Housing deposit refund: what hagwons actually do with your key money at the end of contract
Most hagwon teachers pay a housing deposit of ₩3–5 million that the school holds and returns when you leave. Whether you get it back in full depends on the condition report, your notice period, and how the deposit was documented in your contract.
Park English · Published 2026-08-22 · Updated 2026-08-22 · 4 min read
The housing deposit sits in a strange place in hagwon contracts. It is not quite your money and not quite the school's, and the refund process at contract end is where a lot of teachers first discover what was never written down.
Most schools that provide housing ask for a deposit between ₩3 million and ₩5 million. Some take it from your first month's pay in installments. Others require it up front, before you arrive. The deposit is supposed to cover damage to the apartment beyond normal wear — a broken window, a ruined floor, a missing appliance. In practice it also becomes the thing the school threatens to keep if you quit early or leave the apartment in a state they consider unacceptable.
What the contract says versus what happens
A good contract names the deposit amount, states that it will be returned within 14 or 30 days of your departure, and defines what counts as damage. Most contracts do none of these things with any precision. You will see "housing deposit refundable upon satisfactory departure" and nothing else.
The refund depends on three things that do not always line up.
1. The condition report. Some schools do a walk-through with you on move-in day and photograph everything. Others hand you the keys and disappear. If there is no signed move-in report, the school can later claim that the cracked tile or the stained wall was your fault. Take your own photos the day you move in, with date stamps visible.
2. Your departure notice. If your contract requires 60 days' notice and you give 40, the school can legally withhold part or all of the deposit as damages. We have seen this enforced even when the teacher had a replacement already hired.
3. How the deposit was recorded. If the deposit was deducted from your pay over several months, it should appear on your pay slips. If it does not, and the school later claims you never paid it, you have no paper trail. If you paid it in cash on arrival, get a signed receipt that day.
The refund process, step by step
- Give notice per your contract. Do not skip this even if you are certain the school will be fine with it.
- Schedule a move-out inspection at least three days before your last day. Do not hand over the keys until this is done.
- Clean the apartment properly. This means the stove, the bathroom drain, the aircon filters, and the inside of the fridge. Schools have kept deposits over a dirty stovetop.
- Attend the inspection. If the director finds something, negotiate it then. Once you leave the country it is much harder.
- Confirm the refund amount in writing and when it will be sent. If the school is wiring it to your home country, add a week.
| Scenario | Likely outcome |
|---|---|
| Full contract completed, apartment clean, proper notice given | Full refund within 30 days |
| Early departure with school's agreement, apartment clean | Partial refund or full refund minus "administrative costs" |
| Early departure against contract terms | Deposit typically kept in full |
| Damage beyond normal wear (broken furniture, wall holes, missing items) | Refund minus repair costs, ideally with receipts |
| No move-in report, school claims pre-existing damage is yours | Negotiable if you have photos; otherwise you pay |
The amount you never get back
Even in a clean departure, some schools deduct ₩50,000 to ₩200,000 for cleaning or small repairs they do not itemise. This is not legal, but it is common. If the withheld amount is under ₩100,000 and you are already on a plane home, most teachers let it go.
If the school is keeping a large portion and will not explain why, you can file a complaint with your local labour office (고용노동청). Bring your contract, your move-in photos, and records of the deposit payment. The process works, but it takes weeks, and you need to still be in Korea to pursue it.
The cleanest exits we have seen all had one thing in common: the teacher treated the deposit refund as a negotiation that started the day they moved in, not the day they moved out.