Arya News - The cash subsidy, intended to encourage marriage and family formation, will replace a marriage tax credit that was available to both foreign residents and Korean nationals.
SEOUL – South Korea plans to give each spouse 500,000 won ($370) for registering a marriage starting next year. Whether foreign nationals will receive the money remains undecided.
The cash subsidy, intended to encourage marriage and family formation, will replace a marriage tax credit that was available to both foreign residents and Korean nationals.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family on Tuesday unveiled a 166.3 billion won budget for the program. Starting Jan. 1, 2027, couples will receive a combined 1 million won once in their lifetime after registering their marriage.
People who have previously been married will also qualify upon remarriage, provided they have not received the subsidy before.
The government is introducing the payment as it ends the marriage tax credit, which provides up to 500,000 won per spouse. The Ministry of Finance and Economy said the credit offered little or no benefit to people with low income-tax liabilities.
But it remains unclear whether everyone eligible for the tax credit will qualify for the cash subsidy.
The tax credit covered foreign residents who registered a marriage in Korea, regardless of whether their spouse was a Korean national.
“The budget was allocated based on the Subsidy Management Act, but we are now preparing legislation that will provide the legal basis for the subsidy,” a Gender Equality Ministry official told The Korea Herald.
The official said Korean nationals would be covered but that the government had yet to decide whether foreign nationals would also qualify.
The uncertainty comes amid recurring public debate over foreign nationals’ access to government benefits, potentially making their inclusion in the program contentious.
The policy has also drawn criticism from unmarried people who question why the government should provide cash for marriage when they face many of the same housing and living costs as married couples.
Some companies, including LG U+, SK Securities and KB Securities, have taken a different approach by offering financial benefits to employees who remain unmarried after meeting certain age or employment requirements.
LGBTQ+ people and others who form households outside legally recognized marriage have also expressed disappointment with the government program.
“While heterosexual couples receive 1 million won for getting married, we have to spend millions of won to get married in countries where same-sex marriage is recognized,” one commenter wrote on X.
Others said the policy fails to reflect increasingly diverse forms of family and partnership in Korean society.
The number of households composed of people who are neither married nor related by blood rose from 214,000 in 2015 to 545,000 in 2023, according to the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements.