Statutory Social Insurance Tips

l Year-end settlement of statutory national health insurance premiums performed in April each year

During the year, the statutory national health insurance (NHI) is withheld from employee's salaries (as assessed by the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) based on the gross salary base excluding a non-taxable allowance of the employee for the prior year reported; this monthly withholding will apply for the period of April of the current year through March of next year).

Employers shall finalize and report annual gross earned income of their employees to the government agency in March of the following year.

In April of the following year, the NHIS performs year-end settlement of NHI based on the actual gross salaries paid during the year and assesses additionally any underpaid NHI (for employee and employer portions in total) based on the results of such year-end settlement. The employer is required to withhold additionally any underpaid NHI from employee's salaries through April payroll and pay the additional NHI premium (for employee and employer portions in total) by payment due date of May 10.

Employees can apply for installment payment for the underpaid NHI premiums for up to 10 installments if the underpaid NIH is higher than the NHI premium of the month.

In addition, based on the gross salary base reported to the government agency for 2023, the NHIS will assess new monthly NHI withholding following the calculation methodology below. This new monthly NHI withholding shall apply for the period of April 2024 through March 2025.

	Before April 2023 – Mar 2024	New monthly withholding Apr 2024 – Mar 2025
NHI monthly withholding	Avg. monthly wage reported for 2022 Í3.545% (NHI rate in 2024) (*)	Avg. monthly wage reported for 2023 Í3.545%

(*) HI rate in 2024 has remained unchanged from 2023

 

l Dependent family qualification of statutory national health insurance coverage for foreigners (non-Korean) amended (effective from April 3, 2024)

The Korean government recently announced that for foreigners (non-Korean) to add their dependent family members to their statutory national health insurance (NHI) plan in Korea, such dependent family members (other than spouse and children under the age of 19) shall be required to physically reside in Korea for 6 months or more to be qualified for NHI coverage under the amended National Health Insurance Act, which took effect from April 3, 2024. Spouse and children under the age of 19 will still be qualified upon arrival in Korea as before. This amended qualification requirement shall also apply to dependent family members of Korean nationals residing overseas.

Before this revision, dependent family members of foreigners or overseas Korean nationals were eligible for NHI coverage regardless of their duration of stay in Korea as long as they meet dependent criteria (defined).