Understand which non-working days may qualify
This calculator helps workers and their families review dates for South Korea’s sickness benefit pilot.
An illness-related absence is not automatically a payable period: waiting days, paid leave, other benefits and previous sickness benefit payments can change the number of new days.
A date review makes it easier to prepare questions for the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) and to avoid counting money that has not been awarded.
Enter periods supported by medical and work-cessation records.
The tool classifies each date and estimates a new payment only when the required input checks are complete.
It does not diagnose an illness, recommend treatment, certify inability to work, submit an application or predict a deposit date.
The first payment candidate is a date of potential coverage, not a bank transfer date.
A different purpose from family-care leave
This page concerns the applicant’s own non-work-related illness or injury.
Family-care leave concerns an employee taking time away to care for someone else.
Workplace injury compensation and an employer’s paid sick-leave policy also have their own rules.
Ask NHIS how overlapping support affects your application rather than adding different benefits automatically.
The 2026 pilot regions and payment types
Phase 2: check household income
Anyang and Yongin in Gyeonggi, Dalseo-gu in Daegu and Iksan in Jeonbuk are the Phase 2 regions.
The household income threshold is 120% of median income, assessed under the applicable NHIS household and premium rules.
The flat daily benefit is KRW 49,540.
Comparing only the applicant’s salary with a headline threshold does not establish household eligibility.
Phase 3: check the insurance category
Chungju, Hongseong, Jeonju and Wonju are the Phase 3 regions.
There is no household-income limit.
For NHIS workplace-insured applicants, the benefit uses 60% of prior three-month average wages, with a daily floor of KRW 49,540 and ceiling of KRW 68,100.
Other applicable categories whose income is not available in real time use the flat KRW 49,540 rate.
The current policy summary uses a 7-day waiting period and a maximum of 150 paid days over the pilot period for both phases.
Residence in a region or employment at a workplace there must be checked.
The earlier Phase 1 regions—Jongno, Bucheon, Cheonan, Suncheon, Pohang and Changwon—ended in December 2024 according to the current summary.
Historical regional tables are not supported as current claims.
Confirm eligibility before relying on the amount
- The basic age range is 15 to under 65.
Korean nationality is the standard condition; some foreign-national exceptions require confirmation.
No identity documents or medical files need to be uploaded to this calculator.
- NHIS workplace-insured and employment / industrial-accident-insured applicants should check at least 30 insured days in the previous 60 days.
Merely being currently insured does not establish the required history.
- Daily workers should check 10 days in the preceding month or 20 days in two months.
Self-employed applicants should check three months of business registration and average monthly sales of at least KRW 2.15 million.
- Ask NHIS about disqualifying circumstances, including public-service or public-school employment, non-illness leave, suspended coverage and overlapping benefits.
A partial overlap in payment dates and a broader eligibility exclusion need separate review.
Use Confirmed met, Not met or Not checked honestly.
A missing document does not necessarily mean the applicant fails a condition.
Not checked holds the estimate until the information is available.
Even when every input check is met, the result remains conditional on NHIS eligibility, medical certification and evidence of actual work cessation.
What the date fields mean
Medical period and actual work cessation
Enter the start and end of the certified or NHIS-confirmed inability-to-work period.
Separately enter the actual continuous period without work supported by employer or income-payer records.
Both endpoints are included and the arithmetic uses calendar days.
Do not create an incapacity period merely by joining hospital admission dates or outpatient receipts.
Certificate, filing and original waiting start
The certificate issue date is different from the planned application date.
For an initial claim, a medical start before certificate issue triggers a retrospective-coverage review.
For an extension, enter the original waiting start confirmed by NHIS.
Replacing that original date with the extension certificate date could incorrectly subtract another seven days.
The calculator accepts one continuous interval within 2026.
If you returned to work between episodes, do not merge the intervals.
When medical and actual non-working periods differ, the arithmetic intersection is shown but the payment estimate is held for review.
