Chuseok Bonus in Korea 2026: What the Law Actually Says

Chuseok falls on Friday 25 September 2026, and the question comes round every year in the same words: does my company have to give me a holiday bonus?

The honest answer is no — no statute requires a private employer in Korea to pay a Chuseok bonus. But that is only half of it. If your Korean colleagues are getting one and you are not, a different rule applies, and it is a rule with a fine attached. Here is what the law actually says, article by article.

The short answer, before the detail

• No Korean statute obliges a private employer to pay a holiday bonus.
• The one place a Chuseok bonus is written into law covers public officials only — 60% of monthly base pay.
• If your workplace pays one, the obligation comes from your contract, the rules of employment, or a collective agreement — not from the Labor Standards Act.
• Paying it to Korean staff and withholding it from you on grounds of nationality is prohibited by Article 6 of the Labor Standards Act, punishable by a fine of up to 5 million won.
• The Act with "Foreign Workers" in its title probably does not cover you. The Labor Standards Act does.

Chuseok 2026: the dates that matter

Chuseok day itself is 25 September 2026, a Friday. The holiday runs Thursday 24 to Saturday 26, with Sunday 27 attached, so most people get four days. Because 26 September is a Saturday rather than a Sunday, no substitute holiday is added — Monday 28 September is an ordinary working day. The dates and the closure picture are covered separately in our guide to the 2026 Chuseok holiday, and the government discount package in the Chuseok discounts and free-admission guide.

Why the exact day matters here: where a holiday bonus rule exists at all, it tends to be pegged to the holiday itself rather than to the break around it.

There is no statute that makes your employer pay a bonus

People often assume the Labor Standards Act must contain a holiday-pay provision somewhere. It does not. The Act sets minimum standards for wages, working hours, weekly rest, annual leave and dismissal. It says nothing about Seollal or Chuseok payments.

What it does do is define wages very broadly. Article 2(1)5 says wages are anything the employer pays the worker as compensation for work, "under any name whatsoever." That phrase matters later — once a bonus exists, the law treats it as wages even though the law never required it to exist.

The one place it is written into law — and it is not for you

There is a Korean rule that puts a Chuseok bonus in black and white, and people sometimes quote it as if it applied to everyone. It does not. It is Article 18-3 of the Regulations on Public Officials' Allowances (Presidential Decree No. 36015):

A holiday bonus shall be paid, within the budget, to public officials in service as of Seollal and Chuseok day … at 60 percent of the monthly base pay, on a date set by the head of each agency within 15 days before or after the reference date.

So a Korean civil servant knows the number (60% of base pay), the trigger date (25 September this year) and the window (10 September to 10 October). A person working for a private company has no equivalent provision. Whatever you get, you get because someone wrote it down in a document that binds your employer.

So where would your bonus actually come from

Three documents, in rough order of how often they are the source:

Article 17 is the one you can act on today. It requires the employer to state the wage terms when the contract is made and, critically, to give you a written document setting out the components of your pay, how each is calculated and how it is paid. If you were never handed that document, that is itself a violation — and it sits in the same penalty provision as the discrimination rule below.

If your workplace has ten or more people, check the rules of employment

Article 93 requires any employer with 10 or more employees to draw up rules of employment and file them with the Ministry of Employment and Labor. The article lists what those rules must cover, and item 5 is explicit:

Matters concerning retirement benefits, bonuses and the minimum wage, as established under Article 4 of the Act on the Guarantee of Employees' Retirement Benefits.

That is a useful lever. At a workplace of that size, bonuses are not allowed to be an unwritten custom that nobody will explain to you. There is supposed to be a document, and you are entitled to see it. Asking HR for the 취업규칙 is an ordinary request, not a confrontational one.

The words to look for

Korean pay documents use several terms and they are not interchangeable:

• 상여금 (sangyeogeum) — bonus, the general term. Often paid on a fixed schedule.
• 명절휴가비 (myeongjeol hyugabi) — literally "holiday allowance," the term used in the public-sector rule above.
• 특별상여 (teukbyeol sangyeo) — special bonus, usually discretionary and one-off.
• 성과급 (seonggwageup) — performance pay, tied to results rather than to a date.

A schedule-based 상여금 written into your contract is an obligation. A 특별상여 announced by management in a good year is not the same thing. If your document says one and you were expecting the other, that is where the misunderstanding usually sits.

If your Korean coworkers get it and you do not

This is where the law stops being silent. Article 6 of the Labor Standards Act:

An employer shall not discriminate against workers on grounds of gender, and shall not discriminate in working conditions on grounds of nationality, religion or social status.

A bonus is part of working conditions, and it is wages under Article 2(1)5. So the position is this: nothing forces your employer to create a bonus, but once it exists, nationality cannot be the reason you are left out of it. Article 114(1) puts a violation of Article 6 — and of Article 17 — in the bracket carrying a fine of up to 5 million won. The same article underpins the wage floor, which we covered in the guide to Korea’s minimum wage.

Note what this does not cover. Being excluded because you are on a one-year contract while the bonus goes to permanent staff is a different question from being excluded because of your passport. The rule bites on the ground for the difference, not on the difference itself.

The Act with "Foreign Workers" in its name may not cover you

There is a second anti-discrimination rule, and it is the one most people expect to rely on. Article 22 of the Act on the Employment of Foreign Workers, etc.:

An employer shall not treat a foreign worker unfairly or discriminate against him or her on the ground of being a foreign worker.

