Definition
In South Korea, overtime pay is additional compensation paid when you work beyond statutory standard working hours (8 hours a day, 40 hours a week). Under the Labor Standards Act, employers must add at least a 50% premium (1.5 times the regular wage) for every extra hour worked.
Work Past the Standard Hours, Earn 1.5x Pay
When you burn through your phone plan's monthly data allowance, every extra gigabyte comes at a steep price. Human labor works on the exact same logic. South Korea's Labor Standards Act caps standard working hours at 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week.
The moment you cross this boundary, it officially counts as overtime. For example, if an employee earning 10,000 KRW (about $7.50) per hour works 9 hours in a day, that single extra hour must be paid at 15,000 KRW, not 10,000 KRW. That is because the law mandates adding a 50% premium on top of the ordinary wage.
This rule applies not only to staying late at the office on a weekday, but also to weekend shifts. If you have already logged 40 hours between Monday and Friday and come in on Saturday to work another 4 hours, all 4 of those hours count as statutory overtime.
What Happens When Night Shifts and Weekend Work Overlap?
The benchmark rate used to calculate overtime pay is called the 'ordinary wage' (tongsan imgeum). Rather than looking solely at base pay, it breaks down all wages paid regularly and uniformly into an hourly rate, which can include recurring allowances and fixed bonuses. Following a landmark December 2024 ruling by the Supreme Court of Korea en banc, regular bonuses tied to tenure or minimum working-day conditions are also included in ordinary wages (in principle applying to labor performed after the ruling). Employers multiply this ordinary hourly rate by 1.5 to calculate the minimum pay for each overtime hour.
However, the math changes if your overtime extends past 10 PM into the early morning. Work performed between 10 PM and 6 AM qualifies as 'night work,' which adds another 50% premium. Therefore, any hours that are both overtime and night work earn twice the standard rate (100% base + 50% overtime + 50% night premium = 200%).
Working on public holidays or designated days off follows a slightly different formula. Holiday work earns a 50% premium for the first 8 hours and a 100% premium for any time worked past 8 hours. While overtime premiums do not stack on top of holiday premiums, any night work premium past 10 PM still stacks on top.
A Closer Look: Not Everyone Is Covered the Same Way
Why does the law enforce such a hefty 1.5x premium? The objective is to deter companies from routinely overworking employees and to safeguard workers' health and right to rest. It serves a dual purpose: fairly compensating extra effort while imposing a direct financial cost on long working hours.
However, statutory overtime premiums do not apply automatically to every business. Under Korea's Labor Standards Act, the mandatory 50% premium applies only to workplaces with five or more regular employees. Businesses with fewer than five employees are legally permitted to pay just the standard 100% hourly rate for overtime hours without adding a surcharge. Even in workplaces with five or more staff, certain roles—such as agricultural and fishery workers, surveillance or intermittent workers approved by the Korea Ministry of Employment and Labor, and managerial personnel with executive authority (evaluated by actual duties rather than corporate title alone)—are exempt from overtime and holiday premiums. Nonetheless, they still receive night work premiums. Under flexible working hour arrangements, the threshold for what counts as overtime can also vary. Conversely, part-time workers receive a 50% premium whenever they work beyond their contracted hours, even if total time remains under 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week.
Additionally, many Korean employers use 'fixed overtime' (fixed OT) or 'inclusive wage' (comprehensive wage) contracts, where an estimated allotment of overtime pay is pre-packaged into the base monthly salary. Under fixed OT, employers must pay the difference if you exceed the agreed overtime hours. Court precedents rule that inclusive wage arrangements are valid only when tracking actual work hours is practically impossible; if hours can be tracked and the contract pays less than statutory overtime, that shortfall is legally void. Even so, practices where employees receive less than their actual overtime earned—often dubbed 'free overtime'—remain a prominent social concern.
Common misconceptions
Working overtime always guarantees 1.5 times your wage at any company.
The mandatory 50% premium applies only to workplaces with five or more regular employees. Workplaces with fewer than five workers are legally permitted to pay only 100% of the base hourly wage for overtime hours. Even with five or more staff, agricultural and fishery workers, approved surveillance or intermittent workers, and managerial staff with executive responsibilities are exempt from overtime and holiday premiums (though they still receive night work premiums). Flexible work arrangements can also alter how overtime is measured.
Where you meet it
An employee earning 10,000 KRW per hour who works 2 hours of overtime after an 8-hour shift receives 30,000 KRW (15,000 KRW × 2) in overtime pay.
A worker who completes 40 hours during the week and comes in on Saturday earns statutory overtime pay for those Saturday hours, since they exceed the 40-hour weekly threshold.
In one sentence
Additional compensation paid at 1.5 times or more of your ordinary hourly wage when working beyond Korea's statutory standard hours (8 hours a day, 40 hours a week).