Budget for home bathing using both the fee and the remaining cap
A home-bathing provider’s gross fee is different from the amount a family pays.
This calculator applies South Korea’s 2026 Long-Term Care Insurance home-bathing fees to your planned visits, then accounts for the monthly home-care cap shared with home-visit care, home nursing, day/night care and short-stay care.
Use it before agreeing to a monthly schedule or adding visits near the end of a month.
The ordinary home-care copay is 15%, but the beneficiary pays the full cost above the applicable monthly cap.
Multiplying a per-visit fee by 15% alone can therefore underestimate the payment.
The main result is the amount to budget for bathing only; it does not include other-service copays or represent the household’s entire care budget.
Korea-based rules · KRW · effective 2026-01-01 · checked 2026-09-08Enter the recognition grade and copay category confirmed by the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS).
The page does not predict a grade or determine a reduction from household income.
Disability activity-support bathing and local-government bathing assistance are separate programs and cannot automatically use this LTC calculation.
Three vehicle-based fee categories for 2026
Article 25 of Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) Notice No. 2025-247 specifies three fees.
Each amount below is the gross base benefit for at least 60 minutes of service by at least two care workers, including insurer and beneficiary shares.
Inside the vehicle
KRW 88,990
Bathing takes place entirely inside a registered bathing vehicle.
A vehicle merely arriving outside the home does not establish this category.
Vehicle equipment at home
KRW 80,230
The vehicle’s full bathing equipment and hot water are used for bathing inside the home.
Confirm the actual equipment and water source.
Without a bathing vehicle
KRW 50,100
A portable tub independent of the vehicle, a household tub or another permitted bathing facility is used.
The fact that bathing happens at home does not make it the vehicle-equipment category.
Vehicle-based care requires the relevant conditions, such as a physical need for special bathing equipment or an inability to use a household tub or hot water.
Discuss safe transfers, parking, access and equipment with the provider.
A cheaper category is not a reason to reduce required staffing or choose an unsuitable bathing method.
Duration and the two-worker requirement
Standard service
- 60 minutes or longer: 100% of the base fee
- 40 minutes to under 60 minutes: 80%
- Under 40 minutes: no estimate using these fees
- Entire service provided by one worker: not claimable
Limited privacy exception
Without a bathing vehicle, a documented privacy-related reason may allow only the washing stage to be performed by one worker.
The fee is 80% of KRW 50,100, or KRW 40,080, for at least 60 minutes; for 40–59 minutes it is 70%, or KRW 35,070.
This does not permit a single worker to provide the entire service.
Duration follows the service record and includes preparation, transfer assistance, washing, hair washing, changing and cleanup.
Transfers and washing generally require at least two workers for safety.
The exception is a legal billing category tied to what actually happened and a recorded reason, not an optional discount.
Monthly caps and effective 15%, 9%, 6% or 0% copay
2026 standard Korean monthly home-care caps and home-bathing eligibility| Grade | Monthly cap (KRW) | Home bathing |
|---|
| 1 | 2,512,900 | Eligible |
| 2 | 2,331,200 | Eligible |
| 3 | 1,528,200 | Eligible |
| 4 | 1,409,700 | Eligible |
| 5 | 1,208,900 | Eligible |
| Cognitive support | 676,320 | Not eligible for home bathing |
The cap applies from the first to the last day of each month and is not cash paid into the beneficiary’s bank account.
Welfare equipment has a separate annual benefit framework.
Although the cognitive-support grade has a monthly cap, Article 2(3) restricts its available benefits and does not include home bathing; the calculator therefore blocks the monetary result.
A 40% reduction means 40% off the usual 15% share, leaving an effective copay of 9%.
A 60% reduction leaves 6%; an exemption under Article 40(2) of the Act produces 0% within the cap.
Receiving a form of basic livelihood assistance or having a low income alone does not establish the exemption.
Use the NHIS-confirmed category, and remember that an exemption does not erase cap excess.
When the applicable cap differs
Qualifying day-care use, integrated home care and a transition from a special cash benefit can alter the applicable allocation.
Use the confirmed-cap override only for an amount verified by the provider or NHIS for that month.
An assumed increase can hide an actual full-payment excess.
The formula allocates other benefits first
- Add the same-month cap-counted gross fees for home-visit care, home nursing, day/night care and short-stay care.
Use insurer plus patient amounts, not just the 15% paid by the family.
- Available cap = max(0, applicable monthly cap − other cap-counted benefits).
An already exhausted cap leaves zero for bathing.
- Gross bathing fee = category fee × duration/staffing multiplier × planned visits.
Within-cap bathing cost is the smaller of this fee and the available cap.
- Bathing monthly payment = rounded within-cap cost × copay rate + full bathing cap excess.
More precisely, round the monthly within-cap copay to whole KRW, then add the excess.
What the result includes
Any excess already caused by other services is displayed separately and is not added again to the bathing payment.
Other-service copays are not estimated as a single household total, because services such as home nursing can have distinct exemption rules.
The table keeps other benefits first as a planning assumption; actual provider claim order can differ.
Worked example: four monthly visits
Grade 3, no other benefits
Four vehicle-inside visits lasting at least 60 minutes cost KRW 88,990 × 4 = KRW 355,960 in gross base benefits.
