Korean private-housing first priority: deposits, time and household conditions
Holding a housing subscription account for a long time does not, by itself, establish first priority for a Korean private-housing subscription.
You need to check the required account period for the development location, the deposit for your registered residence and target exclusive residential area, and any applicable household conditions.
This calculator brings together the deposit shortfall, the largest area band supported by your deposit and the date the required account period is reached.
Use it when reviewing a specific announcement
Households planning a move or a replacement home, parents helping a child establish a home, and family members reviewing an application together can use the announcement and bank records side by side.
After reviewing the results, ask your bank when any extra deposit will actually be recognized, then compare your desired area and priority with the announcement.
Adding money does not fix an account period that is still too short; a later announcement may need to be considered.
Passing these conditions is only part of application eligibility
What this page calculates
- Required deposit and shortfall by residence and area band
- The highest area band supported by the deposit alone
- The account-period qualifying date against the announcement date
- Applicable Article 28 household-head, award-history and home-count tests
- Deposit differences under a possible change of registered residence
What to check separately
- Adult status or minor exceptions, and eligible residence scope
- Reaward restrictions and disqualification-cancellation restrictions
- Local allocation priority and required residence periods
- Home-ownership exceptions and the relevant household definition
- Points, lottery allocation, special supply and final eligibility
A result saying the entered first-priority conditions are met means that the supplied facts pass the checks within this page’s scope.
The supported scope is ordinary private-housing sale subscriptions, excluding public-construction rental housing, special supply and national/public-housing selection.
It does not predict an award or replace the developer’s final eligibility review.
Failing a first-priority condition does not automatically establish eligibility to apply in second priority.
When basic application eligibility or another restriction is unresolved, check whether an application is allowed before changing the priority selection.
Prepare the announcement and bank information
Information from the announcement
Find the recruitment announcement date, target exclusive residential area, and whether the development is in the capital region, outside it, an officially designated speculative or overheated subscription zone, or a designated declining region.
For ordinary capital and non-capital regions, check whether the city or provincial governor has announced an extended account period.
Designations can change; do not infer them from a development name or an old address.
Information from bank and household records
Prepare the comprehensive housing subscription savings opening date, deposit recognized as of the announcement, household-head status, relevant household awards within the past 5 years, and household home count.
Minor-age contributions or an account conversion may require a bank-confirmed qualifying-period start date.
Leave unknown facts unconfirmed so the result keeps the items that still need checking.
No legal name, resident registration number or certificate is needed.
Use a notice title or a short source reference in the memo, without personal information.
Marking an item confirmed is your declaration that you checked it; the calculator does not query your bank account or ApplyHome records.
Private-housing subscription deposit table
The table follows Annex 2 of Korea’s Rules on Housing Supply.
Amounts are in KRW 10,000 units, and area means exclusive residential floor area rather than gross supplied area or a rounded pyeong description.
Choose the residence column using the applicant’s registered residence on the announcement date, rather than the apartment development location.
Private-housing deposit thresholds by registered residence and exclusive residential area, in KRW 10,000| Exclusive area | Seoul / Busan | Other metropolitan cities | Other cities / counties |
|---|
| Up to 85 m² | 300 | 250 | 200 |
| Up to 102 m² | 600 | 400 | 300 |
| Up to 135 m² | 1,000 | 700 | 400 |
| All areas | 1,500 | 1,000 | 500 |
Capital-region locations can use different deposit columns
Seoul and Busan use the same column.
Incheon uses the other-metropolitan-cities column; cities and counties in Gyeonggi use the other-cities/counties column.
Sejong Special Self-Governing City is reviewed under the other-cities/counties deposit classification; confirm the classification in the announcement.
Do not confuse these three residence columns with the capital/non-capital location used to determine the required account period.
Interpreting the shortfall and maximum area band
Calculation
Deposit shortfall = max(0, required deposit for the target band − recognized deposit as of the announcement)
An exact match meets the monetary threshold.
A shortfall of even KRW 1 fails that band’s deposit requirement.
A balance above the threshold produces a zero shortfall, rather than a negative shortfall.
The maximum area is the highest band supported by the deposit alone.
In Seoul, KRW 4,000,000 supports up to 85 m²; applying for the up-to-102 m² band requires another KRW 2,000,000.
A Seoul deposit of KRW 6,000,000 supports up to 102 m², KRW 10,000,000 supports up to 135 m², and KRW 15,000,000 supports all area bands.
The boundaries 85, 102 and 135 m² are inclusive: exactly 102 m² does not require the up-to-135 m² threshold.
All areas means that Annex 2 imposes no further area limit through the deposit threshold.
It does not mean the development offers the desired unit type or that other application conditions are satisfied.