A long plan assumes the required medical reviews and extensions; one certificate does not automatically cover the entire period.
How waiting days, overlaps and the cap are applied
Each date is counted once
Start with the intersection of the medical period and actual work cessation.
Remove the seven calendar days from the original waiting start, then already-paid sickness benefit dates and confirmed paid-leave or other-benefit exclusions.
If two exclusions cover the same date, remove it once.
The date table assigns a single reason in this order: outside the medical period, waiting, already paid, other exclusion, cap exceeded, candidate.
The cap is cumulative over the pilot period
Remaining days = 150 − cumulative days already paid.
Assign the remaining cap to the earliest candidate dates.
If 148 days have already been paid, at most two new dates can be allocated.
Already-paid intervals entered below must be included in the cumulative total.
A list containing more distinct paid dates than that total is rejected as inconsistent.
Estimated new payment = estimated payable days × daily benefit.
For a Phase 3 workplace-insured applicant, enter the daily amount confirmed by NHIS.
The calculator does not invent a monthly-wage divisor or an official rounding rule.
Excluded dates can include paid leave and support already received, so they must not all be treated as days of uncompensated income loss.
A practical input sequence
- Select the relevant residence or workplace region, insurance category and household-income confirmation.
Correctly distinguish NHIS workplace insurance from the other categories.
- Copy the medical and actual non-working periods from the records.
If they differ, investigate the difference rather than making the fields match simply to increase the result.
- Obtain the cumulative paid-day total for the pilot period.
Confirm whether this is a new claim or an extension before using an earlier waiting start.
- Add paid leave, other confirmed exclusions and dates already paid as sickness benefit.
Use identical start and end dates for a single excluded day.
Review the table for omissions and duplicate entries.
- Read every held-result reason, save the TXT review and compare it with the certificate, work-cessation records and payment history.
Confirm the actual filing deadline directly with the branch.
Worked examples: boundaries, overlaps and remaining days
Fourteen days without another exclusion
Assume an initial medical and non-working period from September 1 through September 14, 2026, with all basic checks met.
September 1–7 are the waiting days.
September 8–14 provide seven candidates.
At the flat rate, 7 × KRW 49,540 = KRW 346,780.
Ending on September 7 gives zero candidates; ending on September 8 gives one day and KRW 49,540.
Overlapping paid leave and another benefit
In the same fourteen-day example, paid leave covers September 8–10 and another exclusion covers September 9–11.
Their union is four dates: September 8, 9, 10 and 11.
Subtracting three days twice would be incorrect.
Three candidates remain on September 12–14, giving KRW 148,620.
Repeating an identical exclusion must not reduce the total again.
A nearly exhausted cap or a confirmed variable amount
With seven candidates but 148 cumulative days already paid, allocate two days, giving KRW 99,080 at the flat rate.
In a separate Phase 3 workplace-insured example with a confirmed daily amount of KRW 60,000 and sufficient cap, seven days give KRW 420,000.
KRW 60,000 is a hypothetical confirmed amount for this example, not the amount for all insured workers.
Initial filing, extensions and new episodes
Yongin City’s 2026 notice tells applicants to obtain the sickness-benefit certificate promptly from a participating provider and apply within 14 days of issue.
This tool displays issue date + 14 calendar days as a preparation reference.
For September 1, 2026, the reference is September 15.
It is neither the deposit date nor a binding determination of the final filing deadline.
Confirm first-day counting, holidays, exceptions and receipt rules with the branch before the reference date.
A planned filing later than this reference creates a review signal instead of a definitive rejection.
Do not assume that visiting a provider after treatment finishes guarantees retrospective coverage.
Preserve the original waiting interval for a confirmed extension
Suppose NHIS confirms an original September 1 waiting start and an extension from September 15–21 as the same continuous episode.
The waiting days remain September 1–7, so another seven days are not removed from the extension.
Approval, the recognized period and the extension deadline still need confirmation.
