National Pension contribution rate

9.5%% of gross pay, split employer/employee

Half is the employer's cost and half is deducted from pay, so the employee side is always this figure divided by two. The first increase since 1998 landed in 2026 and English-language guides still carry the old 9%. It is also the one social insurance rate whose future is already fixed in law rather than negotiated annually, which is why the path to 2033 is recorded separately below rather than left to be rediscovered each January.

Applies to: Employees, including most foreign nationals. Some nationalities are exempt by treaty.
Review cadence: Checked once a year

What it has been

2026-01-01
9.5%Current
First rate rise in 28 years.
National Pension Service
2025-01-01
9%
Unchanged since 1998.
National Pension Service

Already scheduled

Set in law, not yet in force. These are not the figure to use today — they are what it becomes, and when.

2027-01-01
10.0%
Employee share 5.0%.
National Pension Service — legislated rate path under the 2026 pension reform
2028-01-01
10.5%
Employee share 5.25%.
National Pension Service — legislated rate path under the 2026 pension reform
2029-01-01
11.0%
Employee share 5.5%.
National Pension Service — legislated rate path under the 2026 pension reform
2030-01-01
11.5%
Employee share 5.75%.
National Pension Service — legislated rate path under the 2026 pension reform
2031-01-01
12.0%
Employee share 6.0%.
National Pension Service — legislated rate path under the 2026 pension reform
2032-01-01
12.5%
Employee share 6.25%.
National Pension Service — legislated rate path under the 2026 pension reform
2033-01-01
13.0%
Employee share 6.5%. End of the legislated path.
National Pension Service — legislated rate path under the 2026 pension reform

Evidence

The August 2026 statement for a Korean workplace of six to eight insured people. The line worth finding is in the first table: 가입자보험료 ₩725,300 and 사용자보험료 ₩725,300 — the employee's share and the employer's share, identical, on the same bill. The same split runs through long-term care at ₩95,250 each. Health and long-term care together come to ₩1,641,100, pension ₩1,604,480, employment ₩408,990 and industrial accident ₩741,040. Employment insurance is the one that is not split evenly: it separates unemployment benefit (₩359,120) from employment stability and vocational development (₩49,870), and industrial accident is the employer's alone.
2026-08-24 · Cropped to the calculation page. The workplace name, management number, payer number, electronic payment number, the payment-only account numbers and the payment QR code are on other pages of the notice and are not included here. The insured headcount is left in — without it the amounts mean nothing.

Guides that depend on this figure

When this figure moves, every guide above needs the same edit. That is why it is tracked here rather than copied into each one.