If the deposit is below the smallest band, there is no supported band, but the shortfall for the desired band remains visible.
The required account period depends on location and extensions
Ordinary capital region
The default is 12 months. A city or provincial announcement may extend the period up to 24 months.
Ordinary non-capital region
The default is 6 months. An announced extension may increase it up to 12 months.
Speculative / overheated subscription zones
The requirement is 24 months, plus the deposit and applicable household-head, award-history and home-count conditions.
Officially designated declining regions
The requirement is 1 month plus the deposit. An official designation is required; weak local market conditions alone are insufficient.
The qualifying date adds the required number of calendar months to the recognized start date.
A 2025-11-06 start under the ordinary capital-region 12-month rule reaches the period on 2026-11-06.
An announcement on 2026-11-05 is one day too early, while 2026-11-06 passes the date comparison.
Where the same day does not exist in the target month, the calculation uses that month’s final day: 2024-02-29 plus 24 months becomes 2026-02-28.
For conversion, combined periods or a different bank-recognized calculation, obtain the bank’s qualifying-period record before relying on an opening date.
Household head, awards within 5 years and home ownership
Additional conditions in regulated zones
- The applicant must be the household head.
- The applicant must not belong to the household of someone awarded another home within the past 5 years.
- The household must not own 2 or more homes.
- For land-lease housing, the ownership threshold changes to 1 or more homes.
Some public-housing districts in ordinary capital-region locations also trigger the home-count restriction.
This applies where at least 50% of the district’s area was released from a development-restriction zone.
The restriction excludes households with 2 or more homes, or 1 or more homes for land-lease housing.
A public-housing-district label alone does not establish that the 50% land-release condition is satisfied.
Being a household member rather than the household head does not automatically disqualify every ordinary unregulated-region applicant from first priority.
Conversely, do not enter zero homes simply because the applicant has no individually titled home when the household definition or exceptions need review.
Enter the home count confirmed under the announcement and ApplyHome rules, including the applicable spouse and household scope, purchase rights, occupancy rights and relevant exceptions.
This calculator does not adjudicate individual exceptions for inherited or small homes.
Deposit timing and account conversions
The input is the recognized deposit as of the recruitment announcement date.
Page 17 of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s housing subscription FAQ states that comprehensive housing subscription savings may meet the deposit by the announcement day, inclusive.
Legacy subscription deposits, installment accounts, and conversion from subscription savings to subscription deposits follow a previous-day deadline instead.
For a same-day comprehensive-account deposit, check the bank’s processing cutoff and actual recognition.
Do not extend this timing rule to every address change, area-band change or conversion procedure.
Money paid after a historical announcement cannot be treated as if it had been in the account on that date.
Private-housing deposits differ from public-housing recognized payments
National/public-housing recognized installments and amounts are a different assessment from the private-housing deposit table.
Do not impose a public-housing monthly recognition cap on the private-housing account balance.
Article 10’s advance-payment provision is also not a universal cumulative balance cap.
This tool targets comprehensive housing subscription savings; legacy account categories and unusual conversion histories require bank review.
For an account opened as a minor, do not assume every elapsed month from the actual opening date is fully recognized.
A newly available housing category following conversion may need a period calculated after the conversion.
For minor-age periods, conversions or other combined histories, obtain the bank-confirmed qualifying start date and supporting explanation before entering it.
Compare deposit requirements after a possible move
Because the threshold uses registered residence on the announcement date, you can compare the deposit columns when planning a move.
With KRW 4,000,000 and a target up-to-102 m² unit, Seoul requires KRW 6,000,000, leaving a KRW 2,000,000 shortfall; the other-cities/counties column requires KRW 3,000,000, leaving no shortfall.
The maximum band supported by that same deposit changes from up to 85 m² in Seoul to up to 135 m² in the other-cities/counties column.
A deposit comparison is not a recommendation to change registration
A move can affect local allocation priority, residence duration and the eligible residence area.
The comparison changes the deposit column only; it does not recommend moving or changing registered residence.
A move after an announcement does not change where you were registered on the announcement date.
Check the actual move date and any local residence requirements separately.
Worked examples: money, time and household conditions
Seoul, up to 102 m², KRW 4,000,000 deposited
The required deposit is KRW 6,000,000, the shortfall is KRW 2,000,000, and the maximum deposit-supported band is up to 85 m².
With a qualifying start of 2025-11-06 and an announcement on 2026-11-06, the ordinary capital-region 12-month period is satisfied.
The money requirement still fails for the desired band; passing the time requirement does not offset it.
Enough money and time, but not the household head
In a regulated zone, a Seoul applicant for up to 85 m² with KRW 3,000,000 and at least 24 recognized months still fails the household-head condition if applying as another household member.
