Gift Tax in Korea: One Ten-Year Total Per Donor, Not a Yearly Allowance

The Scene

A parent in Seoul wires 50 million won to an adult daughter so she can close on a jeonse deposit. Someone at the family dinner supplies the rule of thumb that circulates in expatriate forums and in Korean ones alike: that much is tax-free, and the same amount can be sent again next year. Two years later a second transfer goes out on that understanding, and nobody files anything.

There is no annual gift allowance in Korean tax law. The phrase has no counterpart in the statute, and the structure the statute does use runs on a different axis entirely. The Inheritance Tax and Gift Tax Act (상속세 및 증여세법) sets a deduction ceiling that is measured backwards across ten years from the date of each gift, and it measures that ceiling by the relationship between donor and donee rather than by the calendar. A separate article then reaches back over the same ten years and pulls earlier gifts from the same donor into the tax base of the later one.

Those two mechanisms are frequently collapsed into a single sentence in English-language summaries, which is where the phantom yearly allowance comes from. They are different articles, they do different work, and one of them has a threshold the other does not. The version of the Act cited throughout this article is 법률 제21065호, in force since 1 October 2025, which is the header shown on each of the National Law Information Center pages linked below.

What the Rule Actually Says

The deduction ceiling: Article 53

Article 53 (증여재산 공제) is the article that produces the numbers everybody quotes. It opens by conditioning the whole provision on the donee being a resident, then lists four categories of donor and assigns an amount to each. The article carries no numbered paragraphs at all, so the amounts sit in subparagraphs 1 through 4 rather than in paragraphs — a distinction worth keeping straight, because the marriage and childbirth provision discussed further down cross-refers specifically to subparagraph 2 of Article 53.

The ten-year measurement lives in the second sentence of that opening passage. Where the amount to be deducted for the present gift, added to the amounts already deducted within the ten years preceding that gift, exceeds the figure set for that category, the excess is not deducted. Amounts deducted under Article 53-2 are expressly carved out of that running sum. The full text is on the National Law Information Center page for Article 53, which also carries the amendment tags, the most recent of them dated 14 March 2025.

Two drafting details in the subparagraphs change who shares a pool. Subparagraph 2, covering gifts from a lineal ascendant, extends the category in bracketed text to the spouse of the donee's lineal ascendant, with de facto marriage excluded. Subparagraph 3, covering gifts from a lineal descendant, likewise reaches the lineal descendant of the donee's spouse. The categories are drawn wider than the plain words suggest, and that width is what keeps a second parent from opening a second allowance.

The aggregation rule: paragraph 2 of Article 47

Article 47 (증여세 과세가액) defines the taxable value of a gift. Its paragraph 2 is the second ten-year rule, and it is not a deduction rule at all — it is an addition rule. Where the values of gifts received from the same person within the ten years before the present gift date total 10 million won or more, that earlier value is added to the taxable value of the present gift. The proviso excludes the categories the Act labels 합산배제증여재산, the gifts kept out of aggregation.

The parenthetical inside paragraph 2 is the operative part for families. Where the donor is a lineal ascendant, the spouse of that ascendant is treated as falling within the same-person test. Father and mother are therefore one donor for aggregation purposes, exactly as they are one category under subparagraph 2 of Article 53. The text of Article 47 sets out all three paragraphs, including the presumption in paragraph 3 about assumed debts between spouses and between lineal ascendants and descendants.

Read together, the two articles describe one ten-year window doing two jobs. Article 53 stops the deduction from being claimed twice inside the window. Paragraph 2 of Article 47 makes sure the earlier gift is still in the base when the deduction is applied. Neither one resets on 1 January.

