Korea Pension Refund Guide: Claiming Your NPS Lump Sum When Leaving

If you worked in Korea and were enrolled in the National Pension System (국민연금), you have been contributing 4.75% of your monthly salary every month (as of 2026), matched by your employer at 4.75% for a combined 9.5%. When you leave Korea permanently without reaching the 10-year contribution minimum for a regular pension, you can get your half back as a lump-sum refund (반환일시금). Your employer's matching 4.75% stays with NPS and is not refunded.

This is real money many departing residents miss because they do not know it exists or assume they cannot claim it from abroad. The process is straightforward and worth doing. Use the pension refund estimator to check if you qualify and estimate the amount.

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Are you eligible for the lump-sum refund?

There are three independent routes to eligibility. You only need to meet one of them.

Route 1, by visa. Workers on E-8, E-9, or H-2 visas qualify regardless of nationality. This covers most foreign workers in manufacturing, agriculture, fishing, construction, and Korean-heritage workers on the working visit visa. If you held one of these visas, you qualify.

Route 2, by bilateral social security agreement. Korea has 23 bilateral agreements that include lump-sum refund provisions for departing workers as of 2026. The list: United States, Germany, Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Turkey, Switzerland, Brazil, Peru, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Croatia, Uruguay, and Philippines. (Argentina also has a bilateral agreement with Korea as of February 2025, but the Argentine treaty covers contribution totalization only and does not grant Argentine nationals a Korean lump-sum refund, per the NPS Argentina treaty page.) If your nationality is on the refund list, you qualify by treaty.

Route 3, by reciprocity. Korea also grants the refund to citizens of around 25 countries where Korean nationals can receive an equivalent benefit. Named countries include Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Ghana. The full list is published on the NPS English page.

Who is not eligible? F-2, F-4, F-5, or F-6 long-term residents from countries with no bilateral agreement and no reciprocity arrangement (the most common case is some F-4 holders from China). For this group, NPS treats you the same as a Korean national, so you need 10 years of contributions to draw a regular pension, and there is no lump-sum option on departure.

Bilateral agreement exemption (different from refund). Some workers in Route 2 countries can also exempt themselves from Korean pension contributions in the first place, by presenting a Certificate of Coverage (가입증명서) from their home-country social security agency (SSA for the US, HMRC for the UK, etc.) to NPS at the start of Korean employment. If you do that, your Korean work period counts toward your home pension and there is no refund to claim later. If you did not present a Certificate, you contributed normally and can claim the refund on departure.

Verify your country's current status and treaty terms on the official NPS English page or call NPS 1355 (option for foreigners) before relying on the lists above. Treaty coverage changes; what is in this guide is a 2026 snapshot.

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How much will you receive?

Your NPS lump-sum refund (반환일시금) equals the 4.75% employee contribution on every month of salary plus a small amount of interest based on the 3-year treasury bond rate. The employer's matching 4.75% stays with NPS. As a rough guide, two years at ₩3,000,000 per month returns about ₩3.5M before withholding tax. Verify the current rate at www.nps.or.kr.

Refund = total employee contributions + interest

Employee contribution rate: 4.75% of monthly salary (as of 2026; verify current rate at www.nps.or.kr, as rates are revised periodically by NPS regulation)

Example calculation:

Interest is calculated based on the 3-year treasury bond rate at the time of payment. It adds a small amount on top of contributions.

You do NOT receive your employer's matching contributions (also 4.75%). Those remain with NPS.

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How to apply for the refund

NPS accepts lump-sum refund (반환일시금) applications through four channels. You have 5 years from your departure date to claim under the standard statute of limitations; after that the contributions stay with NPS.

Option 1: Apply online from Korea (before leaving)

Since 2024 the NPS English portal accepts simplified authentication via Naver or KakaoTalk, so the old 공동인증서 (joint digital certificate) is no longer required. This is the easiest method for most departing residents.

1. Visit www.nps.or.kr/eng and find the lump-sum refund page
2. Authenticate with Naver, KakaoTalk, PASS, or a bank-issued certificate
3. Submit the application form, upload scans of passport / ARC / flight ticket, and designate a bank account for payment

Option 2: At any NPS branch before departure

Visit any NPS branch with your passport, ARC, an international flight ticket within 1 month, and your bank account details. NPS staff process the application on the spot. The closest branches in Seoul are Gangnam (강남) and the main Jongno (종로) office.

