Korea SME Size & Graduation Grace Calculator

Is your company a Korean SME or a small enterprise?

Growth, additional business activities and outside investment can change a company’s size classification.
Last year’s SME certificate does not automatically establish this year’s status, while exceeding a sales ceiling does not always end SME treatment immediately.
Assess actual eligibility separately from the graduation grace period before renewing a certificate or applying for support.

This calculator applies the Korean Framework Act on Small and Medium Enterprises and its Enforcement Decree, using rules verified in 2026.
It identifies the principal industry from three financial years of sales, then checks company-wide average sales, total assets, independence and graduation history.
All amounts are KRW; it does not apply another country’s SME definition.

Supported companies and documents to prepare

Automatic calculation covers an ordinary profit-making enterprise with three consecutive financial years of exactly 12 months each.
The establishment date must be on or before the beginning of the first sales year.
Use a latest financial year-end on or after 2025-09-01, at month-end, with an assessment date in 2026.
The calculator checks the statement’s applicable period to prevent outdated records from being used for current status.

Do not multiply a start-up’s short period into three complete years or combine pre-merger and post-merger sales arbitrarily.
Decree Article 7 has separate annualization rules.
Start-ups, mergers, splits, changed year-ends, non-profit social enterprises and cooperatives are outside this automatic workflow and need a separate review.

Principal industry and three-year average sales

If the largest industry averages tie, or all sales are zero, the calculator pauses instead of selecting the first row.
Check the actual business activity against the Korean Standard Industrial Classification, rather than relying only on a short business-registration description.
Special motor vehicle, railway and aircraft seat rules apply only to the stated seat-manufacturing activities, not every component maker within the broader code.

Displayed amounts use up to two decimal places; statutory comparisons use unrounded values.
For ordinary company sales, the engine compares the three-year sum directly with three times the ceiling.
A display rounding difference therefore cannot change the boundary result.

2026 industry sales ceilings for SMEs and small enterprises

These are the current Decree Annex 1 and Annex 3 ceilings.
SME ceilings are 400, 600, 800, 1,000, 1,200, 1,500 or 1,800 units of KRW 100 million; small-enterprise ceilings range from 15 to 140 such units.
All sales ceilings are inclusive, and assets and independence must also be checked.
Do not use the revised table to retroactively reclassify periods before the September 2025 increase.

Assets and independence are separate tests

Failure of the large-corporation ownership test does not itself mean grace is always prohibited.
For a previously eligible SME, status history and grace exclusions must also be reviewed.
The calculator separates these tests and leaves unknown confirmations unresolved, so an unverified ownership structure is not silently treated as independent.

Related enterprises require confirmed adjustments

Related-enterprise status is not established merely because two companies share a representative.
Review control and subordination under Decree Article 3-2, then adjusted average sales under Article 7-4 and Annex 2.
Direct and indirect ownership and the degree of control can change aggregation, so this tool does not infer the structure from a shareholder list.

Do not transfer a favorable standalone result into an application while related-enterprise records remain unknown.
Prepare controlling and subordinate companies’ statements and ownership records for confirmation by the regional SME office.

Three-year versus five-year graduation grace

Framework Act Article 2(3) provides grace when an existing SME leaves the scope through growth or similar changes.
Under Act No. 20344’s application provision, the five-year rule applies to qualifying causes from 2024-08-21; earlier causes retain the previous three-year rule.
An existing three-year period is not automatically extended to five years.

After a company returns to actual SME status and exceeds the criteria again, it generally cannot reuse remaining grace.
A company outside SME scope from inception does not receive an existing SME’s graduation grace.
Mergers or a disclosure-designated group exclusion may end grace before the displayed date.
Moving only from small-enterprise to medium-enterprise status does not receive this graduation grace.

The 2025 re-entry exception needs a separate review

Presidential Decree No. 35723, Addendum Article 2, provides a limited exception for some grace companies returning to SME status because sales ceilings increased.
Check whether the company was still within grace three months after the year-end of the financial year containing 2025-09-01, and whether the criteria change actually interrupted grace through a return to SME status.
The exception can allow a subsequent one-time period, but not every company returning after lower sales qualifies.

Five steps and a worked example

1. Confirm the company scope, establishment date, latest year-end and 2026 assessment date.
2. Enter industry sales from oldest to newest and reconcile them to company totals.
3. Check assets, business-group status, large-corporation ownership and related-enterprise adjustments.
4. Enter the first exceeding year-end and grace/return history, then confirm the records.
5. Review size, headroom, grace dates and preparation reminders, and save the review.

Reading the result and renewal reminder

Provisional small or medium status means the entered actual requirements pass.
A provisional grace result means actual requirements fail but the entered history places the company within grace.
A hold is not a final ineligibility finding; obtain the missing records or resolve the stated unsupported situation.

For grants or public tenders, compare the actual certificate and the notice’s eligibility date.
Disclose ownership changes occurring after the latest statements to the reviewing office.
Tax relief requires a separate assessment under Korean tax legislation; this result is not a confirmed tax-credit entitlement.

Frequently asked questions