Student Part-Time Jobs Are All About One Thing: Get the Permit Before You Start — D-2/D-4 Part-Time Work Permits, Minimum Wage, and Weekly Holiday Pay (2026)

When you work part-time as an international student, two very different laws apply at the same time. One is the Immigration Act. It decides "whether you're allowed to work at all," and breaking it puts your residence status at risk. The other is the Labor Standards Act and the Minimum Wage Act. They decide "how much you get paid and how," and if you don't know them, you simply lose money you were entitled to. If you only pay attention to one of the two, you'll always end up losing on the other side.

Profit-making and employment activities under Study Abroad (D-2) and General Training (D-4) status are prohibited in principle. They're allowed only as an exception when you have obtained a part-time work permit (permission to engage in activities outside your status) in advance (Immigration Act Articles 18 and 20, Enforcement Decree Article 25, Enforcement Rules Articles 27-2 and 29). The decisive word here is "in advance."

And this permit doesn't come through immediately. According to Hi Korea's civil service guide, the processing period is 10 days for standard cases and up to 2 months if an investigation is needed (the fee is waived). If you don't apply right on the day your hiring is confirmed, you're structurally already in violation on your first day of work. There are also a few hurdles that Korean part-timers simply never face. The "Confirmation of Part-Time Employment for Foreign Students," issued by your school's international student officer, is a prerequisite — which means your personal schedule is tied to your school department's calendar — and all the documents you submit are in Korean. Some of them, like a copy of the standard labor contract, a copy of the business registration certificate, and a copy of the employer's ID, are impossible to prepare on your own without your employer's cooperation.

Before the numbers — a 3-minute check on which box your job falls into

There are three things to check before we even start talking about allowances. Everything that follows changes completely depending on these three branches. With just your labor contract and the business registration certificate, you can check them in three minutes.

Pay special attention to ③. In jobs with long standby periods, like apartment management or security, a boss might tell you "there's no premium pay here to begin with" — but if they haven't obtained approval from the Minister of Employment and Labor, that claim doesn't hold. You can ask the employer whether they have approval, or call ☎1350 to check.

The part-time work permit — the procedure you complete "before" you start working

The Ministry of Justice manual (version 2026-08-07) defines eligible applicants as "persons who possess a certain level of Korean language ability, are devoted to their primary study activities, and have obtained confirmation from their university's international student officer." By detailed code, the eligible groups are D-2-1 through D-2-4, D-2-6, and D-2-7 under Study Abroad (D-2), while language training (D-4-1, D-4-7) and visiting students (D-2-8) can only apply after 6 months have passed from the date of change of status (or the date of entry for visa holders).

Here's what you need to prepare. This is also a task you can handle through Hi Korea's e-Application.

• Application form, passport, and Alien Registration Card — the fee is waived.
• Transcript or certificate of attendance — omitted if it can be verified through the international student information system.
• Documentation of Korean (or English) language ability
• Confirmation of Part-Time Employment for Foreign Students — you need to get this from your school's international student officer.
• A copy of the business registration certificate and a copy of the employer's ID
• A copy of the standard labor contract — it must include the hourly wage, job description, and working hours.
• If the business registration certificate includes manufacturing or construction, a "Confirmation of Compliance with Part-Time Employment Requirements" is also required.

How to navigate the application screens and the order of submission are covered separately in How to Apply Through Hi Korea e-Application.

The permit period and the number of workplaces you can hold at the same time depend on your status.

The third row is where this collides head-on with the way part-time work usually works in Korea. Hopping between several short-term gigs is common here, but if your workplace changes because you're working for a different employer, you have to get a new permit before you move. Not report it after moving — before.

There are also defined cases where the permit is restricted: if your average grade in the immediately preceding semester was below a C (2.0) and it's judged that you can't balance studying and working (for language training programs, an average attendance rate below 90% across all completed terms), or if within the 3 months before your application date you worked without a permit or were penalized for violating permit conditions.

