Leave by country / South Korea
South Korea annual leave entitlement
How much paid leave people in South Korea get, what happens to unused days, and what you owe when someone leaves — in plain English, whether you run a team there or work on one.
South Korea guarantees 15 days of paid annual leave after one year of service with at least 80% attendance, rising by one day every two years to a maximum of 25, under Article 60 of the Labor Standards Act; first-year employees earn one day per month worked. Unused leave lapses after a year and is paid as an allowance unless the employer followed the statutory leave-promotion procedure.
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What the law actually says
Article 60 grants 15 days of paid annual leave to an employee who has worked for a year with at least 80% attendance, plus one additional day for every two years of service beyond the first, up to 25 days. During the first year — and in any year with less than 80% attendance — the employee earns one day for each month worked, up to 11 days, which since the 2018 amendment are not deducted from the 15 days of the second year. The Act applies to workplaces with five or more employees.
Worth knowing: Leave lapses one year after it is granted. Unused days must then be paid as an annual leave allowance — unless the employer used the leave-promotion procedure in Article 61, giving written notice of the remaining days and then designating dates, in which case the obligation to pay falls away.
What happens to unused leave in South Korea
Annual leave in South Korea must be used within one year of being granted. Days left at that point are converted into an annual leave allowance at the ordinary wage, unless the employer followed the leave-promotion procedure of Article 61 — written notice of the remaining balance at least six months before expiry and, if the employee still did not schedule the days, a written designation of dates — in which case the unused days lapse without payment.
When employment ends, untaken leave is normally paid for. Unused annual leave is paid as an allowance at the ordinary wage when it expires or when employment ends, unless the employer completed the written leave-promotion procedure in Article 61 of the Labor Standards Act, which removes the duty to pay for days the employee then failed to take. Compare the United States, where whether unused time is paid out depends entirely on which state the employee works in.
If you run a team in South Korea
- Write the entitlement into every contract. At least 15 days; more is fine, less is void. Collective agreements may add to it.
- Track accrual and carryover to the day, with a record of every approval. When someone leaves, the untaken balance is money you owe, and you will need to show how you got to the number.
- Budget for the payout. Every unused day on the books is a liability at that person's current pay rate — it does not disappear at year end.
If you work in South Korea
- Check your contract gives at least 15 days. Anything less is unenforceable.
- Keep your own record of approved leave. Payroll systems get changed; your notes don't.
- When you leave, untaken leave is normally paid for — check the conditions above and keep your own record of what you were owed.
Countries with the same 15-day minimum
Calculating an employee's balance
Entitlement is the starting point; the working number is what an individual has actually accrued at a given date. Our accrual calculator converts an annual entitlement into a per-pay-period figure and a current balance.
Tracking South Korea leave correctly
Because untaken leave is money the employer owes, the balance has to be provable. Spreadsheets fail at exactly the moment they matter — when someone disputes what they were owed on their last day and nobody can reconstruct the record.
For a single-country team, Leavo handles South Korea accrual rules, carryover and approvals with a full audit trail. If you employ people in more than one country, statutory entitlements, carryover rules and payout obligations differ in every one — that is the case for a platform like Deel that handles multi-country employment rather than leave alone. We compare the options in our leave management software guide.
South Korea annual leave: common questions
How many paid annual leave days are employees entitled to in South Korea?
15 working days is the statutory minimum in South Korea, equivalent to 3 weeks on a five-day working week, under Labor Standards Act, Article 60. Employers and collective agreements may grant more, never less.
Must unused annual leave be paid out when employment ends in South Korea?
Usually. Unused annual leave is paid as an allowance at the ordinary wage when it expires or when employment ends, unless the employer completed the written leave-promotion procedure in Article 61 of the Labor Standards Act, which removes the duty to pay for days the employee then failed to take. During employment, statutory leave is meant to be taken as time off rather than exchanged for cash.
Can an employer in South Korea refuse a leave request?
An employer can usually influence when leave is taken for operational reasons, but cannot deny the entitlement itself. The right to the minimum number of days is statutory and cannot be contracted away.
Do public holidays count towards the 15-day entitlement in South Korea?
No. Public holidays are separate from the 15-day statutory annual leave entitlement in South Korea.
Source
Primary source: Labor Standards Act, Article 60. Statutory minimums change, and collective agreements frequently exceed them — confirm against the current text before acting. See our methodology.