National Pension Refund for Foreigners in Korea: Who Gets the Lump Sum in 2026

What is the National Pension refund for foreigners leaving Korea?

It is a one-time payment of the pension contributions you made in Korea, plus interest, paid when you permanently leave the country. Only foreigners from qualifying countries, or those who worked on an E-8, E-9 or H-2 visa, are eligible.

Here is the background. If you work for a Korean employer, you are generally enrolled in the National Pension (국민연금) from the first month, just like Korean employees. The law that governs this, the National Pension Act, treats foreigners as insured persons by default and then carves out special rules in the articles on foreigners. Those special rules are where the lump sum lives.

For a Korean citizen, the lump sum exists for people who stop being insured without qualifying for a pension. For a foreigner, the logic is different, and the rule that trips people up is that eligibility depends on your passport, not just on the contributions you paid. Most readers of this post arrive after two or three years in Seoul, Busan or a factory town, holding a flight date and wondering whether the 9-percent deduction on their payslip is gone forever.

It is not always gone. It also is not always yours to claim. The official NPS page for foreigners and lump-sum refunds is the place to confirm anything below.

A note on how I checked this. The NPS and law pages would not load for me in full, so the structure here comes from search summaries of those official pages plus secondary guides. Where sources disagreed, I say so instead of picking a winner. Facts are as of October 2026.

Does my nationality qualify me for the lump sum?

Your nationality qualifies you if your country has a social security agreement with Korea that covers refunds, or if your country gives Korean citizens a comparable benefit. NPS runs two lists and publishes them in a table.

The three routes work like this:

Route	What triggers it	What to check
Social security agreement	Korea signed an agreement with your country, and that agreement allows refunds	NPS agreement page; some agreement countries are carved out
Reciprocity (상응성)	Your home country pays Koreans a similar refund or benefit	NPS reciprocity table; counts differ between documents
Visa route	You were insured on an E-8, E-9 or H-2 visa	Any nationality; applies to those insured periods
None of the above	Neither list nor a qualifying visa	Generally no refund

Now the numbers, with the caveat that they conflict. Search summaries of NPS material show 22 agreement countries in some places and 24 in a page dated June 2026. The reciprocity list appears as 25, 26 or 29 countries depending on the document. I would not trust a blog that prints a neat final list, and I will not print one either. What I can say from the NPS English page is that the agreement list includes Canada, the USA, Germany, Hungary, France, Australia and a number of European countries, and that the same page names several nationals as not permitted a refund despite an agreement: Irish, Danish, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish and New Zealand. Switzerland is reported as permitted. Because list details vary by source and date, confirm yours.

If your country is in neither group, that is a hard stop. A Chinese, Mongolian or Vietnamese worker, for example, should not assume anything from a forum post; at least one fact-check reported that China and Mongolia were not refund countries as of 2025, while the visa route could still apply. Check by nationality, not by region.

The cleanest verification is a phone call. NPS’s call centre at 1355 handles foreign-language requests, and you only need your passport nationality and visa history.

Which visas qualify no matter where I am from?

E-8 (the older trainee employment category), E-9 (non-professional employment) and H-2 (working visit) qualify regardless of nationality. Everything else depends on whether your nationality qualifies.

This is the part that surprises skilled workers. A software engineer on an E-7 visa from a non-listed country cannot count on a refund, while a factory worker on an E-9 from the same country can. The visa route was created because Korea brings in these workers through government-managed programs and they are expected to leave.

Here is how common visas stack up:

Visa	Refund depends on	Practical note
E-9	Visa route (any nationality)	Claim after departure
H-2	Visa route (any nationality)	Claim after departure
E-8 (older trainee category)	Visa route (any nationality)	The seasonal E-8 created after 24 Dec 2019 is reported as excluded
E-7	Nationality	Skilled workers: check lists first
D-2, D-10, E-2	Nationality (if you were insured)	Many are not insured at all
F-4, F-6	Nationality	You are not leaving, so usually no claim
F-5	Nationality	Same: the refund requires departure

Two cautions. First, the seasonal-worker E-8 exclusion comes from a search summary, so confirm it if it applies to you. Second, F-visa holders are insured and may well have paid in for years, but if you have settled in Korea you are not “leaving” in the sense the law cares about.

How much money will I actually get back?

You get the contributions paid during your insured period plus interest. For a workplace-insured employee, the employer’s half counts as well as yours, which is the part many people miss.

That last point deserves care, because sources disagree. Some guides say the employer share is excluded. The NPS English page says foreigners receive the refund plus interest for the insured period the same way Koreans do, and for Korean workplace-insured employees the employer half is part of the lump sum. I lean toward including it, and I would still ask NPS for a written figure before you plan around it.

The contribution rate matters too. It rose in 2026, from 9 percent to 9.5 percent of monthly standard income, shared between you and your employer (4.75 percent each), with annual 0.5-point steps planned through 2033. Sources vary on the exact figure, so check your payslip.

Here is a composite example, not a real person’s case. Imagine a worker whose standard monthly income is 3,000,000 KRW, insured for 36 months. To keep the arithmetic simple I use a flat 9 percent total rate, although the real rate changed during this period.