How many hours a week are allowed — and why this article leaves that number blank

Let me be straight with you. We haven't written the allowed weekly hours in this article. We're not hiding them — we couldn't copy them over because even government documents give conflicting values. The main text of the Ministry of Justice's 2026-08-07 manual only states that allowed hours are set out in a separate table titled "Allowed Hours by Korean Language Ability and Degree Program (effective July 2023)." But we couldn't obtain the original text of that table, and within the same document, the attached forms, the Job Seeking (D-10) confirmation form, and the metropolitan-visa special provisions all use different hour figures. If we picked one and printed it in that state, we'd create an asymmetric risk: writing it too low makes you give up money you could have earned, and writing it too high could cost you your residence status.

What we can say for certain is what determines the number. Four things.

• Degree program — it differs depending on whether you're in a language training program, an undergraduate program, or a master's/doctoral program.
• Korean language ability — language test scores affect both whether you get the permit and how many hours you're allowed.
• Whether your school is a certified university — the forms have a checkbox for this, but we couldn't verify the original definition or the current designation list.
• Whether it's during the semester or a vacation

If your language test score expires, both your eligibility to work part-time and your allowed hours can change together, so line up your retest schedule alongside your labor contract period. Check your own allowed hours with ☎1345 and your university's international office, and treat those two sources as authoritative — not a summary on a school bulletin board or a description on a job platform.

Fields that aren't permitted, and fields that open up as exceptions

Before you look at the lists, there's something you should know. The lists below aren't exhaustive, and the guidelines are revised often. Just because your job isn't on the list doesn't mean it's automatically allowed. Part-time work permits are reviewed case by case. Here's what the manual explicitly lists as restricted fields.

• Acts contrary to good morals or public order (Immigration Act Enforcement Rules Article 27-2(2))
• Work falling within the scope of activities for professional categories (E-1 through E-7)
• Manufacturing and construction under Non-professional Employment (E-9), and industries under Vessel Crew Employment (E-10)
• Activities of workers in special types of employment — courier drivers, delivery-agency riders, designated drivers, insurance agents, study-material tutors, door-to-door salespeople, and so on.
• Employment activities under dispatch, subcontracting, or brokerage arrangements
• Work at remote locations
• Businesses subject to visa issuance restrictions due to past penalties for illegal employment

On the other hand, some fields are listed as exceptionally open. Manufacturing, if you have obtained Korean language ability equivalent to level 4 or above; work as a safety assistant or play assistant at foreign-language education-related facilities for minors, such as English kids' cafes and English camps; part-time or full-time seasonal work; auxiliary activities in professional fields (E-1 through E-7, excluding E-6-2) and work-study linked student internships; and internship activities in professional fields for degree-program students during vacation.

Let me stress it once more. These two lists are examples only, subject to case-by-case review, and the guidelines change often. In particular, delivery agency work is a classic example of something you can't do even with a part-time work permit, so read our dedicated article on it: Whether Foreign Riders Can Work, by Residence Status.

What actually happens if you work without a permit

First, let's separate the provisions precisely. If you only remember the monetary amount, you'll underestimate your own risk by a factor of three.

• Working when you have no employment eligibility at all (a student working part-time without a permit) — this violates Immigration Act Article 18(1), and under Article 94 it can lead to up to 3 years of imprisonment or a criminal fine of up to 30 million KRW. As an administrative measure, a summary fine (notice disposition) may also be imposed. The amount is set by length of violation in Appended Table 7 of the Enforcement Rules, starting at 2 million KRW for less than one month — the commonly cited 30 million KRW is the figure for violations lasting 7 years or more, which is a completely different bracket from a few months of part-time work.
• Having employment eligibility but changing or adding a workplace without permission — this violates Article 21(1), and under Article 95, item 6, it carries up to 1 year of imprisonment or a criminal fine of up to 10 million KRW.

The example violation case published by the Ministry of Justice is precisely "a foreign student working at a restaurant without any permit." It's not some unusual scenario — the single most common first part-time job is listed as the textbook example. In practice, enforcement escalates in steps.

The construction row has no distinction between first and second offense. Even the first time, it's a departure order without exception. The penalties above are the statutory ranges in the provisions. Read them as "it can go up to this level," not "this is what you'll get." Prosecutorial disposition and immigration administrative measures (summary fines, departure orders, deportation) proceed separately, and the outcome varies depending on whether it's a first offense, the circumstances, and your residence history.