The separate marriage and childbirth deduction: Article 53-2

Article 53-2 (혼인ㆍ출산 증여재산 공제) carries the bracketed tag 본조신설 2023. 12. 31., marking it as an article newly inserted rather than amended. Paragraph 1 allows a resident who receives a gift from a lineal ascendant within two years before or after the marriage date to deduct 100 million won, and the text states that this deduction is separate from the one in paragraph 2 of the same article and separate from subparagraph 2 of Article 53. Paragraph 2 does the same for a gift received within two years from the date of a child's birth or adoption. Paragraph 3 then caps the two together: where the sum of the deductions under paragraphs 1 and 2 exceeds 100 million won, the excess is not deducted.

That is the structural point the summaries lose. The marriage figure and the childbirth figure are one shared 100 million won, not two. What they do not share is the Article 53 pool — the full text of Article 53-2 is explicit that the new deduction sits alongside it, and Article 53 reciprocates by excluding amounts deducted under Article 53-2 from its own ten-year running sum.

Base, rate and deadline

Article 55 (증여세의 과세표준 및 과세최저한) builds the tax base. Its subparagraph 4 of paragraph 1 takes the taxable value under paragraph 1 of Article 47 and subtracts the amounts under Articles 53, 53-2 and 54; the appraisal fees prescribed by Presidential Decree are then subtracted by the opening passage of paragraph 1, which applies to all four subparagraphs. Paragraph 2 sets a floor: where the tax base is under 500,000 won, no gift tax is imposed. Article 56 then computes the tax by applying the rates prescribed in Article 26 to that base — the same rate table the inheritance tax uses, which is why the rate schedule that never reaches the 60 percent figure quoted in English coverage governs gifts as well as estates. Article 55 is on the page for Article 55, and Article 56 on the page carrying Articles 56 and 57.

Paragraph 1 of Article 68 (증여세 과세표준신고) fixes the filing deadline at three months from the last day of the month in which the date of the gift falls, and directs the return to the head of the tax office having jurisdiction over the place of tax payment. Paragraph 2 requires documents evidencing the type, quantity and appraised value of the gifted property and the deductions claimed.

The Numbers

The deduction ceilings in the four subparagraphs of Article 53, each measured over the preceding ten years:

• Subparagraph 1 — gift from a spouse: 600 million won.
• Subparagraph 2 — gift from a lineal ascendant: 50 million won, reduced to 20 million won where the donee is a minor. The category includes the spouse of the donee's lineal ascendant, de facto marriage excluded.
• Subparagraph 3 — gift from a lineal descendant: 50 million won. The category includes the lineal descendant of the donee's spouse.
• Subparagraph 4 — gift from a blood relative within the fourth degree or a relative by affinity within the third degree: 10 million won.

Then, separately, Article 53-2: 100 million won for a gift from a lineal ascendant within two years either side of the marriage date, 100 million won for a gift within two years of a child's birth or adoption, and 100 million won as the combined ceiling for both.

Applying those figures to the dinner-table scenario: the daughter is an adult receiving from a lineal ascendant, so subparagraph 2 sets her ceiling at 50 million won. The first transfer consumes it. The second transfer two years later falls inside the ten-year window, so no further deduction is available under that subparagraph, and paragraph 2 of Article 47 adds the first gift's value to the second gift's taxable value because the ten-year total from the same person is well past 10 million won. The tax base is then computed under Article 55 and the Article 26 rates applied through Article 56. Had the second transfer come from the mother rather than the father, nothing would change: the parenthetical in paragraph 2 of Article 47 and the bracketed text in subparagraph 2 of Article 53 both treat the ascendant and the ascendant's spouse as one.

Against the statutory numbers, the volume of assessed gifts. The National Tax Service publishes decision figures for both taxes through the government indicator service, and the 2025 figures show 181,653 taxed gift cases (과세건수) against 22,524 persons taxed on inheritance (과세인원), with total determined tax (총결정세액) of 54,828 hundred million won for gifts and 89,345 hundred million won for inheritance — 5.48 trillion won against 8.93 trillion won. Determined tax is the amount assessed in the decisions, not an amount collected, and the two headcount figures are counted on different units — cases for gifts, persons for inheritance. Year on year, taxed gift cases rose by 2,993, or 1.7 percent, while total determined gift tax fell by 1,984 hundred million won, or 3.5 percent.

