Free · Korean law as of October 2026 · Nothing you type is sent
Annual leave calculator for Korea
Enter your hire date to see your paid annual leave under Korea's Labor Standards Act, year by year: when each grant arises, how many days, and which rule gives it. Counts on a hire-date or a calendar-year basis.
Rules of
Leave up to this date is added up. If you are leaving, enter your last day of work.
BasisThe law's own basis: each year counts from your hire date.
Both filled in: the two are multiplied for an estimate of unused-leave pay.
Enter the “Hire date”. The “Reference date” starts at today; if you are leaving, change it to your last day of work.
Choose the basis your employer uses, “Hire date” or “Calendar year (1 Jan)”. Tick the boxes below if your workplace has fewer than 5 regular workers or you work under 15 hours a week.
Press “Calculate” to see the leave arisen by the reference date and a table of each grant's date, days and rule.
Enter both the daily ordinary wage and the unused days to also get an estimate of unused-leave pay.
If something goes wrong
The total includes days already used or lapsed. Check your employer's attendance records for the days you have left.
If you were hired before 30 May 2017, the old rule makes your real total lower than the table.
An estimate assuming full attendance every month and at least 80% every year, using Korean law as of 30 October 2026. Your employer's records and rules decide the days you actually have.
How the days are countedHow this works
The rules for annual leave
Under Article 60 of Korea's Labor Standards Act, paid annual leave (연차, yeoncha) builds up like this. In the first year, each month of full attendance earns 1 day, up to 11. After a year with at least 80% attendance, 15 days. From three years of service, 1 more day for every two years beyond the first: 16 days at three years, 17 at five, up to a limit of 25 days (reached at 21 years).
The calculator assumes full attendance in every month and at least 80% in every year. A month with an absence, or a year under 80%, gives fewer days than shown. Time off for a work injury, maternity leave and parental leave count as attendance under the same article.
The day the leave arises
Leave arises on the day after a month or a year of work is finished, and only if you are still employed on that day. This follows the Supreme Court's ruling of 14 October 2021 (2021da227100) and the Ministry of Employment and Labor's interpretation changed on 16 December 2021.
So someone hired on 1 January 2025 earns the first day on 1 February 2025, and the 15 days on 1 January 2026 — the 366th day. The ministry's own examples: a one-year contract gives at most 11 days, and someone who works 366 days and then leaves can claim pay for up to 26 unused days. If you are leaving, enter your last day of work as the reference date.
Calendar-year basis
The law counts leave from each person's hire date, but some employers set one date — 1 January — for everyone through their work rules. The ministry allows this as long as people hired mid-year are not worse off: they get leave in proportion to the part of the first year they worked, on the next 1 January. Like the ministry's example, this page uses 15 × (days from the hire date to 31 December) ÷ 365, shown to one decimal: hired 20 September 2020, that is 103 days, about 4.2 days.
On each later 1 January, the page uses the years of service completed on that day for the extra-day rule. The ministry's answer does not say how to count the extra days on this basis, so this is the article read as written, and your employer's rules may count differently. On leaving, the ministry's answers say that if the hire-date count is higher the difference has to be given, and if the calendar-year count is higher it applies unless the work rules say otherwise — so the page shows both totals.
When it does not apply, and leave pay
Article 60 does not apply at a workplace with fewer than five regular workers: the decree listing the rules that apply to four or fewer workers does not include it. It also does not apply to someone who works less than 15 hours a week on a four-week average (Article 18). Tick either box and the page explains this instead of counting days.
Enter a daily ordinary wage and the number of unused days to see the two multiplied, rounded to the won. Employers pay by the ordinary or the average wage as their rules say, and owe nothing if they followed the formal steps to push you to use the leave (Article 61). Leave lapses if not used within a year; first-year monthly days must be used by the end of the first year. For hires before 30 May 2017, the first year's days were taken out of the second year's 15 under the old rule.
If I leave after exactly one year, how many days of leave are paid?
Up to 11, from the monthly days. The 15 days for the first year arise on the day after the year is finished — the 366th day — and only if you are still employed then. Someone who works 366 days and then leaves can claim up to 26 days. This is the Ministry of Employment and Labor's interpretation since 16 December 2021, after a Supreme Court ruling.
How many days of annual leave do I get each year?
Up to 11 in the first year (1 per month of full attendance), then 15 after one year, 15 after two, 16 after three and four, 17 after five and six, and so on, adding 1 day every two years up to 25. It assumes at least 80% attendance each year.
Does annual leave apply at a workplace with fewer than five people?
No. Article 60 of the Labor Standards Act is not among the rules that apply to workplaces with four or fewer regular workers. It also does not apply to someone working under 15 hours a week. An employer may still give leave under its own rules.