South Korea Overtime Rules: The 52-Hour Week, the 50% Premium, and the Five-Employee Line (2026)

November 5, 202612 min read

South Korea Overtime Rules: The 52-Hour Week, the 50% Premium, and the Five-Employee Line (2026)

The short answer: South Korea's Labor Standards Act sets working hours at 8 a day and 40 a week, not counting breaks. With the worker's agreement, an employer may add up to 12 hours of overtime a week, which is where the 52-hour week comes from. Every overtime hour earns at least 50% on top of ordinary wages. Work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. earns another 50%. Work on a holiday earns 50% for the first 8 hours and 100% for every hour past 8. The premiums stack. All of it applies to workplaces that regularly employ five or more people; with four or fewer, the hour limits and the premiums do not apply, but the minimum wage, the breaks and the paid weekly holiday still do. Every one of those lines is decided by an hour record. Punch builds that record one punch at a time.

Readers of our guides to Japan's 8-hour day, Singapore's 44-hour week and the Philippines' night shift differential will find Korea the most generous of the four on the overtime rate and the firmest on the weekly ceiling. Here is how it works for a small crew.

The 8-Hour Day, the 40-Hour Week, and the 52-Hour Ceiling

Article 50 of the Labor Standards Act is two sentences. Work hours shall not exceed 40 hours a week, and shall not exceed 8 hours a day, in both cases excluding breaks. A third paragraph closes the usual gap: waiting time a worker spends under the employer's direction and supervision counts as work hours. A crew held at the yard for a late delivery is working.

Article 53 then opens the only door past those limits. Where the employer and the worker agree, hours may be extended by up to 12 hours a week. Forty plus twelve is the 52-hour week, and it is a ceiling, not a target.

Three things about that ceiling matter to a small employer:

Agreement does not raise it. A worker who is happy to work 60 hours has still been worked illegally. Exceeding the article 53 limit carries up to two years' imprisonment or a fine of up to ₩20 million.
A week is seven days, holidays included. The Act defines it that way. Saturday and Sunday hours count toward the 52.
Flexible schedules exist, with limits of their own. Under article 51, the rules of employment can average hours over two weeks as long as no week passes 48 hours. A written agreement with the employees' representative can average over as much as three months, with no week past 52 hours and no day past 12.

Breaks are fixed by article 54: at least 30 minutes for 4 hours of work and at least 1 hour for 8, given during the working day and free for the worker to use. From 10 December 2026, a worker whose whole day is four hours may expressly ask to skip the 30 minutes and leave early. The request has to be the worker's, not the schedule's.

The Three Premiums, and How They Stack

Article 56 is the pay rule. Each premium is an addition to ordinary wages, so a 50% premium means the hour is paid at 1.5 times.

| Kind of work | Addition to ordinary wages | Paid at | |---|---|---| | Overtime (past 8 in a day or 40 in a week) | 50% | 1.5x | | Night work, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. | 50% | 1.5x | | Holiday work, first 8 hours | 50% | 1.5x | | Holiday work, past 8 hours | 100% | 2x |

The premiums are separate, and they add together. An overtime hour worked after 10 p.m. earns the overtime 50% and the night 50%, so it is paid at 2x. A holiday hour past the eighth that also falls at night is paid at 2.5x.

A worked example, at an ordinary wage of ₩12,000 an hour. A technician works five 10-hour days, Monday to Friday, and on Thursday the last two hours run from 10 p.m. to midnight.

40 ordinary hours at ₩12,000: ₩480,000
10 overtime hours at ₩18,000: ₩180,000
2 night hours, another ₩6,000 each: ₩12,000
The week: ₩672,000

None of that can be calculated from a schedule. It needs the time each day started and stopped.

Two more rules sit beside the table. Under article 57, an employer may give paid leave in place of the premium, but only under a written agreement with the employees' representative. And the base matters: premiums are a percentage of ordinary wages, and on 19 December 2024 the Supreme Court, sitting en banc, dropped the old requirement that a payment be "fixed" to count. Regular bonuses that carry a condition, such as being employed on the payment date, can now be ordinary wages. If you pay one, your overtime rate may be higher than the hourly figure on the contract.

The Five-Employee Line

Article 11 applies the Act to every business or workplace that regularly employs five or more people. For workplaces with four or fewer, only the provisions a Presidential Decree names apply, and the hour rules are not among them.

In practice, a workplace with four or fewer employees:

Is outside the 40-hour week, the 52-hour ceiling, and the overtime, night and holiday premiums of article 56.
Is inside the minimum wage, the article 54 breaks, and the paid weekly holiday.

Two cautions. First, the count is of people regularly employed, worked out by a method the decree sets, not a headcount on the day someone asks. A shop that drifts between four and six across a season should assume the Act applies and keep the record that proves the count. Second, extending the Act to the smallest workplaces is a live policy debate in Korea. A record built now costs nothing if the line moves.

Paid public holidays are a good measure of how the line has already moved. Under article 55 they became a legal entitlement for workplaces with 5 to 29 employees on 1 January 2022, two years after the largest employers.

The Minimum Wage: ₩10,320 Now, ₩10,700 in January

The 2026 minimum wage is ₩10,320 an hour, one rate for every industry and region. On the standard monthly basis of 209 hours, which is a 40-hour week plus the paid weekly holiday, that is ₩2,156,880 a month.

From 1 January 2027 it rises 3.7% to ₩10,700 an hour, or ₩2,236,300 a month. The Minimum Wage Commission set the figure on 14 July 2026.

The minimum wage applies below the five-employee line too. A January raise also lands in the middle of a pay period for anyone paid on a cycle that crosses the new year, so the hours on each side of midnight on 31 December have to be separable.