The published series behind that chart runs from 1997 to 2025 and is maintained by the National Tax Service's inheritance and gift tax division; the indicator page for inheritance and gift tax decisions carries the annual update cycle and the figures quoted above.

Where This Doesn't Apply

Where the donee is not a resident. Article 53 conditions the entire deduction on a resident receiving the gift. Nothing in the article extends the four subparagraph amounts to a non-resident donee, and Article 53-2 opens on the same condition. Residence status in Korean tax law is determined independently of visa category, which is the same threshold question that governs the flat-rate election available to foreign workers.

Where the gift falls in the excluded categories. The proviso to paragraph 2 of Article 47 keeps 합산배제증여재산 out of the ten-year aggregation, and subparagraph 3 of paragraph 1 of Article 55 gives those gifts their own treatment — the value of the gifted property less 30 million won — rather than routing them through Articles 53 and 53-2. Deemed gifts of title-trust property under Article 45-2 and the deemed-gift profits under Articles 45-3 and 45-4 have their own subparagraphs in Article 55 as well.

Where the marriage and childbirth deduction is switched off. Paragraph 4 of Article 53-2 disapplies that deduction to the gifted property described in subparagraphs 4 and 5 of paragraph 1 of Article 4 and in paragraph 2 of Article 4.

Where the ten-year total stays small. Paragraph 2 of Article 47 only adds earlier gifts once the total from the same person within the window reaches 10 million won. Below that, the aggregation rule does not engage — though the deduction ceiling in Article 53 is still measured across the same ten years regardless.

Where the surcharge in Article 57 applies instead of the ordinary computation. Where the donee is a lineal descendant who is not the donor's child, paragraph 1 of Article 57 (직계비속에 대한 증여의 할증과세) adds 30 percent of the computed gift tax, rising to 40 percent where that donee is a minor and the value of the gifted property exceeds 2 billion won. The proviso removes the surcharge where the donor's nearest lineal descendant has died and that deceased person's nearest lineal descendant receives the gift. A grandparent-to-grandchild transfer is therefore not simply a fresh 50 million won pool.

Where the transfer is an inheritance rather than a gift. Estates run on a different set of articles with different deductions, and the ten-year rules described here are gift-side rules. The rate table in Article 26 is the one thing the two taxes genuinely share.

If You Are Actually in This Situation

The first thing to establish is the date of every earlier transfer from the same side of the family, because both ten-year rules are anchored to dates rather than to tax years, and both treat a lineal ascendant and that ascendant's spouse as a single source. A household that has been sending money in irregular amounts needs the dates before it needs the amounts.

The second is the category. Subparagraph 2 of Article 53 turns on whether the donee was a minor at the time, and Article 53-2 turns on the marriage date or the child's birth or adoption date, each with its own two-year span. Those are documentary questions with documentary answers, and paragraph 2 of Article 68 requires the evidencing documents to accompany the return in any event.

The third is the deadline. Paragraph 1 of Article 68 counts three months from the last day of the month containing the gift date, not from the gift date itself, and it names the head of the tax office with jurisdiction over the place of tax payment as the recipient of the return. A gift made on the second of a month and a gift made on the last day of the same month share a deadline.

For the marriage deduction specifically, paragraphs 6 and 7 of Article 53-2 contemplate the deduction being claimed before a marriage that then does not happen, and before a marriage later held void. Both paragraphs set out amended-return routes with conditions attached. Anyone who has claimed the deduction ahead of the ceremony should read those two paragraphs in full rather than rely on a summary of them — including this one.

Finally, the floor is worth remembering in the other direction. Paragraph 2 of Article 55 means a tax base under 500,000 won produces no gift tax at all, but the base is what remains after the deductions have been applied and the earlier gifts have been added back. A transfer that looks small on its own can sit well above that floor once paragraph 2 of Article 47 has done its work.