Foreign Workers Can Take Paid Annual Leave Too! Be Sure to Check Your Vacation and Annual Leave Allowance

Hello, everyone!
This is Vijob. 👋

Have you ever thought about this while working in Korea?

Can foreigners use annual leave too?”
“I’m on an E-9 visa—do I get annual leave?”
“My company doesn’t give annual leave; is that okay?”
“When I resign, can I get paid for unused annual leave?”

To put it simply, you are not excluded from annual leave just because you are a foreigner.

If you are actually working as an employee in Korea, foreign workers are also covered by the Labor Standards Act. The Supreme Court of Korea and the Constitutional Court of Korea also recognize that the Labor Standards Act applies to foreign workers. 

What really matters for annual leave, however, is not nationality or visa type, but the size of the workplace, length of service, and working hours.

✅ Do foreigners get annual leave just like Koreans?

If you work at a workplace with 5 or more regularly employed workers and meet the requirements set by law, paid annual leave under Article 60 of the Labor Standards Act is generated. 

It’s easy to remember the basic standard like this.

The Labor Standards Act stipulates that workers who attend work for 80% or more of one year are entitled to 15 days of paid leave, and workers with less than 1 year of service are entitled to 1 day of paid leave for each month of perfect attendance.

However, the annual paid leave provisions do not apply to short-hour workers whose prescribed weekly working hours average less than 15 hours over a 4-week period. 

🛂 Does annual leave differ depending on an E-9, E-7, or H-2 visa?

Annual leave is not determined by visa type itself.

No matter what status of stay you have, such as E-9, E-7, or H-2, if you are actually working as an employee under the Labor Standards Act, you may be covered by labor-related laws. 

Therefore, it is not appropriate to judge based only on nationality or visa, as in “I don’t get annual leave because I’m on E-9.” “We can’t give annual leave to a foreign contract worker.”

Instead, what you should check is the following.

Is my workplace regularly employing 5 or more people? → How long have I worked there? → How many prescribed working hours do I have per week? → What is my attendance rate? These conditions are much more important.

🚨 Check this first: Is our company a “5-or-more” workplace?

This is where many foreign workers get confused.

Under Article 60 of the Labor Standards Act, statutory annual paid leave is, in principle, applied to workplaces with 5 or more regularly employed workers. Therefore, workplaces with 4 or fewer regularly employed workers are not necessarily required to grant statutory annual leave under Article 60 of the Labor Standards Act. 

However, if the company’s employment contract or work rules promise separate paid leave, that agreement should also be checked separately.

And “5 people” does not simply mean counting only full-time employees.

When calculating the number of regularly employed workers, employees working at the workplace may be included regardless of employment type, such as fixed-term or part-time workers. The specific number of regularly employed workers is determined according to the calculation method set out in the Enforcement Decree of the Labor Standards Act. 

📅 Do Korea’s public holidays also apply to foreigners?

Yes. Here too, rather than nationality, workplace size and whether the law applies are what matter.

The paid holiday system for government office public holidays and substitute holidays in private companies has been expanded step by step and has applied to workplaces with 5 or more regularly employed workers since 2022. 

So if your workplace has 5 or more workers, be sure to also check whether paid leave applies for public holidays set by law, such as Seollal, Chuseok, and national holidays.

On the other hand, the paid holiday rule under Article 55(2) of the Labor Standards Act does not apply to workplaces with 4 or fewer regularly employed workers. In the Enforcement Decree’s attached table, the weekly holiday rule under Article 55(1) applies to workplaces with 4 or fewer workers, but Paragraph 2 is not included. 

💰 What happens if you leave without using all your annual leave?

Be sure to check this part too.

If the employment relationship ends before you have used the annual leave you were entitled to take, then depending on the conditions, payment for unused annual leave may arise.

The Labor Standards Act provides that during annual leave, ordinary wages or average wages set out in the work rules, etc. must be paid, and ordinary wages are also an important standard when calculating unused annual leave allowance. 

However, if the company has lawfully carried out the annual leave use promotion procedure under Article 61 of the Labor Standards Act in the manner prescribed by law, the obligation to provide monetary compensation for some unused annual leave may not arise, so individual circumstances should be checked. In recent labor inspection cases by the Ministry of Employment and Labor (고용노동부), compliance with the procedures and deadlines for annual leave use promotion is also being treated as an important issue.

✈️ Be sure to check before resigning or returning home!

In particular, foreign workers often return to their home country immediately after their contract ends.

So before returning home

① How many leave days remain
② How many leave days have already been used
③ Whether there is unused annual leave allowance
④ Whether it was properly settled with the final paycheck

It is a good idea to check.

If a worker resigns, the employer must, in principle, settle all wages, compensation, and other amounts that must be paid within 14 days from the date of resignation. However, if there are special circumstances, the deadline may be extended by agreement between the parties. 

📂 Keep these materials in advance!

If you leave the company and later dispute the number of leave days with the company, records are important.

If possible, it is best to have the following materials in advance.

📄 Employment contract
💵 Pay statement
📅 Materials showing date of hire and resignation
🗓️ Leave application and usage records
📱 Text messages and messenger chats about leave exchanged with the company
⏰ Clock-in and clock-out records

In particular, foreigners may find it difficult to receive the materials again after leaving Korea, so we recommend securing them before resignation.

🚨 What if the company does not provide annual leave or leave allowance?

First, check whether you are eligible for statutory annual leave.

It is best to first check whether there are 5 or more regular employees, whether weekly working hours are 15 or more, and what the length of service and attendance rate are. 

If wages or other amounts that must be paid under the law are unpaid, you can file a complaint with the Ministry of Employment and Labor, and the Labor Portal (노동포털) also explains the procedure for filing an unpaid wage complaint. If a legal violation is confirmed and the employer does not correct it, the matter may proceed to criminal proceedings. 

📞 Ministry of Employment and Labor Customer Consultation Center 1350 (고용노동부 고객상담센터 1350)

If your work arrangement is complicated or it is unclear whether there are 5 or more employees, it may be good to get a consultation first.

✅ Foreign workers’ annual leave — just remember this!

If foreigners are workers under the Labor Standards Act, they can receive protection under labor law. 

And when checking annual leave, look at these four things before your visa.

Is the workplace 5 people or more? → Are weekly working hours 15 or more? → How long have you worked? → What is the attendance rate?

Especially if you are preparing to resign, be sure to check your remaining leave and whether your unused leave allowance has been settled.

Resting as much as you work hard is also an important right of workers. 🌿

💬 Still have questions?

If you have questions like these, feel free to leave a comment!

Or write a post in the Vijob community and ask directly. Foreign seniors who found jobs in Korea first and experienced real company life can share various information based on their own experience. 🙌

Rather than worrying alone, ask the seniors directly in the Vijob community!

From getting a job to life at the company and a stable settlement in Korea, Vijob will be with you. 💙