Asia
South Korea

South Korea

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Employer of Record (EOR) in South Korea

What you'll learn

South Korea Introduction

South Korea is a country in east Asia that is made up of the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, and shares a border with North Korea. It is a highly developed country and has the 3rd-highest life expectancy in the world.

South Korea’s citizens enjoy one of the world's fastest Internet connection speeds as well as the densest high-speed railway network, making it a great place for remote workers.

Employment Terms

The minimum wage in South Korea is KRW 9,620 per hour, and a standard workweek is 40 hours per week at 8 hours per day. Overtime work is paid at between 150%-200% of the salary, and the maximum allowed is 12 hours per week.

Types of Leave

Parental Leave

Pregnant employees are entitled to 90 days of maternity leave, generally taken as 45 days before the due date and 45 days after the birth. The leave is paid for partly by the employer and partly by social security.

Fathers are entitled to mandatory paid paternity leave of 10 days, 5 of which are paid by the employer and the other 5 days are paid by social security. Parents with children under the age of 8 can also request childcare leave of up to 1 year.

Sick Leave

There is no sick leave entitlement in South Korea.

Paid Leave

South Korea has 13 public holidays, and employees are also entitled to at least 11 days of paid time off each year (after completing 1 year at the company). As the employee’s length of service continues, the entitlement goes up to 15 days and then 25 days of leave.

Termination Process

Process

Employers can terminate an employment contract with just cause — a reason that is legally acceptable according to the Korean Labour Standards Act. When laying off an employee, the employer first has to prove that an “urgent managerial necessity” exists.

Notice Period

There is no mandatory notice period in South Korea unless it is stipulated in the employment contract. A standard notice period for termination is 30 days.

Severance Pay

Severance pay is mandatory in certain cases, and the amount depends the length of employment at the company. An average severance payment is 1 month of salary for every year of work at the company.

Additional Information

N/A

Overview

Language (s):
Korean
Currency
South Korean Won (KRW)
Capital City:
Seoul
Population:
51.8 Million
Cost of Living Rank:
21st
VAT (Valued Added Tax):
10%

Employer Taxes

10.98%

(estimated)

★  4.5% - National Pension

★  3.54% - National Health Insurance

★  1.15% - Employment Insurance

★  0.45% - Long term care insurance

★  1% - Worker Accident Compensation Insurance

★  0.5% - Resident Tax

Where you pay less, and get so much more.

Get global HR, compliance and payroll in 3 simple steps:
1

Find your remote talent

You've sourced a full-time employee or contractor located in a country where your company is not incorporated.
2

We’ll find the best price

Pass us the details of your candidate and we will let you know exactly what it costs to employ your candidate in that country.
3

Leave the onboarding & 
admin to us

Sit back and relax as we onboard your new team member and take care of all the local compliances and admin work.
How RemoFirst employs in South Korea
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It can be prohibitively expensive to establish an entity in every country you want to hire talent in, so RemoFirst will hire and pay your employee on your behalf while you manage their daily duties. RemoFirst will handle formal HR procedures and employment contracts that adhere to local laws, so that you can simply approve invoices via our platform. When you work with an Employer of Record (EOR) you can compliantly hire the best employees around the world.
How employees in South Korea get paid
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Your employee's hours, time off, holidays, bonuses, and commissions are automatically calculated into payroll. RemoFirst will invoice you in either US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR), British Pounds (GBP), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Australian Dollars (AUD), or Singapore Dollars (SGD) around the 15th of each month to make sure your employees in Cyprus are paid on time in Euro (EUR). To make it even easier, you can summarize your entire global team's salaries to aggregate them into one payment (instead of many individual payments).
Full-time Employees vs Global Contractors
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Unlike full-time employees, contractors work on projects with multiple companies at a given time and are technically self-employed. Full-time employees are solely focused on their employer and usually receive benefits (such as health insurance, equity or stock options, and time off) as an additional form of compensation. While it can be cheaper to work with international contractors instead of paying benefits to a full-time employee, you run the risk of misclassification. It's recommended to work with an EOR for contractor onboarding and payments, so you can know that your international contractors are paid compliantly and on time.
Dependable support for employees
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Whenever the employee or employer has a question about benefits, Visas, or anything else related to international employment, they can speak with our customer support team to get answers from our team of experts.