Count jointly owned rental homes before estimating tax
Adding every property that appears under your name in the land register can produce the wrong count for Korean housing rental income tax.
Co-ownership requires a sequence: identify the largest share, check any valid agreement, apply minority-owner exceptions, then resolve overlap between spouses.
This calculator records the inclusion reason and house-count attribution for each property under South Korea rules for income year 2026.
It helps establish the inputs needed by a tax calculator; it does not calculate a tax bill.
The decision this page supports
Compare original owner counts, attribution after spouse overlap adjustment, the ordinary rent count and the non-small count used for deposit deemed rent.
Identify potentially taxable receipts and the agreement or joint-business records still needed before preparing a return.
Check the actual tax consequences before changing ownership or negotiating a new lease.
Records to prepare and supported cases
Prepare ownership records, individual ownership percentages, lease contracts, annual receipt records and statutory valuation documents.
Enter up to five properties, with each co-owner listed individually.
Combining the shares of two unrelated owners into one person can incorrectly change who has the largest share.
- Include your owner-occupied home and homes owned by your spouse; enter zero rental receipts and zero deposits for an owner-occupied property.
- Use the statutory value of the entire property, not a sale asking price or the value of your fractional share.
- Enter annual whole-property rental receipts for the relevant shareholding period in KRW, rather than one monthly payment.
- Changing ownership during the year, mixed commercial buildings, trusts, nonresidents and final joint-business profit allocation require separate review.
The supported scenario assumes stable ownership, shares and the entered lease terms throughout the year.
If a purchase, disposal or share change occurred, first establish period-specific receipts and the legally relevant valuation date.
An incomplete list changes both the count and the taxable-status assessment; do not copy the result directly into a return.
Largest-share and minority-owner inclusion tests
Enforcement Decree Article 8-2(3)(2) generally assigns a jointly owned house to the owner with the largest share.
Tied largest owners each count it unless they validly agree to designate one of those owners as the basic assignee.
Then apply the additional inclusion tests to anyone excluded by that basic rule.
An agreement does not cancel the statutory minority-owner tests.
Receipts: at least KRW 6,000,000
Annual receipts from the property during the shareholding period × ownership share must be at least KRW 6,000,000.
Exactly KRW 6,000,000 qualifies.
Enforcement Rule Article 5-2 excludes deemed rental income from this particular receipts test.
Value and share: both strictly above
The whole-property statutory value must exceed KRW 1,200,000,000 and the ownership share must exceed 30%.
Exactly KRW 1,200,000,000 or exactly 30% does not satisfy this additional test.
The largest-share and receipts tests still apply independently.
Threshold differences show how close an input is to a boundary.
Lowering future rent does not erase receipts already earned or remove another inclusion condition, so the result does not guarantee tax savings.
Spouse aggregation and house-count attribution
Combine the houses of both spouses when assessing ordinary housing rental tax status.
If both spouses initially count the same jointly owned house, Enforcement Decree Article 8-2(3)(4) assigns the overlap to the spouse with the larger share.
For equal shares, verify an agreement designating one spouse.
If no such agreement is confirmed, the calculator leaves the attribution and resulting count for review instead of inventing an assignee.
An assignee does not receive all actual income automatically
These counts describe attribution for determining the number of houses.
Actual income from a joint business requires separate consideration of Income Tax Act Article 43 and the agreed profit-sharing ratio.
A minority owner excluded from the house count still includes their actual rental receipts if other properties make their rental income taxable.
Any ownership-share rent figure here is a reference and must not be treated as a final joint-business filing allocation.
Multi-household buildings, subleases and your own home
An undivided multi-household building
Enter a building without separately registered units as one house even if it has several tenants.
If units are separately registered, enter each unit on its own row.
Check registration and actual residential use rather than relying only on the building name.
Subletting
A rented or jeonse home that is sublet counts for the tenant under this housing rental income rule.
This treatment does not mean the tenant acquired legal ownership.
Deposit calculations require received and paid deposit-day balances and the fraction of the property sublet, so the deposit result is referred for separate review.
The home you occupy
Your owner-occupied home is included in the ownership list.
If you occupy one home and your spouse rents out another, entering only the rental home understates the combined count.
Zero rent and zero deposit indicate that the owner-occupied property produces no entered rental receipts.
