The first question most people ask before leaving a job in Korea is simple: am I owed severance pay at all? Someone quitting after eleven months wonders whether one more month would make a difference. A part-timer who has worked three days a week for over a year wonders whether part-time work counts. A contract worker with two six-month contracts wonders whether two separate contracts add up to a year. The law states the eligibility rules in just two lines, but in practice the answer depends on how the days are counted and which hours count. This guide goes beyond the statute text. It uses case tables and comparison tables so you can plug in your own situation and decide whether you qualify.
1. Only two conditions: one year of continuous service and 15 hours a week
Article 4 of the Employee Retirement Benefit Security Act requires every employer to provide a retirement benefit, with two exceptions. Put the other way around, if you meet both conditions below, you are entitled to severance pay.
| Condition | Legal standard | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Continuous service | At least 1 year | The unbroken period from your start date to your retirement date |
| 2. Working hours | Contractual hours averaging at least 15 per week over 4 weeks | Hours set in the contract or schedule; overtime is not counted |
| Workplace size | No minimum | Fully applies to workplaces with fewer than 5 employees since 2013 |
| Employment type | No restriction | Regular, fixed-term, part-time and daily workers all qualify if they are employees |
Two misconceptions come up again and again. First, company size does not matter. Some rules, such as annual leave and dismissal protection, partly exempt workplaces with fewer than five employees, but severance pay does not. Even a one-person business must pay it to an employee who has worked for a year. Second, the job label does not matter either. An employer may say there is no severance because you are "just a part-timer", "on a contract" or "a freelancer paid with 3.3% withheld". If you actually worked set hours under the employer's direction for a wage, you are treated as an employee, and only the two conditions apply.
So who is not covered? Workers with less than one year of continuous service, workers whose contractual hours average under 15 a week, and a few statutory exclusions such as businesses that employ only relatives living together and domestic workers. Almost everyone else qualifies once both conditions are met.
2. How to count "one year": working it out by date
Your retirement date is the day after your last working day
Continuous service runs from your start date to the day before your retirement date. Under the Ministry of Employment and Labor's interpretation, the retirement date is the day after your last day of work. If you work through the day before your one-year anniversary, you have completed a full year. For example, if you started on March 2, 2025 and your last working day is March 1, 2026, your retirement date is March 2 and your service is exactly one year. If you stop after February 28, you have only 364 days and no severance is owed.
A difference of a day or two can be worth millions of won, so getting the dates right is the first thing to do before you settle on a leaving date. Counting on a calendar is easy to get wrong around leap years and month ends, so enter your start date and last working day into the date calculator to confirm the exact number of days.
Why "1 year 11 months" is a common search
Once you pass one year, severance is prorated by the day. Working one year and eleven months earns about 1.92 years' worth, not just one year's worth. Many people assume that stopping short of two years only earns one year of severance, but that is wrong: after the first year, every additional day counts. Before the first year, even 11 months and 29 days earns nothing. The only threshold that matters is one year. After that, the amount grows in proportion to the days you work.
3. How the 15-hour rule is applied: four-week average cases
The second condition asks whether your contractual weekly hours, averaged over four weeks, reach 15. Contractual hours are the hours fixed in advance by your contract or schedule. Extra hours you worked because the manager asked are, as a rule, overtime and are not counted. For shift or rota work where hours change every week, eligibility is judged on four-week averages.
| Case | Work pattern | 4-week average contractual hours | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 3 days × 5 hours | 15 hours | Eligible |
| B | 2 days × 7 hours | 14 hours | Not eligible |
| C | Weeks 1–4: 20, 20, 10, 10 hours | 15 hours | Eligible |
| D | Weeks 1–4: 16, 14, 12, 14 hours | 14 hours | Not eligible |
| E | 14-hour contract, but 3 extra hours every week in practice | 14 contractual | Generally not eligible (arguable if the extra hours were effectively fixed) |
| F | 8 months at 20 hours/week, 4 months at 10 hours/week | Judged period by period | Only periods at 15+ hours count toward service |
Case F causes the most confusion in practice. If only part of your employment fell below 15 hours a week, the Ministry excludes those periods from continuous service and adds up only the periods at 15 hours or more to see whether they reach one year. In the example, only eight months count, so the one-year line is not met. If you worked somewhere with shifting weekly schedules, such as a logistics center or a franchise store, the first step is to collect your weekly hours from rotas or pay slips and average them over four-week blocks.
Case E also deserves attention. If your contract says 14 hours but you consistently worked 17 or 18 hours every week, you may be able to argue that the contract was a formality and your real contractual hours were 15 or more. Keep evidence of your actual work pattern, such as clock-in records and messages assigning shifts.
4. Do renewals, leave and probation count toward continuous service?
Most disputes about the one-year line involve special periods in the middle of the employment. The comparison table below summarizes them.
| Type of period | Counts toward continuous service? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Probation or trial period | Yes | Probation is part of the employment contract, so service starts on day one |
| Back-to-back contract renewals | Yes | Two consecutive 6-month contracts add up to one year |
| Short gap between contracts (a formality) | Usually yes | A customary gap, such as a school break or off-season, can still be continuous service |
| Long gap, or rehire for a different job | May break service | Service restarts from the new contract's start date |
| Parental leave | Yes | Counted as service under the Equal Employment Opportunity Act |
| Maternity leave, work-injury leave | Yes | Excluded from the average-wage calculation period |
| Personal leave (illness, study, etc.) | Yes in principle | May be excluded if the rules of employment or a collective agreement say so |
| Periods under 15 hours per week | No | Only periods at 15+ hours are added up |
Some employers try to avoid severance by repeating 11-month contracts or deliberately leaving a few days between contracts. Courts and the Ministry look at the length of the gap, the reason for it, and whether the job after renewal is the same. If the employment relationship effectively continued, the periods before and after the gap are combined. Holding several contracts does not wipe out your severance, so keep every contract you signed.