The Record: A Wage Ledger That Shows Every Hour

Article 48 requires a wage ledger for each workplace, written up each time wages are paid, and a wage statement handed to each worker with the pay. The Enforcement Decree lists what the ledger must show for each person. Two of the items are the number of hours worked and the number of overtime, night and holiday hours. Workplaces with four or fewer employees may leave those two out. Everyone else may not.

Three numbers frame the duty:

Three years. Article 42 requires the employment documents the decree lists to be kept for three years, and article 49 gives a worker three years to claim unpaid wages. The record has to outlive the claim.
₩5 million. Failing to keep the ledger or issue the statement carries an administrative fine of up to ₩5 million.
Five years. From 8 October 2026, the maximum criminal penalty for unpaid wages rose from three years' imprisonment or a ₩30 million fine to five years or ₩50 million.

The record is also the centre of the year's biggest enforcement story. Many Korean employers pay a single monthly amount that is said to include overtime, known as a comprehensive wage. The Ministry of Employment and Labor's guidelines on misuse of these arrangements took effect on 9 April 2026. They expect base pay and each allowance to be itemised separately in the ledger and the statement, and the premiums to be calculated from actual hours worked. Where a fixed overtime allowance comes to less than the article 56 premium on the hours really worked, the difference is owed, and not paying it can be treated as wage arrears. Bills to restrict or ban the practice outright have been before the National Assembly through 2026. Check where they stand before you rely on a fixed allowance.

A fixed allowance is only as safe as the hour record beside it.

How Punch Handles Korean Working Time

Punch is built for the record every rule above depends on.

A South Korea preset, in won. Choose South Korea at signup and Punch applies its Labor Standards Act preset, with won throughout: every hour past 8 in a day or 40 in a week at 1.5x. The night premium and the holiday rates are not in the preset. They depend on the time of day and the calendar, so apply them at payroll from the hour record, or set a Custom rule in Org Settings when your crew's pattern is fixed. The preset's own footer in Settings says exactly this, so nobody is surprised.

Start, break, and finish on every day. Your team punches in, punches out for the break, punches back in, and punches out from their phone. The 30-minute and 1-hour breaks, the 8-hour day, the 40-hour week and the hours that fell after 10 p.m. are on the record for every person, every day, stamped by the device and not written from memory on Friday.

The 52, visible. Reports roll up per person by day, week and pay period, so a worker's hours against the 12-hour overtime allowance are a glance, not a reconstruction. The line shows up before it is crossed.

The ledger's two hardest columns, filled. Hours worked and overtime hours per person, per pay period, come from the punches. If you pay a fixed overtime allowance, the same report shows whether the real hours stayed inside it.

A job-site geofence, not a camera. Punch-in can be limited to a geofence around the site. There is no photo at punch and no facial recognition.

Approvals before payroll. Managers approve hours one by one or bulk approve a whole pay period, then export to QuickBooks Online, Square, or a QuickBooks or Excel CSV for your labor attorney or payroll provider.

Three years and more, kept. Approved pay periods stay in Punch, per person, with every punch behind them. When a labor inspector asks for the hours, it is a report.

No signal, no gap. Punches made in a basement kitchen, a parking structure or a rural site sync when the phone reconnects. A shared iPad in kiosk mode, with a PIN for each worker, covers a workshop door or a yard gate.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the overtime rate in South Korea?

At least 50% on top of ordinary wages, so 1.5 times, for every hour past 8 in a day or 40 in a week. Article 56 of the Labor Standards Act sets it. A collective agreement or contract can pay more, never less.

Is the 52-hour week a hard limit?

Yes. It is the 40-hour statutory week plus the 12 hours of overtime article 53 allows by agreement. A worker's consent does not permit more, and exceeding it carries up to two years' imprisonment or a fine of up to ₩20 million.

How is night work paid in Korea?

Work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. earns an extra 50% of ordinary wages. It stacks with the overtime premium, so an overtime hour at night is paid at 2 times.

How is holiday work paid?

An extra 50% for the first 8 hours and an extra 100% for every hour past 8. Since 1 January 2022, public holidays are paid holidays at workplaces with five or more employees.

Do the overtime rules apply to a business with fewer than five employees?

No. Workplaces that regularly employ four or fewer people are outside the hour limits and the article 56 premiums. The minimum wage, the breaks and the paid weekly holiday still apply.

What is the minimum wage in South Korea?

₩10,320 an hour in 2026, or ₩2,156,880 a month on 209 hours. From 1 January 2027 it is ₩10,700 an hour, or ₩2,236,300 a month.

Does a Korean employer have to record working hours?

The wage ledger must show each worker's hours and their overtime, night and holiday hours, unless the workplace has four or fewer employees. The 2026 guidelines on comprehensive wages also expect premiums to be calculated from actual hours worked.

Keep a Korean Record That Holds Up

Korean working time is a short list of lines drawn across the hours your crew really works: 8 a day, 40 a week, 12 more by agreement, 50% for overtime, 50% for the night, 50% and then 100% for a holiday, ₩10,320 an hour today and ₩10,700 in January, and a ledger that has to show the hours behind every one of them.

Punch records every punch in, punch out and break, applies the South Korea preset or your own rates, rolls up the day and the week, and exports approved hours straight to payroll. Pricing is flat per workspace, with no per-user line item, and every plan includes every feature. The 14-day free trial starts on signup, no credit card required.

Start tracking Korean hours correctly with Punch →

South Korea Overtime Rules: The 52-Hour Week, the 50% Premium, and the Five-Employee Line (2026)