Small homes are excluded only for the deposit test
For 2026, the deposit deemed-rent count excludes homes with residential floor area of 40 m² or less and statutory value of KRW 200,000,000 or less.
Both conditions must be met, and the exclusion in Income Tax Act Article 25 runs through 2026-12-31.
The ordinary rent count and the deposit count serve different purposes and are displayed separately.
Small-home deposit exclusion boundaries for income year 2026| Case | Area | Statutory value, KRW | Deposit-count exclusion |
|---|
| Both boundaries exactly | 40 m² | 200,000,000 | Excluded |
| Area exceeds boundary | 40.01 m² | 200,000,000 | Not excluded |
| Value exceeds boundary | 40 m² | 200,000,001 | Not excluded |
The table assumes the house is included under the ownership rules before applying the small-home exclusion.
One small rental home plus one owner-occupied home can produce an ordinary count of two and a non-small count of one.
Small size does not make all rental income exempt.
Reading the rent and deposit thresholds
Ordinary rent
A combined spouse count of two or more brings ordinary rental receipts into the taxable-status assessment.
For one house, a domestic property valued at no more than KRW 1,200,000,000 is generally exempt; a high-value property or an overseas property is an exception.
Zero rent means no entered ordinary rent, not that deposits are automatically exempt.
Deposit deemed rent
With at least three non-small houses, check whether relevant deposits for the calculation unit exceed KRW 300,000,000.
The 2026 high-value two-house route requires two houses each valued above KRW 1,200,000,000 and relevant deposits exceeding KRW 1,200,000,000.
These tests come from Income Tax Act Article 25 and Enforcement Decree Article 53; equality is not an excess.
Combining house counts does not mean automatically combining deposits from separate sole-owner businesses of both spouses.
A joint business can be treated as one resident when calculating business income, so dividing jointly received deposits by ownership shares is also insufficient for a final decision.
The calculator keeps the house-count assessment and records a separate review reason for those deposits.
Worked ownership and spouse examples
Example 1: 60% and 40%
For a property worth KRW 1,000,000,000, you own 60% and one other person owns 40%. With annual rent of KRW 10,000,000, you count the house as the largest shareholder.
The other owner has reference receipts of KRW 4,000,000, below the minority receipts threshold.
If annual rent rises to KRW 15,000,000, that owner reaches KRW 6,000,000 and also counts the house.
A larger deposit alone does not increase receipts for this particular threshold.
Example 2: spouse overlap at 40%
You own 60%, your spouse owns 40%, and annual rent is KRW 15,000,000. Reference receipts are KRW 9,000,000 and KRW 6,000,000 respectively.
Both initially count the property, but spouse overlap is adjusted to one house attributed to you as the larger shareholder.
This does not reduce the actual rental receipts belonging to your spouse to zero.
Example 3: high-value ownership boundary
For a whole-property value of KRW 1,200,000,001, a 30% share, another owner holding 70%, and zero rent, your share does not meet the high-value minority test.
A 30.01% share exceeds the share threshold.
If the property value is exactly KRW 1,200,000,000, that high-value test fails even when your share exceeds 30%.
Deposit boundaries and individual totals
These simple cases assume non-small houses, separate sole-owner rental businesses and unchanged deposits throughout the year.
Joint-business and sublease cases cannot be finalized using only this comparison.
Strict deposit thresholds of KRW 300,000,000 and KRW 1,200,000,000| Count route | Relevant deposits, KRW | Assessment |
|---|
| At least three non-small houses | 300,000,000 | Does not exceed threshold |
| At least three non-small houses | 300,000,001 | Deemed-rent review applies |
| Two high-value houses | 1,200,000,000 | Does not exceed threshold |
| Two high-value houses | 1,200,000,001 | Deemed-rent review applies |
For example, with three non-small houses in the combined spouse count, KRW 200,000,000 of deposits in your sole-owner business and KRW 200,000,000 in your spouse’s separate business must not simply become KRW 400,000,000 taxed to one person.
Use the separate deemed-rent calculator to examine deposit changes, rental days, business units and relevant financial receipts.
This page identifies the threshold; it does not calculate deemed rental income or tax.
Step-by-step use and filing preparation
- Assemble the complete 2026 property list and confirm domestic or overseas location, occupancy, separately registered units and subletting.
