Workplace assistant hours and shared copay in South Korea
This calculator uses South Korean workplace-assistance rules for 2026, verified on November 4, 2026.
The service helps workers with disabilities perform supporting tasks while retaining responsibility for their core work.
It organizes one worker’s daily support needs, reference application hours, confirmed assignments and personal copay.
It does not determine disability status, employment-support needs, eligibility or approval.
The hourly copay is paid by the supported worker to the service provider; it is different from the assistant’s wage or training fee.
Reference hours are a planning calculation, and actual service depends on KEAD assessment, budget and provider arrangements.
Compare the results with decision notices and actual service records before settlement.
Decisions this page supports
- Prepare a task-by-task support schedule for a new job or changed work hours.
- Compare solo and shared-service copays for identical support hours.
- Identify task hours still uncovered after an assignment change.
- Prepare a new application before the fiscal-year service period ends.
Eligibility and exclusions to verify
KEAD describes support for workers with severe disabilities and workers found to need assistance through the employment-support needs process.
The Act also provides a basis for assistance to eligible civil servants with disabilities.
Select the eligibility status actually confirmed by KEAD; this calculator does not assess your disability or ability to perform a job.
Contracted monthly hours
The guidance excludes workers with fewer than 60 contracted monthly hours.
Exactly 60 hours does not meet that particular exclusion, but it does not establish eligibility by itself.
Do not substitute recorded attendance or this month’s support hours for the contractual figure.
Wages and other support
Check the exclusions concerning pay below the minimum wage without an approved exemption, and receipt of other work-assistance cost support.
Verify employer consent and any conflict involving other support during the same hours.
This page does not decide the relationship with daily-living activity-support benefits.
The 8-hour daily and 40-hour weekly limits
Article 43 of the MOEL support regulation and KEAD guidance set a maximum of 8 service hours per day and 40 per week.
Ten needed hours in one day produce at most 8 daily reference hours.
Seven such days do not create a 56-hour weekly entitlement; the weekly cap is applied separately.
Separate daily and additional weekly excess
A fictional week with 10 work hours and 10 needed hours on each of seven days has 70 needed hours.
Applying the daily cap leaves 56 hours, with 14 hours of daily excess.
The weekly cap removes another 16 hours, leaving 40 reference hours.
Keeping 14 and 16 separate avoids counting the same excess twice.
The planning model uses Monday–Sunday weeks and allocates reference hours in date order.
This ordering is a calculation assumption, not a KEAD rule that earlier weekdays receive priority.
If the workplace uses another week definition or needs a different allocation, keep the confirmed result on hold and reconcile the actual schedule with the provider.
Copay rates for one supported worker
Concurrent group size means the number of workers supported by one assistant at the same time.
It is different from the total workplace headcount or number of assistants.
Article 44 and KEAD guidance provide the following fixed hourly amounts; they are not income-band percentages.
2026 per-worker hourly copays and illustrative 126-hour costs| Concurrent workers | KRW per hour | 126 hours, KRW |
|---|
| 1, solo | 300 | 37,800 |
| 2, shared | 180 | 22,680 |
| 3, shared | 130 | 16,380 |
| 4, shared | 100 | 12,600 |
| 5, shared | 80 | 10,080 |
Choosing five people for comparison does not secure an 80 KRW rate.
The desired group size is a scenario input; the actual group size comes from confirmed service arrangements.
If solo and shared time slots occur on the same day, leave the actual daily group size unknown and ask for time-slot settlement rather than applying the lowest rate to the entire day.
Prepare the inputs
Work hours and needed hours
Enter actual work hours excluding breaks and days off.
Needed hours are the portion requiring task support and cannot exceed work hours.
Do not automatically include commuting or household care in the workplace support schedule.
Assignments and actual group size
Use the decision notice and confirmed provider schedule.
A blank assignment means unknown; 0 means confirmed no assignment.
Positive assignments require a confirmed concurrent group size before the personal copay can be calculated.
Month and service period
Select a report month from January–December 2026.
Change the start and end dates to the actual service period and check for positive assignments outside it.
Need and cost totals cover that service period within the selected month; shortening the period changes the scope.
Take-home pay
This optional input is the denominator for copay as a percentage of monthly take-home pay.
Do not confuse it with gross wages.
Blank or zero pay produces no percentage and does not affect the eligibility assessment.
Calendar boundaries and formulas
A month is not always four or five full calendar weeks.
The schedule displays complete weeks touching the month, so it can contain six weeks.
Shaded adjoining-month rows affect the weekly check but are excluded from monthly totals.
For example, checking the week containing November 30 also requires December 1–6 assignments.
- For each service date, daily candidate hours = min(needed hours, 8).
- Allocate candidates in date order up to 40 hours per week, then total the selected month’s portion as reference hours.
- Scenario cost = monthly reference hours × desired-group hourly rate, using the same hours for all five scenarios.
- Confirmed cost = sum of each date’s assigned hours × that date’s actual-group hourly rate.
- Uncovered hours = sum of max(needed hours − assigned hours, 0) for each service date in the month.
Confirmed assignments are never replaced by reference hours or silently cut to 40.
Assignments exceeding actual work hours, the 8-hour daily cap or 40-hour weekly cap, or falling outside the service period, put confirmed outputs on hold.
The calculator preserves the arithmetic amount; displayed two-decimal precision is not an official billing or fractional-hour rounding rule.
Worked example: November 2026
Assume the service period covers the whole month and all 21 Monday–Friday dates have 8 work hours and 6 needed hours.
