The average worker in Korea earned ₩4,205,000 per month in 2025, before tax and including overtime and bonuses. The median worker earns less: ₩2.88 million per month in the December 2024 income data. When you compare a job offer, the median is usually the fairer comparison.
Two government surveys give two different averages, and a third gives regional pay. This guide labels the survey and the period beside every number, because they cannot be added together or compared as a trend. Statistics Korea (통계청) is now called the Ministry of Data and Statistics (국가데이터처), so recent releases carry the new name.
This guide covers averages and ranges. For salary floors, payroll deductions, and offer math, use the Korea salary guide for foreign workers.
The short answer: which number to use
| Measure | Amount per month | Survey and period |
|---|---|---|
| Average wage (total wages) | ₩4,205,000 | Ministry of Employment and Labor establishment survey, calendar year 2025 |
| Average income of wage workers | ₩3.75 million | Ministry of Data and Statistics income-register data, December 2024 |
| Median income of wage workers | ₩2.88 million | Ministry of Data and Statistics income-register data, December 2024 |
| Average, regular workers, Seoul | ₩4,852,000 | Ministry of Employment and Labor provincial survey, April 2026 |
| Average, regular workers, whole country | ₩4,294,000 | Ministry of Employment and Labor provincial survey, April 2026 |
The first row comes from a survey of employers (establishments with at least one regular worker). The wage there means total wages (임금총액): base pay plus overtime and bonuses, before tax. The 2025 figure was 3.1% higher than in 2024.
The second and third rows come from income records for jobs held in December 2024. They include part-time workers and people who worked only part of the month. That pulls the numbers down, so the two surveys are not wrong. They count different things.
December pay runs high. The employer survey found ₩4.75 million per worker in December 2025, which is above the 2025 average of ₩4,205,000. In December, regular workers received ₩971,000 in special pay (bonuses and performance pay). Do not read one December figure as the average.
On hours: workers in the employer survey worked 153.8 hours per month on average in 2025, which is 1,846 hours across the year.
Average vs median: why they differ
The average adds up all pay and divides by the number of workers. A small group of very high salaries raises it. The median (중위소득) is the pay of the middle worker. Half of workers earn less than the median, and half earn more.
In December 2024 the gap was clear:
| Year (December) | Average income | Median income |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | ₩3.20 million | ₩2.42 million |
| 2021 | ₩3.33 million | ₩2.50 million |
| 2022 | ₩3.53 million | ₩2.67 million |
| 2023 | ₩3.63 million | ₩2.78 million |
| 2024 | ₩3.75 million | ₩2.88 million |
In 2024 the average rose 3.3% (₩120,000) and the median rose 3.6% (₩100,000). The median stayed below the average in every year.
What this means for you: if an offer is near the national average, it is already above what most wage workers earn. If it is near the median, it is a typical wage. Neither number tells you whether the offer is fair for your own role, so see the section on judging an offer below.
The median income here is not the same as the "standard median income" (기준 중위소득) that Korea uses to decide welfare eligibility. They are different numbers.
Pay by company size
Employer size is one of the largest gaps in the data. The December 2024 income results rank average income this way:
| Employer type | Average income per month |
|---|---|
| Large company (대기업) | ₩6.13 million |
| Nonprofit organization | ₩3.57 million |
| Small and medium-sized company (중소기업) | ₩3.07 million |
A large company pays about 2 times as much as a small or medium-sized company on average. The legal form of the employer also matters. Corporations (회사법인) paid ₩4.28 million on average, and sole proprietorships (개인기업체) paid ₩2.27 million.
The employer survey shows the same pattern for 2025 as a whole: establishments with 300 or more workers paid ₩6,472,000 per worker per month, and those with fewer than 300 paid ₩3,733,000.
The same survey shows a gap by contract type. Regular workers averaged ₩4,472,000, and temporary and daily workers averaged ₩1,745,000.
Pay by gender and age
In the December 2024 income results, men averaged ₩4.42 million per month and women averaged ₩2.89 million. Men earned about 1.5 times as much as women.
By age, workers in their 40s earned the most at ₩4.69 million per month, followed by workers in their 50s at ₩4.45 million. Pay also rises with years at the same employer.
These are averages across all wage workers, including part-time work. They describe the labor market, not what an individual in your role should expect.
Highest- and lowest-paying industries
If your question is "What are the highest paying jobs in Korea?", the surveys used in this guide answer by industry, not by individual job title. The December 2024 income results show:
| Industry | Average income per month |
|---|---|
| Finance and insurance (금융 및 보험업) | ₩7.77 million (highest) |
| Electricity and gas supply (전기·가스공급업) | ₩6.99 million |
| Associations, groups, and other personal services | ₩2.29 million |
| Accommodation and food service (숙박 및 음식점업) | ₩1.88 million (lowest) |
The employer survey ranks industries the same way for December 2025. Electricity, gas, and steam supply and finance and insurance paid the most. Accommodation and food service and business facility management, business support, and rental services paid the least. That page gives the ranking without amounts.
