For tax, pension, unpaid wages or a work injury, start with the agency that handles that claim: NTS, NPS, the labor office or COMWEL. Immigration and financial matters have different procedures, but nationality, residency and visa status can still affect eligibility. Use 1345 for immigration questions alongside the relevant agency.
Prepare the first call to the right office
- Name the issue. Separate tax, pension, unpaid wages, work injury and a dispute with a business before choosing the contact in the table.
- Gather the relevant record. Keep the contract, payslip, payment receipt, contribution record or correspondence that explains the problem and the dates.
- Ask about eligibility separately. For pension, confirm your nationality, age, stay status, insured period and any applicable social-security agreement; payroll alone does not settle coverage or refund entitlement.
- Confirm the next formal step. Ask which office or channel handles the application, what documents it needs and whether a deadline applies. A counseling call is different from filing.
- Keep the result. Record the responsible office, reference number and next action. Save the actual submission receipt and follow the decision instead of treating a referral as completion.
Practical checks added 14 October 2026. NPS coverage exclusions and lump-sum-refund routes were reread for the specific points below; other agencies and legal details retain their earlier check dates. No claim was filed or personal eligibility decided.
Call the agency that handles your problem: the National Tax Service for tax, the National Pension Service for pension, the labor office for unpaid wages, and COMWEL for work-injury claims. Use 1345 for immigration questions. The sections below list the relevant offices, help lines and English resources.
The rule that sorts all of it
One line divides the whole system.
Different agencies decide immigration status and financial claims. Their rules can still interact, so a separate ministry does not guarantee that status is irrelevant.
Your visa status and your financial rights sit under different ministries and different acts. Two consequences surprise people:
- 1345 cannot recover your unpaid wages. It will tell you so, politely, after you have waited on hold.
- Conversely, some of these offices do not check your visa status before helping you. Work injury is the clearest case, covered below.
If you’re not sure which side your problem sits on, the guide to the government sites for visas and entry covers the immigration side, and the emergency and helpline numbers covers the lines you call when something is happening right now. This page is the money side.
Tax offices and English guides
National Tax Service · National Tax Service (English) · English help line 1588-0560
Two things catch foreign residents out.
Employer year-end settlement and a global income tax return are different processes. NTS lists the ordinary global-income filing period as May 1–31, with exceptions. Whether you must file depends on your income and settlement circumstances, including multiple jobs or other income; it is not determined simply by whether tax was withheld. Check the relevant tax year’s NTS guide. Checked October 6, 2026.
The second is the useful part. The NTS publishes free English material for foreigners every year, on the public site. The English section carries a year-end tax settlement manual for foreigners, a shorter Easy Guide version, and a guide to filing the global income tax return, that last one in English, Chinese and Vietnamese. There is also an individual income tax and benefit guide.
These are the government’s own documents, not a blog’s reading of them. If you read one thing before your first Korean tax season, read the Easy Guide.
There’s also a flat-rate option available to some foreign employees as an alternative to the normal progressive brackets. This guide deliberately doesn’t print the rate or the eligibility window: the provision has been amended, the sources that come up in English disagree with each other about how long it lasts, and the answer depends on when you first started working in Korea. Whether it beats the normal brackets is arithmetic on your own numbers, and choosing it means giving up deductions. Ask 1588-0560, or read the current-year Easy Guide. Do not take a number for this off a blog, including this one.
Also useful: the NTS runs a Taxpayer Service Center inside Incheon International Airport. If you’re leaving with a tax question unresolved, that’s a staffed counter rather than a phone queue.
For filing, Hometax (hometax.go.kr) is the main portal, and there is a separate site for foreign taxpayers at teht.hometax.go.kr.
Pension: the refund most English guides get wrong
National Pension Service · National Pension Service (English) · 1355
Pension contributions are deducted for covered employees. Foreign-worker coverage can depend on age, nationality, stay status and a social-security agreement exemption; being on a Korean payroll alone does not settle it. A contribution record also does not establish that you can receive a lump-sum refund on departure. Check NPS’s coverage and refund guidance. These specific conditions were reread on 14 October 2026.
Under Korean law the lump-sum refund is, as a starting point, not paid to foreign nationals. It is paid where one of a small set of exceptions applies. Korea’s plain-language legal information service states the principle directly: the refund runs on reciprocity, country by country.
The exceptions people qualify under are:
- your home country’s pension law provides an equivalent benefit to Korean nationals (reciprocity), or
- Korea and your home country have a social security agreement that specifically covers the lump-sum refund, or
- your insured period was under a qualifying E-8, E-9 or H-2 status, as described by NPS.
Use NPS’s official foreigner lump-sum-refund page to check nationality, insured period and visa exceptions. It publishes a country table and application documents. Confirm your own coverage record with NPS before budgeting for a refund. Checked October 6, 2026; coverage exclusions and the stated refund routes were reread October 14, 2026.
NPS offers airport payment for eligible applicants, but it requires an advance claim and has working-day and flight-time restrictions. Check NPS’s airport-payment requirements before choosing it. The sending money out of Korea guide covers bank remittance separately.
Unpaid wages: the complaint you can file online
Ministry of Employment and Labor · counseling 1350 · Labor Portal Labor complaint portal (Korean)
Wage theft is the most common serious problem foreign workers here run into, and the system for it is more accessible than people expect.
1350 is the ministry’s counseling center. Its own site states the line runs weekdays 09:00–18:00 and that the caller pays for the call.