- Enter each owner and check that shares total 100%. Distinguish a tied-largest-owner agreement from an equal-spouse attribution agreement.
- Enter whole-property statutory value, area, annual rental receipts for the shareholding period and deposits, then calculate.
- Review each inclusion reason, attribution after spouse adjustment and differences from the KRW 6,000,000, KRW 1,200,000,000 and 30% boundaries.
- Resolve missing agreements and business-unit questions before using actual allocated receipts to compare tax and filing methods.
The KRW 20,000,000 separate-taxation threshold concerns individual gross housing rental receipts.
Rent alone may already exceed it, but a rent figure below it cannot establish eligibility until any deemed rent is included.
Check tax-office business-registration and filing guidance and prepare for the comprehensive income tax return in May of the following year.
Health insurance dependent status and premiums follow separate rules and cannot be determined from this house count alone.
Frequently asked questions
When does a minority share count as a house?
A largest shareholder normally counts the house.
An otherwise excluded owner also counts it if their annual share of rental receipts from that property is at least KRW 6,000,000, or if the whole-property statutory value exceeds KRW 1,200,000,000 and their share exceeds 30%.
Either additional test is sufficient.
The deposit principal is not annual rental receipts.
Does a house owned equally by spouses count twice?
Apply the spouse overlap rule if both spouses count the same jointly owned house.
For equal shares, verify an agreement naming the assignee.
Without an agreement, this calculator marks the attribution for review; it does not choose a spouse or confirm that the couple owns two houses.
Does changing the assignee transfer all actual rental income?
The attribution shown here is for house counting.
Actual joint-business income follows separate rules, including the agreed profit-sharing ratio.
The ownership-share rent figure is a reference, not a final filing allocation or approval of an income transfer.
Must I enter an owner-occupied or small house?
Yes.
Include the home you live in when assembling the complete ownership list.
The small-house exclusion is limited to the deposit deemed-rent test.
A house of 40 m² or less with statutory value of KRW 200,000,000 or less still counts for the ordinary rent test if the ownership rules include it.
Does the KRW 6,000,000 test include deemed rent or other properties?
Use rental receipts from this jointly owned property during the shareholding period, multiplied by the ownership share.
Exclude deemed rent under Income Tax Act Article 25 and do not add rent from other properties.
This threshold has a different purpose from aggregating actual taxable rental income for filing.
Are all deposits received by spouses added together?
Separate the combined house count from the unit used to calculate deemed rental income.
Do not automatically combine deposits of separate sole-owner businesses.
A joint business may be a separate calculation unit.
Jointly owned rental deposits and sublease deposits require review rather than a mechanical allocation by ownership shares.
Does annual rent below KRW 20,000,000 mean no return is required?
No.
KRW 20,000,000 is a separate-taxation election threshold for taxable housing rental gross receipts, not a general exemption.
Include any deemed rental income when checking the individual total.
Zero final tax alone also does not establish that no filing obligation exists.
Can I enter inherited shares or a sublet home?
An inherited share can be examined using these co-ownership rules if the stable-ownership assumptions are met.
Do not import inherited-house exceptions from capital gains tax.
A sublet home counts for the tenant under these rules, but its deposit calculation separately considers received deposit-days, paid deposit-days and the sublet area fraction.
Official sources, effective dates and future updates
The current texts were checked directly through the National Law Information OPEN API on 2026-11-07.
Income Tax Act MST 280405 is effective 2026-07-01, Enforcement Decree MST 290841 is effective 2026-10-01, and Enforcement Rule MST 286379 is effective 2026-07-01.
The supported income year is 2026; later years are not automatically treated as equivalent.
Before a later income year, recheck the small-home exclusion ending 2026-12-31, the high-value two-house rules, actual annual receipts, joint-business allocation and subsequent amendments.
Keep the distinction between a records-based house-count assessment and a final income allocation or tax liability.
Resolve the count, then estimate the tax
Complete the property list and agreement records, then establish actual receipts for each spouse.
Continue to the rental income tax calculator to compare filing methods and to the deemed-rent calculator for deposits and rental-day balances.
Recheck current rules and the actual business unit in those tools; do not carry ownership-share reference receipts over as final filing amounts.