Wages — there's no basis for paying you less because you're a student

The minimum wage applicable in 2026 is 10,320 KRW per hour. The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced it on August 5, 2025, and it applies from January 1 to December 31, 2026. Converted monthly on a 40-hour week / 209-hour month basis, that's 2,156,880 KRW. The key point is this phrase from the official notice — "applied identically to all workplaces regardless of industry." It doesn't matter whether it's a part-time or full-time job, whether the workplace is large or small, or whether you're Korean or foreign. There is nowhere any basis for cutting your pay because you're an international student.

Paying less than the minimum wage violates Minimum Wage Act Article 6(1) and (2), and under Article 28(1) of the same Act it carries up to 3 years of imprisonment or a criminal fine of up to 20 million KRW. Imprisonment and a criminal fine can also be imposed together.

Paper matters just as much as money. Two things are legal obligations of the employer.

• Specifying working conditions (Labor Standards Act Article 17) — conditions like wages, contractual working hours, and holidays must be specified and delivered to you in writing.
• Issuing a pay statement (Article 48(2), effective 2021-11-19) — every time wages are paid, you must be given a written statement listing the components, calculation method, and deductions. Failure to provide it is subject to an administrative fine of up to 5 million KRW under Article 116(2), item 2.

Under Appended Table 1 of the Enforcement Decree, the pay statement provision applies in full even to workplaces with 4 or fewer regular employees. "We're too small to do that" is simply not correct.

15 hours a week is the dividing line

The item most often omitted in part-time work is weekly holiday pay. There's exactly one criterion: whether your contractual working hours, averaged over 4 weeks, are 15 hours per week.

• At 15 hours or more, the weekly paid holiday (Article 55(1)) and annual paid leave (Article 60) are alive. Labor Standards Act Article 55(1) guarantees at least one paid holiday per week on average.
• Under 15 hours, Articles 55 and 60 don't apply, under Article 18(3). No weekly holiday pay, no annual leave.

If you work for less than 4 weeks, the average is taken over that period. That's why a schedule like 5 hours a day, 3 days a week sits right on the borderline — and the moment the boss cuts one shift, your weekly holiday pay disappears entirely. Every time your schedule changes, recount your total hours.

With fewer than 5 regular employees, what stays and what goes

Labor Standards Act Article 11(1) applies the Act to workplaces with 5 or more regular employees, and paragraph 2 applies only certain provisions, as set by Presidential Decree, to those with 4 or fewer. That list is Appended Table 1 of the Enforcement Decree (related to Article 7, amended 2018-06-29). Organized from the original text, here's how it looks.

The row people most often miss in this table is the third one. Even at workplaces with fewer than 5 employees, the weekly paid holiday is alive. What disappears is premium pay and annual leave — not weekly holiday pay.

If it's agriculture, livestock, or fisheries, or approved monitoring/intermittent work

This is where the most misunderstandings pile up. What Labor Standards Act Article 63 excludes is, in the exact words of the provision, only "the provisions on working hours, breaks, and holidays set out in this Chapter and Chapter 5." It's not a provision that erases wages. The covered categories are: item 1, cultivation and reclamation of land, planting, cultivation, and harvesting of plants, and other agriculture and forestry businesses; item 2, raising of animals, harvesting, catching, and farming of marine animals and plants, and other livestock, sericulture, and fisheries businesses; item 3, persons engaged in monitoring or intermittent work for whom the employer has obtained approval from the Minister of Employment and Labor; and item 4, persons engaged in duties prescribed by Presidential Decree.

Even in these cases, three things remain intact.

• The base hourly wage for extra hours worked still accrues. Because the statutory working hour and paid holiday provisions don't apply, the premium portion (50% or more of ordinary wages) doesn't arise — but 100% of ordinary wages for the hours actually worked is still payable, according to the government's legal interpretation (Ministry of Employment and Labor, Wage and Working Hours Division-358).
• Night work premium pay (22:00–06:00) still applies. In Case No. 15-0344 (reply dated 2015-05-21), the Ministry of Government Legislation interpreted that even when a monitoring/intermittent worker works at night, 50% or more of ordinary wages must be added under Labor Standards Act Article 56. The reasoning is that Article 63 excludes provisions on working hours, breaks, and holidays, and night work allowance isn't directly linked to those.
• Annual paid leave (Article 60) is "leave," not a "holiday," so it isn't excluded by Article 63. That said, annual leave isn't in Appended Table 1, so the workplace must have 5 or more regular employees, and under Article 18(3) you must average 15 or more hours per week over 4 weeks.

