Everything About Korean Take-home Pay
This is a Korean salary after-tax calculator. The salary written in your contract differs from what lands in your bank account: the 4 major social insurances (National Pension, Health Insurance, Long-term Care, Employment Insurance) plus income tax and local income tax are withheld every month. Enter your annual salary and this tool instantly shows your estimated monthly take-home pay with a full deduction breakdown, based on 2026 rates.
In 2026, the National Pension rate rose to 9.5% (employee share 4.75%) under the pension reform, the Health Insurance rate is 7.19% (employee 3.595%), and Long-term Care Insurance is 13.14% of the health premium. The employee share of Employment Insurance stays at 0.9%. The pension has a monthly income cap (6.59M KRW), so contributions stop rising for high earners.
Income tax is approximated by applying the earned income deduction, the basic personal deduction (1.5M KRW per person including dependents), insurance premium deductions, and the earned income tax credit in order. More dependents and a larger non-taxable allowance mean less tax. Local income tax adds 10% of the income tax.
Pro tip: before a job change or salary negotiation, check how much an extra 5M KRW of annual salary actually adds to your monthly pay. Because of progressive tax rates, deductions grow faster as salary rises. Use the 30M/40M/50M/100M preset buttons to compare brackets quickly.
The calculator also shows what top percent of Korean salaried workers your salary ranks in. Based on NTS earned-income percentile data (FY2023, 13.68M full-year workers), the top 1% cutoff is 216.73M KRW of gross pay, the top 10% cutoff is about 100.57M, the top 20% is 76.24M, the median is 42.72M, and the bottom 20% boundary is 26.42M. Enter your salary and the tool interpolates between these cutoffs to estimate your position to one decimal place, such as "Top 23.4%".