Tinker Tools

Tax Refund Calculator for South Korea

Estimate your Korean year-end tax settlement (연말정산). Enter your income, taxes paid, and deductions to see if you get a refund or owe additional tax.

Tax SettlementYear-end Settlement Estimate
Enter your income, taxes paid, and deductions, then click Calculate.

How it works

1. Enter Income & Tax

Provide your annual gross income and the total income tax already withheld from your paychecks throughout the year.

Income data

2. Add Deductions

Enter amounts for insurance premiums, medical and education expenses, donations, and credit card usage for applicable tax credits.

5 Categories

3. See Your Refund

Get a detailed breakdown showing income deductions, tax credits, and whether you will receive a refund or owe additional tax.

Full breakdown

What Is Year-End Tax Settlement?

Year-end tax settlement — called 연말정산 in Korean — is the annual process where salaried workers reconcile the income tax withheld from their paychecks throughout the year against their actual tax liability. Every month, your employer withholds a provisional amount of income tax based on a simplified tax table. That table cannot account for your personal deductions, credits, or special circumstances. The year-end settlement fixes this gap. You submit documentation of your eligible expenses and deductions, your employer recalculates the tax, and the difference is either refunded to you or collected as additional tax owed. The process is governed by the Income Tax Act (소득세법) and administered by the National Tax Service (국세청).

For most Korean salaried workers, 연말정산 is the single biggest opportunity to reduce their annual tax burden. The system distinguishes between income deductions (소득공제), which reduce your taxable income before tax rates are applied, and tax credits (세액공제), which directly reduce the amount of tax you owe. Income deductions include the earned income deduction (근로소득공제) — automatically calculated based on your gross salary — and personal deductions for dependents. Tax credits cover items like insurance premiums, medical expenses, education costs, donations, and retirement savings contributions. Getting these right can mean the difference between owing additional tax and receiving a substantial refund.

The timeline follows a predictable rhythm each year. Employers typically distribute settlement guides in January. You gather receipts and documentation — or use the NTS Simplified Service (간소화 서비스) to download most records electronically — and submit everything to your employer by mid-to-late January. Your employer processes the calculations and files with the NTS by the end of February. Any refund or additional tax amount appears in your February or March paycheck. Missing the employer deadline does not mean you lose the deductions forever — you can file a general income tax return (종합소득세 신고) in May to claim what you missed — but the employer-mediated process is simpler for most people.

Key Features of the Tax Refund Calculator

  • Earned Income Deduction Calculation — The calculator applies the tiered 근로소득공제 rates to your gross salary automatically. For 2024, the deduction ranges from 70% of the first 5 million KRW down to 2% of amounts exceeding 100 million KRW. You enter your annual gross salary and the tool computes the exact deduction — no need to look up bracket tables yourself.
  • Personal and Dependent Deductions — Claim the basic personal deduction of 1.5 million KRW per qualifying dependent, including yourself. Additional deductions apply for dependents who are elderly (70 or older), disabled, or female heads of household. The calculator walks you through each eligible category and tallies the total personal deduction amount.
  • Special Expense Deductions and Credits — Input your spending on insurance premiums (보험료), medical expenses (의료비), education costs (교육비), and charitable donations (기부금). The tool applies the correct deduction limits and credit rates for each category. Medical expenses, for example, are deductible only above 3% of your gross salary, and the credit rate is 15% of the qualifying amount. Education expense credits differ by type — elementary through high school versus university versus vocational training — and the calculator handles each correctly.
  • Credit Card and Cash Receipt Deductions — Spending via credit cards, debit cards, cash receipts, and traditional market purchases each qualify for income deductions at different rates — 15% for credit cards, 30% for debit cards and cash receipts, and 40% for traditional market spending. The deduction only kicks in after your total spending exceeds 25% of your gross salary. The calculator tracks these thresholds and applies the correct rates to each spending category.
  • Pension and Savings Credits — Contributions to individual retirement pension accounts (개인연금저축) and retirement pension plans (퇴직연금) qualify for tax credits of 12% to 15%, depending on your total salary. The annual cap on qualifying contributions is 9 million KRW across these accounts combined. The calculator factors in your salary level and contribution amounts to determine the exact credit.
  • Refund vs. Additional Tax Summary — After applying all deductions and credits, the tool compares your calculated tax liability against the total tax already withheld during the year. A positive difference means a refund headed your way. A negative difference means you owe additional tax. The summary breaks down each component so you can see exactly which deductions and credits had the biggest impact.

How to Calculate Your Tax Refund

  1. 1

    Gather Your Income Information

    Start with your annual gross salary — the total amount your employer paid you before any deductions. This is not your take-home pay. Check your employment income withholding receipt (근로소득 원천징수영수증) from the previous year or ask your HR department for the current year figure. You also need the total amount of income tax withheld during the year, which appears on the same document. If you changed jobs during the year, combine figures from all employers. The calculator needs both numbers — gross salary and total tax withheld — to produce an accurate result.