In short, "there's no premium pay" and "there are no wages" are two completely different statements. If you're told at a farm or fish farm job that "this is agriculture, so there's no allowance at all," remember that the base hourly wage and the night premium are separate matters.

Where to go when you weren't paid, or something feels off

Don't try to judge it alone — use the right channel for each issue. These are two entirely different agencies.

• Wages, working hours, allowances — call ☎1350 (Ministry of Employment and Labor counseling) first, and if you weren't paid, you can file a wage arrears complaint with your local labor office.
• Residence status and permits — ☎1345 (Immigration Contact Center) and your university's international office. 1345 connects you in multiple languages.

Many people give up because the complaint procedure is Korean-based and visiting hours overlap with their work shifts. But most of them don't even know interpretation support exists. The counseling languages and filing methods by agency are organized in Official Counseling Channels for Labor and Residence Matters. For health insurance issues, see the Health Insurance Enrollment and Usage Guide for Foreigners. Let me also be honest about what we couldn't confirm this time. For D-2 and D-4 students working part-time, we couldn't obtain primary sources on whether the National Pension, employment insurance, and industrial accident insurance among the four major insurances apply, or on how income tax is withheld from wages. We left those blank rather than filling them in with guesses. For these two, please check with ☎1350, the National Tax Service, and your university's international office.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1. My permit hasn't come through yet — can I work just a few days first? No. The part-time work permit has to be in hand before you start working (Immigration Act Articles 18 and 20). Working without it violates Article 18(1) and can lead to up to 3 years of imprisonment or a criminal fine of up to 30 million KRW under Article 94, and a summary fine (notice disposition) may also be imposed (per Appended Table 7 of the Enforcement Rules, starting at 2 million KRW for under one month and rising with the length of the violation). Under the Ministry of Justice's enforcement standards, on a first detection with a minor violation it's a notice disposition followed by permission to stay; the second time it's deportation. Illegal work in the construction sector is a departure order from the very first time, without exception. Processing takes 10 days for standard cases and up to 2 months if investigation is needed, so apply as soon as your hiring is confirmed.

Q2. How many hours a week can I work? We deliberately didn't put a number in this article. We couldn't obtain the original text of the "Allowed Hours by Korean Language Ability and Degree Program" table referenced in the main text of the Ministry of Justice's 2026-08-07 manual, and the forms within the same document use conflicting values. Since working on the basis of a wrong number could cost you your residence status, we left it blank. Allowed hours depend on your degree program, Korean language ability, whether your school is a certified university, and whether it's during the semester or a vacation — so confirm your own limit with ☎1345 and your university's international office.

Q3. Do part-timers get weekly holiday pay? If your contractual working hours, averaged over 4 weeks, are 15 hours or more per week, the weekly paid holiday under Labor Standards Act Article 55(1) applies. Under 15 hours, both the weekly holiday and annual leave (Article 60) drop out under Article 18(3). Even if the workplace has 4 or fewer regular employees, the weekly paid holiday is in Appended Table 1 of the Enforcement Decree, so it still applies. What disappears below 5 employees is premium pay (Article 56) and annual leave.

Q4. My boss says, "We have fewer than 5 employees, so we don't have to pay the minimum wage." That's not correct. The Minimum Wage Act is a separate statute from the Labor Standards Act, so it applies regardless of Appended Table 1 of the Enforcement Decree, and the 2026 minimum wage of 10,320 KRW per hour is, in the words of the official notice, "applied identically to all workplaces regardless of industry." Paying less than the minimum wage violates Minimum Wage Act Article 6(1) and (2) and is subject to up to 3 years of imprisonment or a criminal fine of up to 20 million KRW under Article 28(1). Start by calling ☎1350 for counseling.

Q5. I'm quitting my cafe job and moving to another place — do I need a new permit? Yes. If your workplace changes because you're working for a different employer, you need to obtain a new part-time work permit before you move. The number of places you can work at the same time is also limited: 2 for Study Abroad (D-2) within the allowed hours, and 1 for Language Training (D-4). If you have employment eligibility but change or add a workplace without permission, that violates Immigration Act Article 21(1) and is subject to up to 1 year of imprisonment or a criminal fine of up to 10 million KRW under Article 95, item 6.