Government to Overhaul Lump-Sum Pension Retroactive Payments for Foreigners Following Controversy

Amid controversy that foreigners could receive national pensions by making lump-sum retroactive payments after short-term residences in South Korea, the government has stepped up to improve the system.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Pension Service announced today that they will allow retroactive payments based on actual periods of residence in South Korea—rather than periods of foreign registration or maintained residency status—and make immigration records mandatory checks.

Going forward, periods during which foreigners did not actually reside in the country will be excluded from retroactive payment eligibility.

Foreign subscribers applying for retroactive payments must now submit certificates of factual entry and departure alongside documents proving marital relationships.

The National Pension Service has decided to recognize only those months as actual residence periods in which the real domestic stay lasted 15 days or longer, spanning from the month containing the entry date to the month containing the departure date based on immigration records.

Reviews of related documents will also be strengthened.

The government is further pushing to apply the principle of reciprocity to retroactive payments by foreigners through amendments to relevant laws and decrees.

This means retroactive payments in South Korea will only be permitted to nationals of countries that also grant retroactive pension recognition to South Korean citizens residing overseas.

Management of National Pension beneficiaries residing overseas will be reinforced as well.

The government plans to increase investigations verifying the survival of overseas beneficiaries from once a year to twice a year, and inspect blind spots across the national pension system as a whole, including dependent family pensions, to pursue additional system improvements.

Previously, the retroactive payment system—originally introduced to resolve blind spots in old-age security for vulnerable groups—sparked fairness debates as foreign subscribers with just one month of payment history made lump-sum payments for up to 119 months to fulfill the 10-year minimum subscription period required to receive old-age pensions.

National Pension Service Chairman Kim Sung-joo posted statistics on his social media the day before yesterday noting that "79.7% of all foreign retroactive payment applications were by ethnic Koreans from China," while stating that retroactive payments by foreigners should not be restricted based solely on nationality.

※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.