This fictional schedule does not automatically remove holidays, leave or individual days off; replace it with actual dates.
Without a weekly-cap conflict, monthly reference hours are 126.
Reference application budget
Solo: 126 × 300 = 37,800 KRW.
Two concurrent workers: 126 × 180 = 22,680 KRW, a difference of 15,120 KRW.
These amounts assume every reference hour is delivered at that group size and do not represent an assignment.
Confirmed assignment budget
If all 21 dates instead have 4 confirmed hours with two concurrent workers, 84 × 180 = 15,120 KRW.
Uncovered hours = 21 × (6 − 4) = 42; solo cost for the same 84 hours is 25,200 KRW.
With monthly take-home pay of 2,000,000 KRW, the exact copay ratio is 0.756%, displayed as 0.76%.
A lower bill caused by fewer assigned hours does not mean support needs have been met.
Use the 42 uncovered hours to discuss task allocation, time-slot changes or a further application consultation.
Step-by-step use and TXT export
- Select confirmed eligibility, consent, overlap status and the workplace week definition; enter contracted monthly hours.
- Select a month and create its schedule. This resets existing conditions and rows to an illustration, so save the current TXT first.
- Correct service dates, work hours and needed hours, including adjoining-month rows.
- Enter confirmed assignments and actual group sizes. Do not turn unknown values into zero to obtain a result.
- Review scenario budgets, confirmed cost, uncovered hours and full-week checks together, then download the TXT.
The export includes input states, adjoining-month rows, reference and confirmed results, hold reasons and official sources.
The page does not request a name, resident registration number or diagnosis and does not submit an application or notify the provider.
Review the information before sharing the file.
Interpret results for your situation
Before employment or assignment
Use reference hours and scenario costs for preparation while leaving confirmed results on hold.
Describe the specific tasks and support time slots for KEAD’s assessment.
Changed work hours or shared-service review
Confirm whether other workers need assistance during the same time slots.
Lower hourly copay can accompany different supported tasks or fewer assigned hours, so compare more than the price.
Shortfalls concentrated on one day
Uncovered hours add daily shortfalls separately.
An excess assignment on another day does not provide support on the shortfall day.
Bring the daily schedule and weekly checks to a discussion about task redistribution.
Frequently asked questions
Are reference hours approved hours?
No.
They apply the daily 8-hour and weekly 40-hour limits to your schedule.
KEAD separately assesses tasks, ability, needs and budget before deciding service hours.
Does choosing five people secure the 80 KRW rate?
No.
A desired scenario does not change an assignment.
Verify the actual workers supported concurrently by one assistant and the applicable time slots with the provider.
Should I leave a day with no assignment blank?
Enter 0 only when no assignment is confirmed; leave it blank if unknown.
Unknown adjoining-month assignments can also prevent a reliable full-week check.
Does exactly 60 contracted hours establish eligibility?
It avoids the specific under-60 exclusion, but does not satisfy all conditions.
Confirm disability or needs status, wages, other assistance and employer consent with KEAD.
Can I combine daily-living activity support here?
This page does not aggregate daily-living benefits.
Verify same-time overlap with KEAD and the relevant authority, and use the separate activity-support calculator for care planning.
What if group size changes during a day?
This model assumes one rate per day.
Keep the actual group size unknown and request time-slot settlement.
Never apply the lowest hourly rate to the whole day.
Does service renew automatically after December?
KEAD describes up to one year per fiscal year.
The 2026 notice covers January 1–December 31, 2026.
Reapply if service is still needed and verify the next year’s guidance.
Is a fractional-hour result the amount billed?
It is the arithmetic product of input hours and published rates.
Final billing depends on accepted time units, fractional-won rounding and actual service records confirmed with the provider.
Practical cautions: on hold is different from zero
- Unknown eligibility, consent, overlap, contracted hours, week definition or assignments withhold confirmed monetary results.
- Over-limit assignments require reconciliation with source records; the calculator does not rewrite the approval.
- Enter actual need even above 8 hours so the excess remains visible.
- The initial weekday illustration does not exclude holidays or leave automatically. Correct every date after changing months.
- All copays are for one supported worker, not the whole group or the assistant’s employment cost.
Official sources and rule dates
Verification date: 2026-11-04.
The National Law Information OPEN API confirmed current Act ID 001763/MST279737, Articles 19-2 and 21-2; these articles took effect on 2025-11-11.
Enforcement Decree ID 004626/MST285611, Article 20-2, took effect on 2026-05-12.
MOEL Notice 2024-102, the employer and disability loan/support regulation ID 22357, sequence 2100000252270, effective 2024-12-31, supplies Articles 40–44 on scope, application, assessment, hours, copays and duration.
The rates appear in Article 44 itself, rather than an annex.
KEAD’s 2026 application notice was posted on 2025-11-10 and specifies support from 2026-01-01 through 2026-12-31.
Recheck eligibility, rates and duration annually, together with the provider’s week definition, time units and rounding.
The future year in the roadmap filename was not used as the legal rule year.
Take the schedule to KEAD and the service provider
Prepare employer consent, the employment contract and wage ledger, disability evidence and a task-by-task support schedule.
Ask the receiving office which documents are required, including separate disability evidence when administrative-data sharing is not authorized.
Contact KEAD at 1588-1519 or the branch responsible for the workplace.
Explain desired shared hours separately from confirmed assignments, and reapply after the fiscal-year period if continued assistance is needed.
Daily-living activity-support copay
Employer disability levy versus direct-hire cost