Option 3: At the Incheon Airport NPS desk on departure day

Incheon Airport has an NPS desk inside the Woori Bank currency exchange counter at both Terminal 1 (counter H, 3rd floor) and Terminal 2 (counter A, 3rd floor), weekday hours 9:00 to 21:00 for amounts under USD 10,000. The desk pays the refund in cash in one of 16 foreign currencies the same day. Bring your passport, ARC, boarding pass, and the departure flight ticket. This is the right option for E-9 and H-2 workers who would otherwise leave the country without claiming. Call NPS 1355 the day before to confirm the desk is staffed for a late-night flight.

Option 4: From your home country after departure

Mail the completed application form (반환일시금 지급청구서) along with notarized or apostilled copies of your passport, proof of departure, and bank account details to NPS, or hand it to the nearest Korean consulate. For Apostille Convention countries, an apostille on documents is sufficient; for non-Apostille countries, you need Korean consular attestation. Some sending countries (Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan) operate MOUs that let you file through your home-country social insurance office, which can be simpler than mailing to Korea.

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Documents you need

An NPS lump-sum refund application requires five items: a passport copy for identity, an ARC copy if you still have it, proof of departure from Korea, the receiving bank account details (Korean or overseas), and the completed application form 반환일시금 지급청구서 from the NPS website. Overseas bank payment needs extra documentation but is supported.

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Timeline

Expect roughly four to eight weeks from submitting a National Pension lump-sum refund application to money arriving in your account. NPS review typically runs two to four weeks, with payment issued within another four weeks of approval. You can file at any time after departure, so the countdown only starts once your application and supporting documents are received by NPS.

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Tax on the refund

In Korea: The lump-sum pension refund (반환일시금) is subject to Korean withholding tax before payment. The exact rate depends on the refund amount and applicable deductions; NPS applies this automatically. Verify the current withholding rate directly with NPS (1355) or at www.nps.or.kr/english, as rates and calculation methods change. The withheld tax is deducted from your refund before payment.

In your home country: Whether you owe additional tax on the refund in your home country depends on your home country's tax rules and your tax treaty with Korea. US citizens should check IRS rules for foreign pension refunds. If Korean tax was withheld, you can generally claim a foreign tax credit.

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Useful contacts

The National Pension Service runs foreigner support through three main channels: the English helpline at 1355 (select the foreigner option), the English portal at www.nps.or.kr/english, and in-person offices in Jeonju (headquarters) and Seoul (Gangnam). For 국민연금 exemption questions under a bilateral agreement, call 1355 first to confirm the Certificate of Coverage process for your country.

• NPS English helpline: 1355 (English available, select option for foreigners)
• NPS English website: www.nps.or.kr/english
• NPS headquarters: 전라북도 전주시 완산구 홍산로 6 (Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do)
• Seoul NPS office: 서울특별시 강남구 테헤란로 131 (Gangnam-gu, Seoul)

Estimate your refund first

Before going through the application process, use the pension refund estimator to confirm eligibility and see roughly how much you will receive. The tool covers all three eligibility routes (visa, treaty, reciprocity) and calculates the gross refund, the approximate 6.75% Korean withholding tax, and your net payout.

The Benefits Checker is the broader view: alongside the pension refund, it surfaces EPS departure insurance, return-home insurance, severance pay, and the year-end tax refund, so departing residents can see every claim in one list.

What's changed

• 2026-05-28: /en voice retune (Lonely Planet voice model, stripped AI-corporate + bureaucratic phrasing, problem-first opener).
• 2026-05-13: Major accuracy update. Replaced the misleading "5-month minimum contribution" framing with the three eligibility routes (visa, treaty, reciprocity). Expanded the bilateral agreement country list to the 24 names verified on the NPS English page. Added the Incheon Airport NPS desk option (16-currency cash payout), the post-2024 simplified authentication (Naver / KakaoTalk, no joint digital certificate), and the 5-year statute of limitations on claiming. Linked the new pension refund estimator at /tools/nps-refund-estimator.
• 2026-04-21: Retrofitted for AI-search citability, added direct-answer passages at the top of each section.

@misc{seoulstart-korea-pension-refund-guide,
  author = {{Seoulstart Editorial Team}},
  title = {{Korea Pension Refund Guide: Claiming Your NPS Lump Sum When Leaving}},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Seoulstart},
  url = {https://seoulstart.com/guides/korea-pension-refund-guide},
  note = {Last updated May 28, 2026}
}