Korea's 87% wage rule makes owning a home-care agency worth less than working in one.

Starting capital for this edition is ₩666,773 [$500 USD at 1,333.5463, the xe.com mid-market rate quoted 30 October 2026 15:46 UTC]. The target is ₩6,667,732 a month [about $5,000 USD], or ₩80,012,778 a year.

The consensus reading of Korean home care is that it is a licence-and-volume business: get the 지정, sign up 수급자, keep a margin on each hour your 요양보호사 works. The volume half is right. The margin half is a category error, because in this market the margin is a published number and it belongs to somebody else.

Start with the price, since the state writes it. 「장기요양급여 제공기준 및 급여비용 산정방법 등에 관한 고시」 (보건복지부고시 제2026-189호, in force 1 October 2026) 제18조: "방문요양 급여비용은 1회 방문당 급여제공시간에 따라 다음과 같다" ["the fee for visiting care shall be as follows, by the length of care provided per visit"]. Ninety minutes is ₩34,120; four hours is ₩70,080; thirty minutes is ₩17,450. Nobody haggles. A client's monthly ceiling is published too, by care grade: ₩2,512,900 at grade 1 down to ₩1,208,900 at grade 5.

Now the line that decides who keeps it. 제38조제6항 of the Act: "장기요양기관은 지급받은 장기요양급여비용 중 보건복지부장관이 정하여 고시하는 비율에 따라 그 일부를 장기요양요원에 대한 인건비로 지출하여야 한다" ["a long-term care institution shall spend, as personnel costs for long-term care workers, the portion of the fees it receives that corresponds to the ratio published by the Minister of Health and Welfare"]. 제11조의2 of the 고시 carries the table. Visiting care: 87.0%. Day and night care: 48.6%. Visiting bathing: 49.7%. Residential: 62.6%. The service with the lowest capital requirement carries, by a wide margin, the highest mandated wage share — and 제11조의3 makes the agency file last month's wage ledger with the fund every single month, electronically, with the claim.

Read literally, that is a 13.0% business. The arithmetic is brutal and short. Korea spent ₩6,818,400,000,000 on visiting care in 2025 across 18,392 agencies — a mean of ₩30,893,867 a month each. Thirteen per cent of that is ₩4,016,203, and a small office with a phone line, an accountant and the professional indemnity cover 제35조의5 requires costs around ₩1,050,000 of it. The average Korean visiting-care agency therefore yields its owner ₩2,966,203 a month, which is 44.5% of this edition's target. To clear $5,000 after tax on that side of the line alone you need 54 clients — 2.39× the average agency.

The escape is in the word the statute uses. It does not say the money must go to employees, or to people other than the owner. It says 장기요양요원, and 제11조의2's table names exactly who that is for visiting care: 요양보호사, 사회복지사. A social worker is inside the 87%. And 제57조 of the same 고시 does not merely permit one — it compels one: "다만 방문요양 수급자 수가 15인 이상인 기관은 사회복지사를 1명 이상 배치하여야 한다" ["provided that an institution with fifteen or more visiting-care recipients shall deploy at least one social worker"]. The job that unlocks the other 20% of the money is a job the law orders you to create, three clients before the target arrives.

Price it. At the modal ninety-minute visit the hour is worth ₩22,746.67. A 요양보호사 posted at ₩12,000 an hour costs ₩15,240 loaded with the employer's social insurance, statutory leave and severance accrual — 67.0% of revenue. Subtract that from 87.0% and 20.0% of every won billed is a salary pool with one lawful claimant and, below fifteen clients, no legal obligation to spend it. Add the 13.0% outside and the owner who holds 사회복지사 2급 takes 33.0% where the owner who does not takes 13.0%. Same clients, same hours, same 고시. The entire difference is a credential that costs a year of part-time study and no capital at all.