Korean Hourly Rate From Monthly Pay Calculator

Many employment contracts state a monthly salary and no hourly rate. But the minimum wage is set per hour, so to know whether you are being paid at least the minimum you have to divide your salary by hours. This calculator takes your gross monthly pay and weekly hours, derives the hourly rate, and tests it against the 2026 minimum wage of ₩10,320. If you fall short, it shows the shortfall per hour and the monthly amount you should be receiving.

Everything turns on what you divide by. Divide the same salary by hours actually worked and the rate looks high; include the paid weekly holiday hours and it drops. The law prescribes the second method, so the calculator shows both figures side by side but judges compliance only on the hours that include the paid holiday.

Part-timers and short-hours workers paid a flat monthly amount who wonder whether it really meets the minimum. It is used most for jobs like convenience stores, cafes and cram schools that contract 20 to 30 hours a week for a fixed monthly sum. It also checks the employer's claim that "that figure already includes the holiday pay".

Owners of small businesses hiring on a monthly salary need it too. A contract that pays below the minimum wage is void on that point and is treated as if it promised the minimum, so it is better to check the monthly floor for a given weekly schedule before signing than to face a complaint and back pay later. The minimum changes every year, so rerun it each January.

최저임금법 제5조제1항 requires the minimum wage to be expressed as an hourly rate, and 같은 법 시행령 제5조제1항제3호 converts a monthly wage to hourly by dividing by the month's contracted working hours, including paid holiday hours for workers entitled to them. Under 근로기준법 제55조제1항 the paid weekly holiday applies from 15 contracted hours a week; the holiday hours are weekly hours divided by five, capped at 8 hours once you reach 40 hours a week. That is where the 209-hour monthly figure for a 40-hour week comes from.

The steps are these. Add the holiday hours to the weekly hours, multiply by the average number of weeks in a month (365 ÷ 7 ÷ 12) and round, to get monthly contracted hours. Divide gross monthly pay by that to get the derived hourly rate. The applicable minimum is ₩10,320, reduced by 10% under 시행령 제3조 for the first 3 months of probation on a contract of a year or more, except that simple-labour jobs get no reduction at all. A derived rate below the applicable minimum is a breach, and the applicable minimum times monthly hours is the pay you should receive. The next minimum of ₩10,700 was announced on 2026-08-05 and takes effect on 2027-01-01, after which the test uses that figure.

Take someone working 25 hours a week for ₩1.3 million gross a month. At 15 hours or more they qualify for the paid holiday, which is 25 divided by 5, or 5 hours. Thirty hours a week times the average weeks per month gives 130 monthly hours, and ₩1.3 million divided by 130 is exactly ₩10,000 an hour. Against the ₩10,320 minimum that is ₩320 an hour short, so it is a breach. The pay required on this schedule is ₩1,341,600, leaving ₩41,600 a month unpaid.

Divide the same salary by the 109 hours actually worked and the rate appears to be ₩11,926, comfortably above the minimum. That figure is shown on screen but plays no part in the verdict. Conversely, if this person is within the first 3 months of probation on a contract of a year or more and not in a simple-labour job, the applicable minimum falls by 10% to ₩9,288, and the same ₩1.3 million becomes compliant.

The most common is dividing without the holiday hours. For a 40-hour week the statutory divisor is 209 hours; using 174 inflates the rate and hides a breach. The second is entering the amount that landed in your bank account as gross pay. Dividing a figure that already has social insurance and income tax taken out gives a rate that is too low and shows a breach where there is none. Use the gross total from your payslip, or switch the input basis to net so the calculator estimates gross first.

The third is entering a salary that includes overtime, night or holiday premiums. Those premiums are excluded from the minimum wage test, so a salary containing them yields a rate higher than the true one. The fourth is assuming probation always allows the 10% cut. It does not apply to contracts under a year, after 3 months, or to simple-labour jobs. Simple labour is not "hard work" but a defined set of occupations under major group 9 of the Korean Standard Classification of Occupations, and convenience-store cashiers and restaurant servers are not in it.