Capital Gains Surcharge Grace Deadline

When someone who owns two or more homes sells one located in a regulated area, a surcharge is added to the capital gains tax rate. That surcharge had been suspended for a period, and the suspension ended on 2026-05-09; from then on the surcharge applies again. There is, however, a transitional rule for anyone who had already contracted to sell or applied for a land-transaction permit before the suspension ended: complete the sale within a set deadline and the tax is charged on the old basis without the surcharge. Enter which route you took, where the home is and when the sales contract was signed, and this calculator gives the last day by which the balance must be settled and how many days remain from today.

The output is a single date, but a great deal of money hangs on it. Miss it by a single day and the basic rate carries an extra 20 percentage points for a second home or 30 for a third or more, and the long-term holding deduction disappears. The same home sold at the same price can attract tens of millions of won more in tax because of one day on the settlement date, which is why knowing the exact date is the whole point.

Multi-home owners who signed a sales contract and received a deposit on a regulated-area home by 2026-05-09, or who applied for a land-transaction permit by that date in a permit zone. They use the date when fixing the settlement day with the buyer, when the settlement looks likely to slip, and when scheduling the registration filing. Because the date of transfer is the earlier of the settlement date and the registration filing date, it also tells you whether getting the registration filed in time can save the case if the money is late.

Estate agents and tax advisers use it too. The deadline is 4 months in some areas and 6 in others, and the permit route carries an absolute deadline when the contract comes late, so the date differs from client to client. The calculator resolves those branches in one pass.

The basis is 소득세법 시행령 제167조의10제1항제12호의2 for a household with two homes and 제167조의3제1항제12호의2 for three or more, while the surcharge rates themselves come from 소득세법 제104조제7항. The rule provides two routes. Under item 다, a sales contract signed and deposit received by 2026-05-09 must be completed within 4 months of the contract date, or 6 months where the home is in a newly designated regulated area. Under item 나, for land in a permit zone, a permit applied for by 2026-05-09 must be granted, a contract signed, and the sale completed within the same number of months of that contract; but if the contract falls on or after 2026-05-10, the absolute deadline is 2026-09-09, or 2026-11-09 in a newly designated area. Under either route the home must have been held for at least two years.

The calculator looks at the route first. On the contract route, a contract dated after 2026-05-09 fails the condition outright, so no deadline is computed and the result says so. On the permit route, a contract dated on or after 2026-05-10 takes the regional absolute deadline. Otherwise the deadline is the contract date plus the regional number of months, counted to the corresponding day: a contract on 2026-05-09 plus 4 months lands exactly on 2026-09-09, matching the absolute deadline. Finally it compares the deadline with today's date to show the days left, or that the deadline has passed.

The calculator's default is a home in an existing regulated area (Gangnam, Seocho, Songpa or Yongsan) contracted on 2026-05-09, the last day of the suspension. Adding 4 months gives a settlement deadline of 2026-09-09. A contract on the same day for a home in a newly designated regulated area gets 6 months instead, running to 2026-11-09. A contract in a newly designated area signed earlier, on 1 March, brings the deadline forward to 2026-09-01.

The permit route works differently. If a permit in a newly designated area was applied for by 2026-05-09 but granted late, so that the contract was signed on 15 June, the deadline is not the contract date plus 6 months but the absolute deadline of 2026-11-09. Conversely, enter 2026-05-10 as the contract date on the contract route and the calculator returns not a deadline but a notice that the condition is not met: a contract signed after the suspension ended is outside the transitional rule.

The most common mistake is treating a provisional deposit as a contract. A provisional agreement, or a pre-agreement made before a land-transaction permit, is not a contract; there must be a formal sales contract and evidence such as a bank transfer that the deposit was paid. The next is choosing the wrong region. Existing regulated areas get 4 months and newly designated ones 6, a two-month difference, so check which category your home falls into before relying on a date.

Setting the settlement for the last possible day is also risky. If the buyer's loan is a day late there is no relief. The date of transfer is the earlier of settlement and registration filing, so leave a margin. The existing-area route has been closed since 2026-09-10, so whatever contract date you enter, the deadline shows as passed. The newly designated areas remain open until 2026-11-09. After that, every multi-home sale in a regulated area carries the surcharge without exception. Single-home owners are unaffected: the surcharge applies only to two or more homes, and the one-home exemption and the temporary two-home relief are separate rules.