South Korea National Pension Calculator 2026

South Korea has four mandatory social insurance schemes — the so-called four major insurances (4대보험): National Pension, Health Insurance, Employment Insurance, and Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance. A separate Long-term Care Insurance rides on top of Health Insurance. This calculator applies official 2026 rates published by NPS Korea and NHIS.

National Pension (NPS) — 9.5% Split 50/50

The National Pension Service collects 9.5% of standard monthly income in 2026, split evenly: 4.75% employee + 4.75% employer. The rate rose from 9% on 1 January 2026 under the 2025 National Pension Act reform and climbs 0.5 percentage points a year until it reaches 13% in 2033. The 2026 monthly income ceiling is KRW 5,900,000 and the floor is KRW 370,000. Self-employed workers pay the full 9.5% themselves. Pension benefits begin at age 63 (gradually rising to 65 by 2033). Foreign workers from countries with a totalization agreement (US, Japan, Germany, etc.) can recover contributions when leaving Korea.

National Health Insurance (NHIS) — 7.09% + Long-term Care

The 2026 health insurance premium rate is 7.09% of monthly remuneration, split equally between employer and employee at 3.545% each. A Long-term Care Insurance premium of 12.95% of the NHI premium is added (also split 50/50). NHIS covers about 60% of medical costs nationwide with no household income cap on quality of care. The monthly contribution ceiling for 2026 is approximately KRW 9.34 million in salary.

Employment Insurance + Industrial Accident

Employment Insurance (EI) protects against job loss and funds maternity/parental leave. The 2026 unemployment insurance rate is 0.9% employee + 0.9% employer. Employers also pay an additional employment stabilization & vocational competency development premium of 0.25%–0.85% depending on company size (more for larger firms). Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance is paid 100% by the employer at rates from ~0.7% (offices) to 3.5%+ (construction), set annually by the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

Common Mistakes Employers Make

(1) Forgetting the Long-term Care rider — it's not a percent of salary but a percent of the NHI premium itself. (2) Under-reporting bonus pay — annual bonuses are subject to NPS and NHIS up to the ceiling. (3) Wrong industrial accident category — the rate ranges 10x between office work and construction; misclassification triggers back-assessment. (4) Missing foreign-worker totalization — workers from agreement countries can claim a lump-sum refund of NPS contributions when departing Korea permanently.

2026 Contribution Ceilings and What Is Not Included

Korean social insurance is capped, not open-ended, and that is the single most common reason a payroll figure looks wrong. For 2026 the NPS standard monthly income ceiling is KRW 5,900,000 with a floor of KRW 370,000, and the NHIS remuneration ceiling is roughly KRW 9,340,000 a month. Once salary passes those levels the pension and health premiums stop rising — a worker on KRW 12,000,000 pays exactly the same NPS contribution as one on KRW 5,900,000. Employment Insurance and Industrial Accident Compensation have no ceiling, so they keep scaling with the full salary. This calculator applies each ceiling automatically and flags it in the result when it bites.

What this tool does not include is income tax. The four major insurances are only one half of a Korean payslip: withholding also covers income tax (소득세) on a progressive 6%–45% scale plus a local income tax of 10% of the income tax amount, administered by the National Tax Service. Monthly withholding follows the Simplified Tax Withholding Table and is trued up in the year-end tax adjustment (연말정산) each February, where deductions for dependants, housing, medical costs, and pension savings usually produce a refund. Treat the figure above as pay after insurance, not as the amount that lands in your account. Last reviewed 21 August 2026.

The 2026–2033 National Pension Rate Schedule

2026 is the first year of a staged contribution increase, so budgeting off the old 9% figure understates payroll cost for the rest of the decade. The National Pension Act reform passed in March 2025 lifts the combined rate by 0.5 percentage points every 1 January: 9.5% in 2026, 10% in 2027, 10.5% in 2028, and onward until it settles at 13% in 2033. The split stays 50/50, so the employee share moves from 4.75% today to 6.5% at the end. The reform also raises the income replacement rate to 43%, and it exists because the fund was projected to be exhausted by 2057 — the higher contributions push that out to roughly 2065. Employers running multi-year headcount plans should model the rising rate rather than holding 2026 flat. Official rates are published by the National Pension Service.

Last updated August 2026. Sources: National Pension Service (NPS) Korea and National Health Insurance Service (NHIS). Rates verified against 2026 published schedules.