Simplified payment statements for wages are due monthly from January 2027

Employers in Korea report the wages they pay to regular employees to the National Tax Service (국세청, NTS) on a simplified payment statement (간이지급명세서). Until now this was done twice a year. For wages paid from January 1, 2027, it becomes monthly. This guide is for HR and payroll staff, including those at foreign-invested companies, and covers the new deadlines, the changeover months and the penalty relief.

What changes on January 1, 2027

Article 164-3(1) of the Income Tax Act (소득세법) requires a simplified payment statement by "the last day of the month following the month that includes the payment date". It covers three kinds of income:

• wage income paid to employees who are not daily workers
• business income subject to withholding
• other income for personal services under Article 21(1), item 19

Business income and personal-service other income are already filed monthly. What changes on January 1, 2027 is the first line: the wage income of regular employees (상용근로자). The effective-date note at the end of the article reads "January 1, 2027: the amended part of Article 164-3(1) concerning the income in item 1". Monthly filing was first planned for 2024 and was postponed twice before arriving in 2027. Statements are filed on Hometax (홈택스), the NTS online tax portal.

Filing cycle by type of income

The last column often causes mistakes. Under Article 164(7), filing a simplified payment statement for business income or personal-service other income counts as filing the payment statement for that part. Wage income has no such rule. Even if you file monthly simplified statements, you still file the wage income payment statement, after year-end tax settlement (연말정산), by March 10 of the next year. For year-end settlement of staff who joined mid-year, see Year-end tax settlement for mid-year hires.

The changeover: two deadlines a month apart

Wages paid in the second half of 2026 and wages paid in January 2027 follow different rules. If a deadline falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday, it moves to the next day (Framework Act on National Taxes (국세기본법), Article 5(1)).

• July to December 2026 payments: half-year filing. The deadline, January 31, 2027, is a Sunday, so it moves to Monday, February 1.
• January 2027 payments: the first monthly filing. February 28 is a Sunday and March 1 is Independence Movement Day (삼일절), a public holiday, so the deadline is Tuesday, March 2.
• February 2027 payments: by March 31.
• After that: the last day of the month after each payment month.

For payroll staff, this means filing the half-year batch in early February and the first monthly statement four weeks later. If your company pays January salaries at the end of January, keep the January payments separate by payment date so they do not get mixed up with the processing of pay attributed to February.

The payment date counts, not the work month

Article 164-3(1) counts from the "payment date". If a company pays January's salary on February 5, that salary is a February payment and is due by the end of March. However, a bracket in the same paragraph treats income covered by Article 135, the rule that deems wages to be paid at a set time, as paid on the last day of the tax year. If your company has unpaid salaries or bonuses at year-end, this bracket can change the filing month. Pull a separate list of unpaid amounts before closing the books.

Penalty relief: one year, or two for semiannual payers

Article 81-11(3), item 1 provides a grace rule. For regular wage income paid from January 1 to December 31, 2027, no penalty for non-filing applies if the simplified payment statement is filed by the end of the month after the last month of the half-year. For withholding agents that pay withholding tax semiannually under Article 128(2), the period runs to December 31, 2028. For how semiannual payment works, see Semiannual withholding tax payment.

Keep these points apart:

• The duty to file monthly starts with January 2027 payments.
• Only the penalty for non-filing is waived.
• If you miss even the half-year deadline, the relief does not apply.
• For companies without semiannual payment approval, the relief ends with 2027 payments. From January 2028 payments, missing a monthly deadline brings a penalty.

If your company files withholding tax monthly, put the withholding tax return (원천징수이행상황신고, due the 10th of the next month) and the simplified payment statement (due the end of the next month) in the same monthly close. Even with the grace period, you will have to file monthly in 2028.

How the penalty is calculated

Article 81-11(1) sets the penalty tax (가산세) for simplified payment statements:

• Not filed by the deadline: 0.25% of the payments not reported.
• Filed within 1 month after the deadline: 0.125% of the payments.
• Filed but unclear, or with payment amounts that differ from the facts: 0.25% of those payments.
• The penalty applies even when there is no calculated global income tax (paragraph 6 of the same article).
• For business income and personal-service other income, the simplified-statement penalty is not added where the payment statement penalty already applies (paragraph 5 of the same article).

For wage income, the 1-month window applies to payments made from January 1, 2027. For wage income paid earlier, including the July to December 2026 batch due February 1, 2027, the earlier rule applies: 0.125% if filed within 3 months after the deadline (Addenda to Act No. 19196, Article 6(4)).

Checklist

1. Keep the payment-date column in the payroll register based on the actual payment date, not the work month.
2. Classify regular employees, daily workers and business-income earners before paying them.
3. Include departing employees' pay, up to the month they leave, in that month's statement.
4. Note that withholding tax filing and simplified payment statement filing are separate menus on Hometax.
5. Check whether you have semiannual payment approval, and put the end of the relief (end of 2027 or end of 2028) on the calendar.
6. Keep the March 10 annual wage income payment statement as a separate calendar item.