The surveys used in this guide report pay by industry, not by job title. To see pay by role, use the Korea Jobs for Foreigners Report. It shows the pay stated in current postings and the Ministry of Employment and Labor market pay for each role. Role pages such as engineering, data, and finance list the open jobs behind those roles.
Seoul vs other regions
In April 2026, regular workers (상용근로자) at establishments with at least one regular worker earned the following:
| Region | Average per month | National average = 100 |
|---|---|---|
| Seoul | ₩4,852,000 | 113.0 |
| Ulsan | ₩4,545,000 | 105.8 |
| Gyeonggi | ₩4,309,000 | 100.4 |
| Busan | ₩3,741,000 | 87.1 |
| Jeju | ₩3,408,000 | 79.4 |
The national figure on this basis was ₩4,294,000. Seoul was the highest of 17 regions, ₩558,000 above the national figure. Ulsan was second and Jeju was lowest.
The ministry points to the mix of jobs. Seoul has many high-wage jobs in information and communications, finance and insurance, and professional, scientific, and technical services. Jeju has many jobs in accommodation and food service.
Three limits apply to this table. It covers regular workers only. It is a single month. And the income-register data in the sections above is not the same: the December 2024 income release reports pay by sex, age, tenure, organization type, company size, and industry, not by region, so you cannot compare these Seoul numbers with the ₩3.75 million average. Price differences also matter: after adjusting for prices, Seoul regular workers averaged ₩4,109,000 against ₩3,597,000 nationally. For what living costs look like, see the cost of living guide.
What foreign workers earn
The Ministry of Data and Statistics runs a yearly survey of immigrants' residence and employment. It counted 1,047,000 foreign wage workers aged 15 and over in May 2025. It publishes pay in bands, not as an average or median.
| Monthly pay | Share of foreign wage workers (May 2025) |
|---|---|
| Under ₩1 million | 3.8% |
| ₩1 to 2 million | 9.0% |
| ₩2 to 3 million | 50.2% |
| ₩3 million or more | 36.9% |
The group earning ₩3 million or more grew 9.2% (33,000 people) from 2024. The release splits the bands by visa but not by nationality. For example, about half of workers on professional visas (E-1 to E-7) earned ₩3 million or more, against about three in ten on the E-9 visa.
In the same survey, 69.6% of foreign wage workers said their pay was similar to that of Korean colleagues doing similar work. That is what workers said, not a measured pay comparison.
Your own band depends heavily on your visa: in the same survey, about half of E-1 to E-7 workers earned ₩3 million or more, against about three in ten on E-9. The Korea salary guide for foreign workers lists the 2026 E-7 floors, and the E-7 occupation codes guide explains which jobs qualify.
If you are looking for a role where a visa sponsor is already part of the process, the visa sponsorship companies page lists employers that hire foreign workers. If you do not speak Korean, the Korean not required collection gathers roles that do not ask for it. English-teaching jobs are one option among many. The non-teaching jobs guide covers the others.
Minimum wage context
The 2026 minimum wage is ₩10,320 per hour in all industries, from January 1 to December 31, 2026. On a 40-hour week it equals ₩2,156,880 per month, using 209 hours, which includes the paid weekly rest day.
The December 2024 median wage of ₩2.88 million is about 1.3 times that monthly figure. So the minimum wage is not far below the pay of a typical wage worker. The minimum wage applies to Korean and foreign workers equally. See the minimum wage guide for foreign workers for the rules.
How to use these numbers to judge an offer
- Convert the offer to a monthly amount. An annual offer divided by 12 is the figure to compare. Check whether the offer includes bonuses and severance, because the employer survey counts bonuses in its total wages.
- Compare with the median first. An offer above ₩2.88 million per month is above the typical wage worker in the December 2024 data. An offer above ₩4,205,000 is above the 2025 employer-survey average.
- Adjust for employer size. A small company offering ₩3.07 million is near the small-company average. The same offer from a large company would be well below that group's average of ₩6.13 million.
- Adjust for industry. Finance paid about four times as much as accommodation and food service. Compare your offer with your own industry, not with all industries.
- Adjust for region. A Seoul offer should be read against the Seoul figure, and a Jeju offer against Jeju.
- Check the legal floors. The minimum wage and any visa salary floor are limits, not market rates. The Korea salary guide for foreign workers shows the floors, payroll deductions, and severance wording.
- Look at your role directly. National averages mix every job. Open the Korea Jobs for Foreigners Report for pay by role, and browse the Seoulstart Jobs board to see what employers state in current postings.
Limits of these numbers
- The surveys count Korean and foreign workers together, except the immigrant survey.
- Part-time and short-hours jobs lower the median and the income-register average.
- The latest income-register data is for December 2024. A newer release may appear later.
- The employer survey figure is before tax. Take-home pay is lower, and the salary guide linked above explains the deductions.