  2. 2

    Apply the Earned Income Deduction

    The earned income deduction (근로소득공제) is applied automatically based on your gross salary using a tiered rate structure. The first 5 million KRW is deducted at 70%, the next 10 million at 40%, the next 45 million at 15%, the next 40 million at 5%, and anything above 100 million at 2%. For a salary of 50 million KRW, the earned income deduction is approximately 12.75 million KRW. The calculator handles this arithmetic — you just confirm your gross salary figure is correct.

  3. 3

    Enter Personal and Dependent Information

    Indicate the number of qualifying dependents. This includes yourself, your spouse if they earned less than 1 million KRW in total income (or 5 million KRW in gross salary from employment), children, and parents or grandparents you support. Each dependent qualifies for a 1.5 million KRW basic deduction. Additional deductions — 1 million KRW for dependents aged 70 or older, 2 million KRW for disabled dependents — stack on top. Be precise about who qualifies. A parent who received their own pension income exceeding the threshold does not count as your dependent for this purpose.

  4. 4

    Input Special Expense Details

    This is where the biggest refund opportunities live. Enter your total insurance premium payments — national health insurance is included automatically, and private insurance premiums are credited at 12% up to 1 million KRW. Medical expenses qualify for a 15% credit on amounts exceeding 3% of your gross salary, with no cap for expenses related to disabled persons or those over 65. Education expenses vary: up to 3 million KRW per child for elementary through high school, up to 9 million KRW for university students, and no limit for the worker's own education. Charitable donations are split into statutory donations (법정기부금) with no deduction ceiling and designated donations (지정기부금) capped at 10% to 30% of adjusted gross income depending on the recipient organization.

  5. 5

    Review the Refund or Balance Due

    The calculator now computes your total taxable income after all deductions, applies the progressive income tax rates — ranging from 6% on the first 14 million KRW to 45% on income above 1 billion KRW — and then subtracts your tax credits. The resulting figure is your actual tax liability for the year. Compare this against the total tax withheld by your employer. If the withheld amount exceeds your liability, you get a refund. If it falls short, you owe the difference. Review each line item carefully — a missed deduction or an incorrectly entered figure can shift the outcome by hundreds of thousands of won.

Expert Tips for Maximizing Your Tax Refund

The NTS Simplified Service (간소화 서비스) at hometax.go.kr is your most powerful ally during 연말정산. It aggregates data from insurance companies, hospitals, schools, banks, and card companies into a single downloadable report. The service typically opens in mid-January each year. Log in with your public certificate or simple authentication, select the tax year, and download your records. Most of the documentation you need is already there — insurance premiums, medical payments, education fees, card spending, pension contributions, and donations to registered organizations. Items that are missing — such as payments to small clinics that did not report electronically, or donations to unregistered entities — must be documented manually with paper receipts.

Strategic use of payment methods throughout the year can increase your deduction. Credit card spending earns a 15% deduction rate, while debit cards and cash receipts earn 30%, and traditional market purchases earn 40%. The catch is that none of this counts until your total spending exceeds 25% of your gross salary. If you earn 40 million KRW, the first 10 million KRW in spending produces zero deduction regardless of payment method. Once past that threshold, every additional won spent via debit card or cash receipt is deducted at double the credit card rate. A practical approach: use credit cards for the first 25% of salary in spending to collect rewards points, then switch to debit cards and cash receipts for the rest of the year to maximize the tax deduction.

Do not overlook the standard deduction if your itemized special deductions are small. The tax code offers a standard deduction of 130,000 KRW in lieu of itemizing insurance, medical, education, and donation expenses. For workers with few qualifying expenses — perhaps a single person with no dependents, minimal medical bills, and no education costs — the standard deduction may actually produce a better result than itemizing. The calculator should compare both paths and recommend the one that yields a lower tax liability. Always check this before assuming that itemizing is automatically better.

If you miss the January deadline with your employer, you still have options. You can file a general income tax return (종합소득세 신고) during the May filing period. This route requires more paperwork — you handle the filing yourself through Hometax rather than relying on your employer — but it lets you claim every deduction and credit you are entitled to. You can also file an amended return (경정청구) within five years if you discover a missed deduction after the original filing. The NTS processes these refund requests and typically issues payment within two to three months. There is no penalty for claiming a legitimate deduction late — only for failing to report income.

Related Tools

Salary After Tax Calculator

See how monthly withholding affects your take-home pay before the year-end settlement adjusts the final amount

Monthly Salary Calculator

Convert annual salary to monthly figures to calculate the 25% spending threshold for card deductions

Health Insurance Calculator

Determine your health insurance premium contributions that automatically count toward your insurance expense credit

Year-end tax settlement does not exist in isolation — it connects to every paycheck you receive and every deduction that flows from your employment. The Salary After Tax Calculator shows how monthly withholding shapes your cash flow throughout the year, giving you a baseline to understand why your refund or balance due lands where it does. The Monthly Salary Calculator helps you pin down the 25% spending threshold that gates your credit and debit card deductions. And the Health Insurance Calculator clarifies exactly how much you pay in 건강보험 premiums — a figure that feeds directly into your insurance expense tax credit. Used together, these tools turn 연말정산 from an opaque annual ritual into a transparent, plannable process.

Frequently Asked Questions

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