The standard 15% monthly copay is KRW 53,394, with no cap excess.
Multiplying a separately rounded per-visit copay by four can produce a small difference.
Other benefits of KRW 1,300,000
The grade-3 cap of KRW 1,528,200 leaves KRW 228,200 for bathing.
The within-cap copay is KRW 34,230 and full-payment excess is KRW 127,760, producing a bathing payment of KRW 161,990.
Even a 0% exemption leaves the KRW 127,760 excess payable.
In the second example, two full base-fee visits fit within the cap and cost the family KRW 26,697.
Three visits cost KRW 73,000; four cost KRW 161,990.
Keeping four visits but changing the confirmed share to 9% produces KRW 148,298, while 6% produces KRW 141,452.
Use the cap-excess example button to load these inputs and compare visit counts.
Use the result to agree a schedule with the provider
- Prepare the LTC recognition document and confirmed copay category.
If a grade or reduction changes during the month, confirm which rule applies to the plan.
- Check vehicle equipment, hot water, recorded service duration and staffing, as well as the location where bathing takes place.
- Collect the gross cap-counted amounts from every other home-care provider.
Avoid double-counting meals, welfare equipment and excluded add-ons.
- Review excess and nearby visit-count scenarios with the provider while preserving necessary care and safety.
- Save the CSV allocation so the family and provider can discuss the same figures.
It is a planning worksheet, not an official invoice or benefit approval.
The once-per-week rule is not a fixed four-visit monthly limit.
Even a small monthly count can concentrate visits in the same week; calendar placement and visits around month boundaries matter.
The budget-only maximum is floor(available cap ÷ applied base fee), not an approved visit count or a medically recommended frequency.
Additional visits made unavoidable by skin-care needs related to urinary or fecal incontinence require the reason to be documented in the service record.
Severe-care add-ons and bathing supplies
Grades 1–2: check the separate add-on
Article 26-2 provides KRW 3,000 per eligible care worker for at least 60 minutes of bathing for grades 1–2, up to KRW 6,000 per beneficiary per day.
Family care workers are excluded and the beneficiary does not pay this add-on.
The calculator budgets the base fees in Articles 25–26 and never adds this allowance as beneficiary copay or full private payment.
Add-on claims and cap allocation are not automatically inferred.
For these grade-and-duration conditions, monetary results appear only after you enter a provider-confirmed cap available to base benefits using the override.
Also use a verified cap if the add-on is excluded for your situation.
Standard supplies are included
Article 25(2) includes water, soap, towels, tubs, bathing chairs, lotion and other necessary bathing supplies in the fee.
The provider must not separately demand these purchase costs from the beneficiary.
If a quote includes an extra supplies charge, ask for the item and its billing basis rather than automatically adding it to this estimate.
Frequently asked questions
Can the cognitive-support grade use bathing if there is cap left?
No.
Article 2(3) restricts the available benefits for this grade.
The page shows an ineligibility explanation instead of a misleading zero-cost bathing result.
Does a copay exemption make cap excess free?
No.
The exemption applies to the relevant within-cap copay.
The beneficiary still pays the full excess above the applicable monthly cap.
Is bathing assistance within a home-care visit the same benefit?
Home-visit care can include help with personal hygiene, but the separate home-bathing benefit has its own provision and fee rules.
Check the benefit category in the care plan and do not count the same assistance twice.
Does entering four visits verify the weekly rule?
No.
This tool compares a monthly budget and does not assess actual visit dates.
Confirm the weekly schedule and any documented exception with the provider.
Why does a 40% reduction become a 9% copay?
The reduction is applied to the ordinary 15% share: 15% × 60% = 9%.
A 60% reduction leaves 15% × 40% = 6%.
The reduction percentage itself is not the copay rate.
Why can the provider invoice differ slightly?
The monthly within-cap copay is rounded to whole KRW for budgeting.
Actual provider claim rounding, recorded time, eligibility details and allocation order can differ.
Compare the result with the itemized invoice.
Official sources and future updates
- MOHW LTC benefit provision and cost calculation notice: No. 2025-247, effective January 1, 2026; Articles 2, 13, 24–26 and 26-2.
- Official full-text PDF: page 22 for caps and page 43 for bathing fees.
- National Long-Term Care Insurance Act, Article 40, and Enforcement Decree, Article 15-8: exemption, full payment and the 15% home-care share.
- LTC copay reduction notice, Article 2: No. 2021-283, effective December 1, 2021; 40% and 60% reductions.
The current notice and tables were checked through the National Law Information OPEN API on September 8, 2026.
The notice serial is 2100000271110 and the decree MST is 286011.
Act MST 286217 includes a mix of immediately effective provisions and a November 27, 2026 effective-date label; the unchanged Article 40 was distinguished from that future label.
Future maintenance should recheck fees, caps, reduction rules, service conditions and NHIS guidance on severe-care add-on allocation and claim rounding.
Bring a monthly allocation to your care provider
Enter your planned bathing visits and other benefit amounts, inspect excess and save the result.
Agree a feasible budget and schedule after confirming care needs and safety.