The formal step is a jinjeong, a complaint asking the labor office to make your employer pay. You can file it online through the Labor Portal, or in person at the labor office covering your workplace. A labor inspector is assigned to investigate. Filing costs nothing.
Bring or upload everything you have: employment contract, attendance records, payslips, bank statements showing what did and did not arrive. Documentation decides these cases.
One provision specific to employment-permit workers: the employer must take out wage-arrears guarantee insurance within 15 days of the employment contract taking effect. If the business collapsed, that insurance is a separate route to part of what you are owed.
Work injury: the law does not check your visa
Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (COMWEL) · Easy Law: work injury guidance (Korean)
Read this section even if you think it does not apply to you.
Industrial accident compensation insurance covers injury and illness arising from work. Benefits under the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act include medical care, temporary disability, permanent disability and nursing benefits.
Korean legal interpretation treats foreign workers as covered by the industrial accident act regardless of whether their stay is authorized. The interpretation moved to that position in October 1992 and has held since. Being out of status does not, by itself, put you outside the scheme.
That does not make an unauthorized stay safe or advisable; immigration consequences are a separate matter under a separate ministry, and this page is not advice about them. But if you are hurt at work and someone tells you that you have no claim because of your visa, that is not a correct statement of the compensation law.
Free legal help, consumer and financial disputes
Three narrower doors, all free.
Korea Legal Aid Corporation: Korea Legal Aid Corporation (English) · 132. Free legal counseling and, if you meet the income test, representation. Wage cases are core work for them. Korea’s legal information service points people to their nearest KLAC office for exactly this.
Korea Consumer Agency: 1372. Disputes with a business: a deposit not returned, a contract you were pressured into, a service never delivered.
Financial Supervisory Service: Financial Supervisory Service (English). Complaints about a bank, insurer or card company. The FSS runs an English site. If your problem is with a bank account itself rather than a dispute, the guide to opening a Korean bank account may solve it faster.
Which office to contact
| Office | Handles | Line | Site |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Tax Service | Income tax, year-end settlement | 1588-0560 | National Tax Service (English) |
| National Pension Service | Contributions, lump-sum refund | 1355 | National Pension Service (English) |
| Employment and Labor | Unpaid wages, dismissal | 1350 | Labor complaint portal (Korean) |
| COMWEL | Work injury compensation | 1588-0075 | Easy Law: work injury guidance (Korean) |
| Korea Legal Aid Corporation | Free legal counsel | 132 | Korea Legal Aid Corporation (English) |
| Korea Consumer Agency | Disputes with a business | 1372 | – |
| Financial Supervisory Service | Bank, insurer, card complaints | 1332 (caller pays) | Financial Supervisory Service (English) |
For health insurance, which is its own agency again, see the Korean health insurance guide.
What couldn’t be verified
Numbers here are checked against the body that issues them. Some agency pages were unavailable in the earlier review. That doesn’t establish a general block on access from outside Korea. The earlier omissions below remain unless a specific later check is stated:
- The flat-rate tax figures. Explained above: amended provision, disagreeing sources, and it depends on your own start date.
- Country eligibility. NPS publishes a country table, but eligibility can also depend on the insured period and visa category. Use the current table and ask NPS about your own record rather than relying on a headline country count.
- Exactly which languages 1350 answers in. Sources disagree.
If you find one of these confirmed on an official Korean site, please report it so the page can be updated.
FAQ
Is 1345 useless for these problems? Not useless: it is a reasonable first call if you truly do not know which office owns your problem, and it operates in many languages. But it will route you elsewhere. Wages go to 1350; pension to 1355.
Do I file a tax return if my employer already did year-end settlement? A separate return may be unnecessary if all your salary was properly settled and no other filing obligation applies. Multiple jobs, omitted income or other income can change the answer; withholding by itself does not settle it.
Will claiming any of this affect my visa? Filing a wage complaint or an injury claim is exercising a right under labor law, run by a different ministry from immigration. If your situation is complicated, that’s a question for a lawyer; KLAC counseling is free.
Can I get my pension money back when I leave? Only if you meet an applicable refund route. Confirm your nationality, insured period, stay-status history and any relevant agreement with NPS before budgeting for it; pension deduction alone does not establish refund eligibility.
I am out of status. Can I still report unpaid wages or an injury? The compensation law’s coverage does not turn on your visa status, as above. The immigration consequences are a separate question this guide can’t advise on; talk to KLAC first.
Source review. On September 24, 2026 an AI-assisted check compared the NTS English help line 1588-0560 and the Korea Legal Aid Corporation line 132 against the National Tax Service and the Korea Legal Aid Corporation, and confirmed the official sources linked in this guide still resolve to the same pages. Report corrections to [email protected].
Related guides
- HiKorea Sign-Up: Create Your Account in English
- Driving in Korea: Exchanging Your Foreign License
- Browse all 90DaysKorea guides
Official resources
Links marked (Korean) open Korean-language pages; your browser’s built-in translation can show most of them in English.
- National Tax Service: English site, foreigner tax manuals and the Easy Guide
- Hometax (Korean): the main filing portal
- Hometax for foreign taxpayers (Korean): separate site for foreign taxpayers
- National Pension Service: contributions and lump-sum refund
- 1350: Ministry of Employment and Labor counseling (Korean), weekdays 09:00-18:00, caller pays
- Labor Portal (Korean): file an unpaid-wage complaint online
- Korea Legal Aid Corporation (Korean): free legal counseling, 132
- Financial Supervisory Service: English site, bank, insurer and card complaints
- Easy Law: Korea’s plain-language legal information service