Leave periods count toward service but are excluded from the average-wage calculation. If the three months before you left were spent on leave, your average wage is calculated from the period outside that leave, so the leave does not artificially shrink your severance.
5. Under one year vs. over one year: what the difference is worth
Here is what crossing the eligibility line means in numbers. Severance is calculated as daily average wage × 30 days × days of service ÷ 365, where the daily average wage is total pay for the last three months divided by the number of days in that period. The examples below are simplified and assume salary only, with no bonuses or unused-leave payouts.
Employee earning 2.5 million won a month
Three months of pay (7.5 million won) divided by 92 days gives a daily average wage of about 81,522 won.
| Length of service | Days of service | Estimated pre-tax severance |
|---|---|---|
| 11 months 29 days | 363 days | 0 won (below the threshold) |
| 1 year | 365 days | About 2.45 million won |
| 1 year 6 months | 547 days | About 3.67 million won |
| 1 year 11 months | 700 days | About 4.69 million won |
Only two days separate 11 months 29 days from one year, yet the difference is 2.45 million won. If you have any control over your leaving date, working until the one-year mark is worth close to a month's salary.
Part-timer on 10,320 won an hour, 20 hours a week
At the 2026 minimum wage of 10,320 won, working 4 hours a day, 5 days a week (20 hours) adds 4 hours of paid weekly holiday allowance, for 24 paid hours or 247,680 won a week. The daily average wage works out to about 35,383 won, so one full year earns roughly 1.06 million won in severance. The same job on a 14-hour contract would earn nothing, which is why the 15-hour line decides part-timers' severance.
These figures are before tax. The amount that reaches your bank account is somewhat lower after retirement income tax, and the tax works differently for short service periods. See Korea severance pay after-tax calculation for how the deductions work.
6. Situation-by-situation guide: do you qualify?
Six months of work: Six months alone does not qualify, whatever the contract type. However, two consecutive six-month contracts with the same employer add up to one year and do qualify.
Part-time workers: If you worked at least a year and averaged 15 or more contractual hours a week over four-week periods, you are entitled to severance on the same terms as a full-time employee, whether you worked at a convenience store or a café. Even without a written contract, bank records of wage payments and work schedules can prove your employment.
Daily workers and short-term logistics jobs: Even if a new contract is signed each day, working continuously at the same place can be recognized as continuous service. Only periods at 15 or more hours a week are added up, so your weekly hour records are the key evidence.
"3.3% freelancers": What the work actually looks like matters more than what the contract calls it. If you had fixed hours, took work orders and received a regular wage, you can be recognized as an employee and claim severance. A genuine freelancer who sets their own methods and hours is not covered.
Claiming after you leave: The employer must pay severance within 14 days of your retirement date, and can extend that only by mutual agreement. If you are not paid on time, you can file a complaint with your regional labor office. The claim expires three years after the retirement date, so do not put it off. If you expect a stretch of job hunting after leaving, Korea unemployment benefit max and min amounts can help you plan your finances for that period.
7. Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Q1. Do I get severance if I leave exactly on my one-year anniversary?
If you worked through the day before your one-year anniversary, you have completed one year of continuous service. For example, if you started on March 2 and worked through March 1 of the following year, your retirement date is March 2 and you qualify. If you are unsure, enter your start date and last working day into the date calculator and check that the total is at least 365 days.
Q2. My employer says severance was already included in my monthly pay. Is that allowed?
Severance is a right that arises only when you leave, so an agreement to pay it in installments as part of your monthly wage during employment is generally void. You can still claim severance separately when you leave. Because repayment of the amounts already paid can become an issue, it is wise to consult the labor office.
Q3. I received an interim severance settlement. Do I need another full year?
After an interim settlement, continuous service is counted again from that point. However, you do not lose severance just because the new period is shorter than one year. You receive prorated severance for the period after the settlement, because your total service before and after it already exceeds one year.
Q4. I worked at a shop with fewer than 5 employees and the owner says small shops don't pay severance.
Severance rules have applied in full to workplaces with fewer than five employees since 2013. If you worked at least a year at 15 or more hours a week, you are entitled to severance whatever the size of the business. If it is not paid, you can file a complaint with the Ministry of Employment and Labor.
8. If you qualify, the next step: calculate your exact severance
If the criteria above show that you meet both the one-year and the 15-hour conditions, the remaining question is how much you will receive. First, use the date calculator to confirm the exact number of days from your start date to your last working day. Then enter those days and your last three months of pay into the severance pay calculator to work out your average wage and pre-tax severance in one step. If you are a few days short of a year, try different leaving dates to see which date clears the threshold and how much you would receive. To see what actually reaches your account after tax, continue with Korea severance pay after-tax calculation.
