.
The printout supports a request for payroll review.

Payroll staff should check whether identically named allowances have different conditions for different employees.
Employees can bring payment rules and recent change notices alongside payslips to identify omissions more easily.
If a dispute continues, seek review of the actual documents and applicable dates from the relevant labor office or an adviser.

Official sources and future checks

The rule year is 2026 and the verification date is September 7, 2026.
Direct National Law Information OPEN API queries confirmed the current Labor Standards Act, Act 21373, effective August 20, 2026, and its Enforcement Decree, Presidential Decree 35436, effective October 23, 2025.
Both en banc case numbers and decision dates were verified directly.

Recheck contractual-work compensation, guaranteed performance pay, retention and attendance conditions, and the effective reach of case law if judgments or guidance change.
Confirm paid hours and the leave-wage basis from the actual employment contract and work rules.

Check the hourly base, then review the allowances

Use the calculator above to record payment conditions and the monthly divisor, then print the statement.
For further attendance categories, see the overtime, night and holiday pay calculator.
For leave-day context, consult the annual leave calculator.