Check Seoul teaching area and simultaneous capacity before signing a lease
A commercial listing can show ample leased floor area while the actual classrooms still fail the registration requirements for your intended course.
Common corridors, toilets, consultation rooms, offices and walls do not necessarily count as net teaching area.
Measure the actual lecture and practice spaces before committing a deposit or ordering an interior fit-out.
This calculator uses selected 2026 Korean rules for academies and tutoring centers in Seoul.
It checks original room sizes, partition areas, course-specific total area, density ceilings and tutoring-center attendance limits.
Building use, fire safety, site restrictions, instructor qualifications and final registration remain matters for the competent education office.
Three different learner counts
- Simultaneous attendance counts learners taught at the same time.
- Total enrollment also includes learners attending other time slots and is not the same number.
- A safe and practical service capacity may be lower because of teaching staff, equipment, circulation space and ventilation.
Supported courses and reference dates
Supported academy courses are ordinary school-subject tutoring and essay instruction, practical foreign languages for school students, adult languages, instrumental music and piano.
Supported student tutoring-center courses use the separate density and attendance limits.
An adult-language tutoring center is not automatically classified as a student tutoring center.
Entrance-exam academies, reading rooms, vocal or applied-music equipment combinations, multiple courses and other provinces require a separate review.
The 2026 rules were checked on 2026-11-05; this version automatically screens reference dates from 2026-10-08 through 2026-11-05.
Other dates remain pending until their applicable legislation and transitional provisions are verified.
A roadmap filename or a planned lease year does not establish a legal effective date.
Seoul academy area requirements
Minimum qualifying area and original room requirements for supported Seoul academy courses| Check | Minimum | Additional condition |
|---|
| School-subject tutoring / essay lecture area | 70 m² | Distinct from entrance-exam academy courses |
| Student foreign languages / adult languages | 150 m² each | Confirm student or adult classification |
| Music / piano practice area | 60 m² | At least 3 principal instruments, or 6 pianos for piano |
| Original lecture room | 30 m² | Maximum 135 m²; comprehensive ordinary-subject class 85 m² |
| Original practice room | 35 m² | Also apply the course-specific Annex 4 requirement |
| Lecture partition | 10 m² | The 10 m² partition minimum has an adult-language exception |
These selected values come from Articles 4–5 and Annexes 3–4 of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education ordinance.
Meeting the total area does not cure an oversized, undersized or improperly partitioned original room.
The comprehensive-class option checks the ordinary-subject lecture-room ceiling within the supported tutoring course; it does not substitute for the separate entrance-exam course in Annex 3.
Measure and enter net areas
- Identify each original teaching room on the plan and add it once.
- Measure net teaching area after excluding common and non-teaching spaces. Do not copy the marketed gross or leased area.
- For a divided room, enter both its original net area and each net partition area. A 35 m² room might contain partitions of 10, 10, 15.
- Confirm that the entries cover one course in the same building, floor and entrance, without missing or duplicate teaching areas.
- Enter target simultaneous attendance, the instrument count for a music academy and basement information, then submit.
If the partition sum is smaller than the original room, only the specified partitions count toward teaching area and density.
Unassigned space is not inferred to be an additional classroom.
A sum exceeding the original room prevents capacity calculation for that room because of overlap or measurement inconsistency.
The limits of 12 original rooms and 12 partitions per room protect the input interface; they are not legal room-count limits.
Density formulas and whole learners
Academy
Lecture capacity = floor(net area × 1)
Practice capacity = floor(net area ÷ 1.5)
When divided, floor each partition separately and then add the whole learner counts.
Music lecture space is not added to the 60 m² minimum practice area.
Tutoring center
Area capacity = Σ floor(each teaching area × 0.3)
Ordinary center = min(area capacity, 9)
Piano center = min(area capacity, 5)
The fixed cap applies once across the whole center, even with multiple rooms.
The floor function discards fractional learners.
An 18 m² tutoring center produces floor(5.4) = 5 learners; 30 m² produces 9 learners.
Unused fractional capacity from different partitions cannot be combined into an extra seat.
The calculation preserves the entered decimal values and does not round measured areas upward before checking a threshold.
Worked tutoring-academy and language examples
Two 35 m² lecture rooms
A school-subject tutoring academy has 70 m² of lecture area, meeting its 70 m² minimum.
Without partitions, its density ceiling is 35 + 35 = 70 learners.
For a target of 60, the entered area and capacity checks can be met when measurement, layout and above-ground facts are confirmed.
Two 30 m² rooms would still produce a density figure of 60 but would fail the total-area requirement by 10 m².
Two 75 m² student-language rooms
The 150 m² total meets the student practical-foreign-language minimum.
Dividing a lecture room into 5 m² partitions fails the student-language partition minimum of 10 m².
Adult languages have an exception to that partition minimum; the original-room dimensions and 150 m² total requirement still apply.
A piano academy and a piano tutoring center differ
A 60 m² academy practice room has a density ceiling of floor(60 ÷ 1.5) = 40 learners.
The supported piano academy equipment requirement is at least 6 pianos, so 5 pianos fails that check.
The 40-learner arithmetic ceiling does not validate instrument schedules, instructor staffing or a practical operating capacity.