Extra money or extra months do not offset that condition.
Do not assume a household-head change solves every issue; check the household facts at the announcement and all other restrictions.
Land-lease housing and a household with one home
For land-lease housing in a regulated zone or the specified capital-region public-housing district, a household owning one home fails the ownership condition.
Remembering only the general exclusion for 2 or more homes misses this stricter threshold.
Confirm both the supply method and the ownership assessment in the actual announcement.
Step-by-step use and next actions
- Choose the announcement date and target exclusive area. Enter registered residence separately from the development-region category.
- Use bank records for the opening or qualifying-period start date and deposit recognized as of that announcement.
- Check the actual extended period, where applicable, and the relevant household-head, home-count and award-history facts. Keep unknown items unconfirmed.
- Read the deposit shortfall, maximum band, qualifying date and each passed, failed or unresolved condition together.
- Save or print the review, verify facts with the bank and developer, and apply through ApplyHome according to the actual reception schedule if eligible.
Changing an unknown answer to no does not resolve the underlying factual uncertainty.
Correct invalid dates or amounts before using the updated result.
The fictional example demonstrates operation and does not certify your own records.
Replace its values and verify your own source material before selecting confirmation options.
Korean 2026 rules and calculation limits
Distinguish the effective date from the verification date
This page uses Article 28 and Annex 2 of the Rules on Housing Supply, MST 286965, effective 2026-06-15 and verified on 2026-11-06.
Announcements before that effective date or in 2027 and later require renewed legal verification; the calculator does not declare them cleared under this version.
Future-announcement monetary comparisons assume the 2026 rules continue and do not predict amendments or designation changes.
Reaward restrictions and the past-5-year award condition for regulated-zone first priority are separate questions.
An expired reaward restriction does not automatically satisfy every other first-priority condition.
Conversely, Article 54 includes an exception for private housing outside the two regulated-zone categories: a restriction remaining from a past award does not automatically block every private-housing announcement.
Enter a separate restriction only after checking whether it actually applies to the target announcement; disqualification-cancellation restrictions need their own review.
Tax-law home counts can differ from the housing-subscription ownership assessment; do not directly reuse a tax calculator’s count.
Special supply, points, lottery probabilities, public-housing payment-order selection, disqualification periods and individualized household exceptions are outside this automatic calculation.
The review is a record of user-entered facts, not a bank priority certificate, a developer’s determination or an ApplyHome eligibility record.
Recheck current designations, local period extensions, deposit processing and unusual account histories against the specific announcement and the relevant institution’s latest records.
Frequently asked questions
Does a Seoul development always require the Seoul deposit?
No.
The deposit column uses your registered residence on the announcement date.
This differs from the development location used for the account-period rule.
Must I make a fixed monthly payment to meet a private-housing deposit?
This check uses private-housing deposit thresholds.
Public-housing recognized installment counts and monthly caps are different.
Confirm the recognized balance and transaction timing with the bank.
Can I add the deposit on the announcement day?
The Ministry FAQ allows comprehensive housing subscription savings deposits through the announcement day, inclusive.
Confirm the bank’s cutoff and actual recognition.
Legacy deposit/installment accounts and savings-to-deposit conversion have a previous-day deadline.
Does every first-priority applicant need to be a household head?
The household-head condition here applies in speculative and overheated subscription zones.
It is not automatically imposed on every ordinary unregulated region.
Other basic eligibility and announcement conditions still apply.
Can a household owning one home qualify for first priority?
It depends on the location and supply type.
The usual regulated-zone exclusion is for 2 or more homes, but land-lease housing uses 1 or more.
The specified capital-region public-housing districts also need this check.
Can I use the old opening date after converting an account?
Periods for a newly available housing category can differ from previously recognized periods.
Ask the bank for the qualifying-period start date when minor-age periods, conversion or combined histories apply.
If I lack the deposit, may I simply apply in second priority?
This result does not establish second-priority eligibility.
Check account conditions, basic eligibility, reaward or disqualification restrictions and the announcement’s separate second-priority rules.
Does this calculator also calculate points and restriction expiry?
Use the separate points and reaward-restriction calculators for those tasks.
This page combines confirmed facts with deposits, account duration and Article 28 first-priority conditions.
Official sources and application preparation
Verified references
The National Law Information OPEN API returned current law ID 008243, MST 286965.
The verification date is 2026-11-06. The announcement’s facts and actual deposit recognition still require individual confirmation.
Resolve the shortfall and remaining checks before applying
Recalculate with your own records and save the review.
If money is missing, ask the bank when an additional deposit will qualify. If the period is too short, review a later announcement.
Check points and other restrictions alongside these results to reduce missed application conditions.