The wording is stronger and more direct than Article 6. The catch is the definition. Article 2 defines a "foreign worker" as any non-Korean national working for wages at a workplace in Korea — but it then carves out categories set by Presidential Decree. Article 2 of that Decree excludes:

Read that list against your own visa. If you teach on an E-2, work on an E-7, hold permanent residency, or came on a working holiday, you are not a "foreign worker" for the purposes of that Act, and Article 22 is not yours to cite.

Which leaves the Labor Standards Act — and that is the broader one

This surprises people, so it is worth stating plainly. The Act named after foreign workers has a narrow scope. The Labor Standards Act has none: Article 6 protects workers regardless of nationality, and Article 11 applies the Act to every business with five or more employees, with the exception of businesses employing only cohabiting relatives, and domestic workers.

So for most foreign professionals in Korea, the rule that matters on a bonus dispute is Article 6, not Article 22. If you are on an E-9 or H-2 visa, both are available to you. Visa status decides coverage in other systems too — unemployment benefits work the same way, with the entitlement turning on which status you hold.

Under five employees

Article 11(1) sets the Act's general threshold at five employees. Article 11(2) says that for businesses with four or fewer, only some provisions apply, as determined by Presidential Decree. Which provisions those are is set out in a schedule to that Decree, so if you work at a very small business, the answer to "does this article apply to me" needs checking against that schedule rather than assumed either way.

Does the bonus affect your severance pay

It can, and this is the part people overlook. Severance is calculated on average wage, which Article 2(1)6 defines as the total wages paid in the three months before the triggering event, divided by the total days in that period. The Act on the Guarantee of Employees' Retirement Benefits then requires at least 30 days' average wage per year of continuous service (Article 8(1)), payable within 14 days of leaving (Article 9(1)).

Since a bonus is wages "under any name whatsoever," a bonus paid inside that three-month window is part of the calculation. How an annual bonus is apportioned across the year for this purpose is set by administrative interpretation rather than by the statute, so ask your employer to show you the working rather than assuming a figure.

Two thresholds sit in front of all of this: under Article 4(1), no severance obligation arises for continuous service of less than one year, or where average weekly working hours over four weeks are under 15.

When it has to be paid

Article 43(2) requires wages to be paid at least monthly on a fixed date — but the proviso exempts temporary wages and allowances. A holiday bonus typically falls there, which is why it can arrive on its own schedule rather than with your monthly pay, and why two colleagues at different companies can be paid on different days without either employer doing anything wrong.

Leaving the company is different. Article 36 requires all money owed — wages, compensation, everything — to be settled within 14 days of retirement or death, extendable only by agreement between the parties. A bonus you had already earned does not evaporate because you resigned before payday.

If it was promised and not paid

Once a bonus is established by contract or by the rules of employment, non-payment is a wage claim, not a disappointment. The route is a report to a labor inspector at your regional employment and labor office. It is the same office you would deal with over a workplace injury claim. Article 104 of the Labor Standards Act prohibits your employer from dismissing you or otherwise treating you unfavourably because you made that report.

Bring three things: the contract or rules of employment showing the entitlement, your pay statements showing what was actually paid, and — if the argument is discrimination — anything showing colleagues in comparable roles were paid.

What to check this week

• Find your written wage statement under Article 17. If you never received one, ask for it.
• If your workplace has 10 or more staff, ask HR for the rules of employment and read the bonus section.
• Note which word appears: 상여금, 명절휴가비, 특별상여 or 성과급. They carry different weight.
• If a bonus is scheduled and Chuseok passes without it, keep your pay statements.

Frequently asked questions

Is a Chuseok gift set instead of cash legal?
Article 43(1) requires wages to be paid in currency unless a statute or collective agreement says otherwise. A gift given on top of pay is one thing; a gift substituted for a contractual cash bonus is another.

I started in August. Do I get the full amount?
That depends entirely on the document that creates the bonus. The public-sector rule has no pro-rating clause, but it does not apply to private employment, so read your own terms.

My contract is silent. Can I insist?
Not on the strength of the statute. You can ask whether a practice exists at the workplace and how it is documented.

Does it count toward my pension and insurance?
It is wages, so it generally enters the base figures those systems use. The contribution rules are set in each scheme's own legislation.

I am on an E-9 visa. Which rule do I use?
Both. Article 6 of the Labor Standards Act and Article 22 of the Act on the Employment of Foreign Workers are available to you.

The short version

No law makes your employer pay you a Chuseok bonus. A law does make it unlawful to pay one to your Korean colleagues and not to you because of where you are from. And the statute that does that work is the Labor Standards Act — not the one with "foreign workers" in the title, which, depending on your visa, may not apply to you at all.

Sources

Labor Standards Act (Act No. 21373, effective 20 August 2026), arts. 2(1)5, 2(1)6, 6, 11, 17, 36, 43, 93, 104, 114. Act on the Employment of Foreign Workers, etc. (Act No. 21065, effective 1 October 2025), arts. 2, 3, 22, and its Enforcement Decree (Presidential Decree No. 32844) art. 2. Regulations on Public Officials' Allowances (Presidential Decree No. 36015, effective 2 January 2026), art. 18-3. Act on the Guarantee of Employees' Retirement Benefits (Act No. 21475, effective 18 September 2026), arts. 4, 8, 9. Statute text checked at the Korean Law Information Center on 18 September 2026. This is general information, not legal advice for your situation.