Selecting extension alone does not establish the relationship between episodes.
The initial 14-day reference is not applied to extensions.
Use the result in household planning
An employee beginning unpaid leave
Check whether employer-paid sick leave comes first and which dates are recorded as actual work cessation.
Even a positive estimate does not mean the money will arrive before rent or a loan payment.
Keep essential expenses and bridge funding on a separate cash-flow plan rather than treating the first candidate date as cash received.
A self-employed applicant preparing with family
Prepare business-registration and sales records, then identify the actual period without work.
A family member can help enter the dates without disclosing a detailed diagnosis in a web form.
The exported review records dates and confirmation states; it is not a substitute for documents requested by NHIS.
An applicant who received benefit before
Check how earlier sickness-benefit payments count toward the pilot-period cap.
Remembering only payments in the current calendar year can overstate the available balance.
Enter already-paid dates that overlap the current interval and resolve whether the new application is a new episode or an extension.
Frequently asked questions
Does a seven-day absence produce seven paid days?
No.
For a new episode, the first seven days are the waiting period.
Exactly seven days produces zero candidates.
The current policy describes a continuous absence of at least eight days for an application.
Are weekends always payable?
The arithmetic uses calendar dates in a continuous incapacity period and does not remove a date merely because it is a weekend.
Actual work cessation, medical certification and payment exclusions remain subject to NHIS review.
Should I enter only inpatient days?
The verified 2026 policy describes an inability-to-work model without restricting care to admission, home care or outpatient treatment.
Use the medically recognized period; do not join receipt dates into a continuous interval without confirmation.
Does every workplace-insured applicant receive KRW 68,100?
No.
KRW 68,100 is the Phase 3 daily ceiling and KRW 49,540 is the floor.
Enter the applicant’s NHIS-confirmed amount.
Phase 2 uses the flat rate.
Does the 150-day cap restart next year?
The applied rule is 150 days over the pilot period.
It does not automatically restart with a calendar year.
This calculator supports 2026 dates only; check subsequent notices and the NHIS payment history.
Are overlapping paid leave and benefit exclusions subtracted twice?
No.
The union of dates is removed once.
Each date also receives only one classification when an exclusion overlaps waiting days or sickness benefit already paid.
Does selecting extension waive the waiting period?
No.
NHIS must confirm the same continuous episode and the original waiting start.
The tool then reuses that interval.
Without confirmation, it shows arithmetic dates but holds the payment estimate.
Is a held result or zero amount an official rejection?
No.
A held result means evidence or conditions need review.
Zero can reflect waiting days, an exhausted cap or a basic condition marked not met in the inputs.
NHIS makes the official eligibility and medical decisions.
Legal basis and official sources
National Health Insurance Act Article 50 includes sickness benefit among supplementary benefits.
The National Law Information OPEN API returned current Act ID 001971, MST 276651, promulgated October 1, 2025 and effective January 2, 2026.
Current Enforcement Decree Article 23 addresses pregnancy and childbirth medical expenses.
Do not describe the pilot’s daily rate and duration as numerical rules written into that decree.
The regional coverage, operating amounts and day limits come from the Ministry’s pilot guidance, cross-checked with the 2026 municipal application notice.
Older NHIS procedural material supports the need to verify work cessation and remuneration, but its historical rates, regional models and caps are not reused.
Actual paid-leave and other-benefit exclusions are entered after confirmation with NHIS.
Verified September 25, 2026.
The Ministry policy page was updated March 31, 2026.
These are South Korean pilot rules.
Recheck regional coverage, rates, eligibility, the pilot-period cap and application procedures when new notices are issued.
Prepare a date review for your application
Replace the example dates and resolve held-result reasons first.
Separate new candidates from dates already compensated, then save the TXT review.
Bring the certificate date, work-cessation plan and confirmation, remuneration records and cumulative payment history to your discussion with the employer and NHIS.
Confirm the actual application schedule with the branch.
Review sickness benefit days