A 20 m² piano tutoring center yields 6 learners by area, but Article 16 of the national decree limits it to 5 simultaneous learners.
Increasing its area to 30 m² cannot make a target of 6 compliant in the tutoring-center form.
Changing to an academy requires a fresh check of minimum facilities, instruments and the application requirements.
Changing the calculator selector does not convert a registration.
Interpret area shortages and attendance results
- Qualifying / minimum area: The area used for the course-specific minimum. For music this includes practice rooms only, so it can differ from total net teaching area.
- Total area shortage: The positive difference between the course minimum and qualifying area. Zero does not clear room-dimension or equipment checks.
- Density ceiling: An arithmetic reference that may still appear for a facility with failed checks. It cannot be used directly as operating capacity.
- Capacity with checks met: Shown only when no entered check fails or remains pending. It is not an official registered capacity or approval document.
- Target attendance excess: Target minus the density ceiling, with a separate warning for the fixed tutoring-center cap.
The basic area reference is max(course minimum, target) for lecture courses, max(60, target × 1.5) for music, and target ÷ 0.3 for tutoring centers.
The music reference assumes all learners occupy practice space; it is not the minimum total for a mixed lecture/practice layout.
Original-room sizes, partition layouts, whole-learner arithmetic, equipment and circulation can require more actual space.
For tutoring-center targets above 9, or piano targets above 5, no area-only solution is presented.
Basement conditions and the building-area reference
Article 3(3) of the Seoul ordinance generally prohibits academy basement use.
An exception candidate requires at least one building side fully exposed above ground, at least 2 external exits usable for evacuation, and compliance with Article 4(1), items 4–6.
Two doors do not by themselves establish two qualifying external evacuation exits.
Items 4–6 cover water and toilets, daylight and lighting, ventilation and temperature/humidity, sound insulation and fire facilities.
Unconfirmed facts remain pending, while an explicitly failed condition produces a failed check; other outstanding facts remain visible.
This academy-specific basement test is not automatically imposed on tutoring centers, whose location still needs a separate building and fire-safety review.
All academy area within the building is retained as a consultation reference; that number alone does not approve the building use or fire arrangements.
Next steps before a lease or interior order
- Save or print the review with room names and measured areas. Editing any input hides the old result; calculate again before saving.
- Bring the plan, building register, course description and review to the education office. Confirm recognized net areas, partitions and any separated floor or entrance arrangement.
- Confirm the permitted scope and lease conditions before ordering work. Discuss registration contingencies, termination and deposit settlement with the parties and an appropriate professional.
- Build a timetable for simultaneous attendance, then calculate profitability using total monthly enrollment as a separate figure.
The example buttons load hypothetical inputs: a 70 m² school-subject academy, 150 m² student-language academy, 60 m² piano academy with 6 pianos, and an 18 m² tutoring center.
Replace them with actual measured values and compare the operating forms by recalculating.
A passing example does not establish that a particular shop can be registered.
A tutoring center also needs confirmation of one instructor, one location and one subject.
Frequently asked questions
Can I enter the leased area?
Using a leased figure that includes common and non-teaching space can overstate both facility size and capacity.
Measure each teaching room and confirm how the education office recognizes net area.
Can every tutoring center teach 9 learners?
No.
Both the 0.3 learners per m² density and the 9-learner cap apply; piano is capped at 5.
An ordinary 18 m² tutoring center has an area ceiling of 5.
Can small partitions be combined to reach 30 m²?
The original lecture room and its individual partitions are separate checks.
The adult-language exception to the 10 m² partition minimum also requires the correct course classification and a reviewed plan.
Does unused room area add capacity?
Only entered teaching partitions are counted.
Remaining area is not inferred to be a new partition.
Do not include corridors or wall area as learner space.
Is a piano academy limited to 5 learners too?
The 5-learner rule in Decree Article 16 applies to piano tutoring centers.
An academy has separate facility, equipment and density checks; actual operating capacity still needs confirmation.
Must total enrollment stay below this number?
The calculation concerns learners present at the same time.
Manage attendance and timetables separately from total enrollment across different class slots.
Can classrooms on different floors be added?
Automatic screening assumes one course within the same building, floor and entrance.
Separated premises and multiple courses remain pending until the education office confirms the recognized aggregation scope.
Can I open as soon as the checks are met?
These are selected area and attendance checks.
Confirm building use, fire safety, school protection zones, instructor requirements, equipment and the registration procedure with the competent office.
Official sources and maintenance dates
Academy Act Article 14(7), MST285147, effective 2026-10-01, supplies the one-instructor, one-location, one-subject tutoring-center rule.
Checked on 2026-11-05 against the National Law Information OPEN API texts.
Recheck legislative amendments, transitional provisions for existing registrations, course classification and recognition of the actual plan before acting.
Unsupported courses and other regions must not inherit Seoul values.
Both language versions share the same calculation functions and official evidence.
Use the confirmed operating plan for profitability
After checking the measurements and plan with the education office, compare tuition, enrollment, timetables, rent and instructor costs.
Treating simultaneous capacity as total enrollment can distort the revenue estimate.