Item	Calculation	Amount (KRW)
Monthly total contribution	3,000,000 x 9%	270,000
Employee half per month	270,000 / 2	135,000
Employee half, 36 months	135,000 x 36	4,860,000
Employer half, 36 months	same	4,860,000
Total before interest		9,720,000
Interest	set by NPS rules	added on top

So the worker’s own deductions were about 4.86 million won, but the claim could be roughly twice that, plus interest. The interest rate follows rules set under the Act; I could not verify the current rate, and calculators disagree, so treat any online estimate as a rough guide only. Also note that contributions are computed on a capped standard income, so very high earners will not see a figure that scales linearly with salary.

How do I apply, and what do I need?

You can apply online or at an NPS branch before you leave, at the NPS desk at Incheon Airport on departure day, or by mail from your home country after you leave. The airport route can pay in foreign currency.

The routes side by side:

Route	When	Payment	Watch out for
Online or branch, before leaving	While you are still in Korea	Bank transfer, after departure is confirmed	NPS needs proof that you actually left
Incheon Airport NPS desk	Departure day	Foreign currency, via bank booths	Allow time before check-in; bring your documents
Mail from home country	After you leave	Overseas bank transfer	Slowest; fix errors across time zones

Documents commonly listed are the claim form, your passport, your alien registration card, and bank details, with a statement of insured details helpful for checking your record. Exact requirements differ by route, so ask which items NPS wants for overseas claims. Bank details are where overseas claims stall: the account name must match your passport, and the SWIFT and branch details must be complete.

A practical sequence that works for most people:

1. Request a statement of your insured period from NPS while you still have a Korean phone number.
2. Confirm your eligibility by nationality or visa before you quit your job, not after.
3. Collect the claim form, passport and ARC copies.
4. Decide your route and write down the date you will leave.
5. File, then keep every receipt number.

When should I apply, and is there a deadline?

Apply as soon as you have left Korea, because the right can lapse. NPS’s English guidance gives five years from the date you become entitled.

One secondary source cites a longer limit under another article of the Act, and I could not reconcile the two from official text. The sensible reading is that five years is the working deadline. Waiting is also costly in practical terms: records move, employers close, and old bank accounts get shut.

Timing around departure matters as well. The claim generally requires that you have left Korea and that you no longer work under the Korean scheme. If you plan to return within a few months, claiming may be premature; see the next section.

Is the National Pension refund taxed?

I could not confirm the Korean tax treatment from an official source, so ask NPS what, if anything, is withheld before you plan around the net amount. Your home country is a separate question.

If you are a US citizen or resident, the IRS taxes worldwide income, so a payment from a foreign pension system may need reporting; a preparer who knows foreign pensions can tell you how. Other countries have different rules. Two practical habits help: keep the NPS payment statement, and compare the amount that arrives in your bank with the amount NPS says it paid out. Our guide to income tax for foreigners in Korea covers the Korean side of filing as a resident, and the HomeTax guide for foreigners walks through the filing portal if you need to file before you go.

Should I take the refund or keep the record?

Take the refund if you are leaving for good and are far from ten years of coverage. Keep the record if you might return or can combine periods toward a pension.

The Korean old-age pension generally needs ten years of insured time. Taking the lump sum generally ends your insured period, which means those years stop counting. For someone with two or three years who is moving back home, the cash is the sensible choice. For someone with eight years who may come back, the calculation is different.

Social security agreements add a wrinkle. Agreements let you combine contribution periods across countries to reach the minimum for a pension. For a US citizen the question becomes: lump sum now, or combine periods later? NPS lists the USA among the refund countries, so you can take cash, but I could not verify how the agreement treats someone who changes their mind after claiming. Ask NPS in writing before you file, and compare with our guide to checking your pension estimate to see what a future monthly benefit could look like.

Recent policy news points toward tighter rules, not looser ones. In September 2026, reports said the government would extend reciprocity to back-payments (추납) and that lawmakers had proposed bills on reciprocity more broadly. I found no evidence that a change to refund eligibility has taken effect, but the landscape is moving, so check the date on whatever list you read.

What mistakes cost people their refund?

The costliest mistake is assuming eligibility from the visa or from a forum post. Here is a composite case, not a real one.

A worker on an E-7 visa from a country on neither NPS list pays in for three years, roughly 9.7 million won in total contributions by the arithmetic above. She quits, flies home and later files a claim, which is rejected because her nationality is not eligible and she never held an E-8, E-9 or H-2 visa. The money does not vanish. It stays on her record, and if she returns to work in Korea the insured period can resume. But she planned her move around cash that was never coming. Had she called 1355 before giving notice, she would have known and could have negotiated differently, for example by asking her employer about severance.

Severance is a separate payment from the pension, and it is easy to confuse the two. Our severance pay calculator guide shows how that amount works, and the after-quitting checklist lists the other loose ends. Health coverage is a different loop again, covered in our guide to health insurance for foreigners in Korea.

Other common errors:

• Filing with a bank account name that differs from the passport.
• Leaving without a statement of insured details.
• Assuming an employer will file for you; the lump sum is a claim you make.
• Trusting an old country list instead of the current NPS table.
• Letting five years pass.

The list will change. Your passport, your visa history and your departure date will not, so those are the three things to have in hand when you call 1355.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. National Pension rules, country lists, interest rates and tax treatment change; confirm your own case with the National Pension Service (1355) and a qualified tax adviser before you file.