Year-end tax settlement (yeonmal jeongsan): how it works for hagwon teachers
Yeonmal jeongsan is Korea's annual payroll tax settlement, done every January and February, and it applies to E-2 teachers the same as it applies to Korean staff. Here's how to check yours and what to do if it was missed.
Park English2026-09-063 min read
Every salaried worker in Korea has tax withheld monthly using a simplified table, not the exact amount they actually owe. At year end, the government runs the real numbers (deductions, exact income, insurance paid) and either refunds you the difference or asks for a bit more. That process is called 연말정산 (yeonmal jeongsan), and it's supposed to happen for anyone on a hagwon's payroll, foreign or Korean.
Most schools' payroll offices run it for foreign staff the same way they do for Korean staff. When it occasionally gets missed, it's usually because of timing: a mid-year job change, or a teacher who leaves Korea before February.
If the settlement wasn't run, one of two things can happen:
- You've been slightly over-withheld all year and there's money sitting owed to you that nobody has claimed.
- Your school is undertaxing you slightly and you'll get a bill later. Rarer, but it happens when a director applies the wrong withholding table.
How to check. Ask your director or accounting contact for your 근로소득원천징수영수증 (geullo-sodeuk woncheon-jingsu yeongsujeung), the wage and tax withholding statement. It's usually issued in February or March for the previous calendar year. If they can produce one with a settlement already run, you're fine. If it hasn't been issued yet, ask when it will be.
If it was never done. You can usually still claim it yourself. The National Tax Service's Hometax site (hometax.go.kr) runs a comprehensive income filing window in May each year, and back filing for a missed refund is generally possible for several years after the fact; confirm the exact window with the tax office or a bilingual accountant (세무사, semusa), since it changes slightly year to year and E-2 filings aren't always straightforward on the English side of Hometax.
What you can actually deduct. Most E-2 teachers claim the automatic 근로소득공제 (geullo-sodeuk gongje, earned income deduction), the personal exemption, and the National Pension and health insurance premiums already deducted from pay; dependent deductions usually don't apply. Rent receipts sometimes count if you're paying your own housing and can show it. This is exactly the kind of detail worth five minutes with an accountant rather than guessing.
What it's actually worth. For a typical hagwon salary, the refund tends to be modest, often somewhere in the low hundreds of thousands of won, not a windfall, but it's real money that's yours, and it costs nothing to check.
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| School already ran the settlement | Ask for your 원천징수영수증 (woncheon-jingsu yeongsujeung) as a record, keep it |
| Settlement wasn't run for you | Ask the school's payroll office to run it, or file yourself via Hometax in May |
| You're leaving Korea before February | Ask HR to settle before your last paycheck, don't assume it happens automatically |
| You switched hagwons mid-year | Your new employer needs the old one's withholding statement to combine your income correctly |
The one thing we'd flag honestly: rules around foreign filers on Hometax change often enough that giving you an exact step-by-step here would go stale fast. Confirm the current process with the tax office (National Tax Service helpline handles English) before you rely on anything you read, including this.