Why your first hagwon paycheck never matches the number in your contract
Your first paycheck in Korea is almost always smaller than your contract salary because of a partial first month, delayed pension enrollment, and deductions that don't show up until your school actually processes your paperwork with the tax office.
Park English · 2026-08-31 · 3 min read
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Every intake month, we get the same message. Some version of: "my contract says 2.3 million won but I only got 1.7 million, is my school stealing from me?" Almost never. What's actually happened is a pile-up of ordinary, boring administrative reasons, and nobody explained them before the money landed.
Reason one: your first month is probably a partial month. If you started work on the 19th, you get paid for 12 or 13 days, not 30. Schools calculate this by dividing your monthly salary by the calendar days in that month and multiplying by the days you actually worked. A 2.3 million won salary starting on the 19th of a 30-day month can look like roughly 966,000 won before any deductions even apply. That's not theft. That's arithmetic.
Reason two: pension and health insurance sometimes lag by a month. National Pension (국민연금) and National Health Insurance (건강보험) registration takes time to process once your school reports you as an employee. Some schools deduct from day one; others don't start pulling pension and health insurance until your second full paycheck, then deduct a double amount to catch up. Both are legal. Ask your school directly which method they use, because this is the single biggest source of "why is my paycheck different every month" confusion.
Reason three: your tax situation may not be settled yet. Korea has tax treaties with a number of English-speaking countries — the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, and others — that can exempt teachers from Korean income tax for up to two years on their first stint teaching here. Whether it applies to you depends on your nationality and whether you've claimed it before, and the paperwork has to go through your local tax office, not just your school. Some directors handle this automatically. Many don't know the rule exists. Confirm your own status with an accountant or the National Tax Service rather than trusting hallway advice.
Reason four: housing gets handled two totally different ways. Some schools provide an apartment and deduct nothing extra. Others pay a monthly housing allowance instead, commonly somewhere in the ₩300,000–400,000 range, though this varies a lot by region and by school and should be spelled out as a number in your contract, not left as a vague promise.
Here's roughly what comes out of a full, normal month once everything is running properly:
| Deduction | Roughly what it covers | Typical share of gross pay |
|---|---|---|
| National Pension (국민연금) | Retirement fund, refundable when you leave Korea for most nationalities | ~4.5% |
| Health Insurance (건강보험) | NHIS coverage, split with employer | ~3.5% |
| Employment Insurance (고용보험) | Unemployment fund | under 1% |
| Income Tax (소득세) | Withheld monthly, reconciled at year-end settlement in February | varies, often 3–8% |
So if your first paycheck is short, the fix isn't panic, it's a payslip. Ask for an itemized breakdown, not just a total. A school that can't produce one is a bigger red flag than any single number looking low.
One thing we won't pretend to know for certain: exact pension and tax rates shift, and your nationality's treaty status changes the math entirely. Treat the percentages above as roughly right, not gospel, and check your actual payslip line by line.