Working in Korea as a Foreigner? How the Four Insurances Apply to You
If you are a foreign national employed in Korea, the four major insurances apply at largely the same rates as for Korean employees. What differs is how enrollment works, and those differences depend heavily on your visa type and your home country. Here is what to know before you read your first Korean payslip.
- Health Insurance: Enrollment is generally mandatory. If you work at a Korean company, you are typically enrolled through your employer from your start date; foreigners staying six months or longer without workplace coverage are, as a rule, enrolled automatically as regional subscribers.
- National Pension: Whether you must contribute — and whether you can claim a lump-sum refund when you leave Korea for good — depends on the social security (totalization) agreement between Korea and your home country. Some nationalities are exempt; others are covered just like Korean nationals.
- Employment Insurance: Coverage varies by visa status. For some visas it is mandatory, for others voluntary or excluded, so do not assume the 0.9% deduction applies to you without checking.
- Industrial Accident Insurance: This covers essentially every worker in Korea regardless of nationality or visa, and it costs you nothing — the employer pays the full premium.
These rules change often and hinge on individual circumstances, so treat the notes above as a starting point, not a ruling. Confirm your own situation with the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) and the National Pension Service (NPS) — both offer English-language support — before making decisions such as claiming a pension refund.
Understanding Korea's Four Major Insurances in Depth (2026)
Korea's "four major insurances" are the National Pension, National Health Insurance, Employment Insurance, and Industrial Accident (Workers' Comp) Insurance, plus Long-Term Care Insurance, which is levied as an add-on to health insurance — so payroll calculations usually cover five line items. The key point is that premiums are based not on annual salary but on monthly remuneration (taxable monthly income), to which each rate is applied. Industrial accident insurance is paid entirely by the employer and is not deducted from wages, so what actually comes out of your paycheck is the National Pension, Health Insurance, Long-Term Care, and Employment Insurance — four items.
2026 Rates at a Glance
The table below shows employee and employer shares for 2026. National Pension and Health Insurance are split exactly 50/50 between employee and employer, while Long-Term Care is structured differently — it is a percentage of the health insurance premium, not of monthly remuneration.
| Item | Employee share | Employer share | Calculation base |
|---|
| National Pension | 4.75% | 4.75% | Standard monthly income |
| Health Insurance | 3.595% | 3.595% | Monthly remuneration |
| Long-Term Care | 13.14% of health premium | 13.14% of health premium | Health premium amount |
| Employment Insurance | 0.9% | 0.9% + employer levy (by size) | Monthly remuneration |
The employee's employment-insurance share is a flat 0.9%, but employers pay an extra employment-stability/skills-development levy (roughly 0.25–0.85% depending on company size). So an employer's total employment-insurance burden lands around 1.15–1.75%.
Pension Income Caps and Monthly Remuneration
To keep premiums from rising indefinitely, the National Pension sets an upper and lower bound on standard monthly income. For the period July 2025–June 2026 the cap is 6.37 million KRW and the floor 400,000 KRW. Even if you earn 7 million a month, your pension premium stops at 6.37 million × 4.75% (about 303,000 KRW). These bounds are adjusted every July based on the change in average insured income, so always check the National Pension Service's annual notice for the exact bands.
Health and employment insurance, by contrast, have no comparably low cap (health insurance does have a monthly premium ceiling, but it is so high it rarely applies to ordinary employees), so high earners shoulder a proportionally larger health-insurance load. Another common confusion: "monthly remuneration" is taxable income — it excludes non-taxable items such as the meal allowance (up to 200,000 KRW/month) and the self-driving allowance (up to 200,000 KRW/month).
Worked Example: An Employee Earning 3 Million KRW/Month
For an employee whose monthly remuneration (after excluding non-taxable items) is exactly 3,000,000 KRW, the monthly deductions break down as follows.
- National Pension: 3,000,000 × 4.75% = 142,500 KRW
- Health Insurance: 3,000,000 × 3.595% = 107,850 KRW
- Long-Term Care: 107,850 × 13.14% = 14,171 KRW (charged on the health premium)
- Employment Insurance: 3,000,000 × 0.9% = 27,000 KRW
- Total employee deduction: about 291,521 KRW (roughly 9.7% of pay)
So an employee earning 3 million a month loses about 290,000 KRW to the four insurances alone, before income tax and local income tax. The employer pays a matching amount separately, meaning the company's real labor cost is more than 10% above the headline salary.
Workplace vs. Regional Subscribers, and the Duru-nuri Subsidy
Workplace subscribers split premiums 50/50 with their employer, but regional subscribers (freelancers, the self-employed) have their health premium assessed on a points system that includes property and vehicles, not just income — and they pay the full amount themselves. As a result, two people with the same income can face very different burdens. If you freelance, pair this with the Freelancer Tax Calculator to check your real take-home flow.
In addition, low-wage workers at small workplaces (fewer than 10 regular employees) may receive the Duru-nuri social insurance subsidy, with the government covering part (up to 80%) of National Pension and Employment Insurance premiums. It targets newly enrolled workers, and the eligible wage threshold changes yearly, so verify it at the Social Insurance Information Center.
Common Mistakes and Year-End Reconciliation
- Health insurance reconciliation: Each April, premiums are recalculated against your actual prior-year remuneration — you get a refund if you overpaid or a bill if you underpaid. In a year your salary rose, the April settlement can be a nasty surprise, so plan ahead.
- Including non-taxable pay in the base: Failing to subtract meal/vehicle allowances inflates the premium above what you actually owe.
- Treating Long-Term Care as a separate rate: Remember it is 13.14% of the health-insurance premium amount, not of monthly remuneration.
- Ignoring the cap: High earners have a lower effective burden because of the pension cap (6.37 million KRW).