South Korea Adds Maintenance Fees to Housing Benefit and Opens Landlord Accounts

South Korea will begin paying maintenance fees as a distinct category of its housing benefit on 1 January 2028, with the money allowed to go directly into a landlord’s designated account when the home is leased by the state, a local government or 한국토지주택공사 (Korea Land and Housing Corporation). President Lee Jae-myung promulgated the change as 법률 제22123호, the partially amended Housing Benefit Act (주거급여법), on 27 October 2026. The text is published in the 관보 (Gwanbo), the Official Gazette of the Republic of Korea, No. 21348 of 27 October 2026, in the statutes section.

The amendment was passed at the National Assembly and countersigned by Prime Minister Han Seong-suk and Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Hong Ji-sun, whose ministry will write the detailed rules. It rewrites the architecture of the benefit: Article 2(1) now refers to “maintenance fees and other benefits”, and a newly inserted Article 2(9) defines maintenance fees as the costs “necessary for the upkeep and management of housing” and similar premises, limited to “the scope of costs determined by the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport”.

The purpose clause is tightened at the same time. Article 3(1) previously bound the state to act in a general way; it now requires action “so that housing costs are maintained at a level that can be borne”. The explanatory note supplied by the legislation ministry states that the aim is to close blind spots in housing support and to promote housing stability for vulnerable groups.

A new article dedicated to maintenance fees

Article 8(2) is inserted as Article 8의2, a standalone provision headed “Payment of maintenance fees”, with three operative paragraphs:

• Paragraph 1 limits the fee to people who live in another person’s housing, or who own and occupy housing, among those designated by the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
• Paragraph 2 leaves the payment criteria to the same minister, who must weigh household size, the assessed income, the type of housing and the level of the maintenance-fee burden.
• Paragraph 3 obliges payment into the recipient’s benefit account, with exceptions described below.

The benefit account and the landlord’s route

Article 7(4) is amended so that “account” becomes “account, hereinafter referred to as the benefit recipient account”, and Article 8(3) replaces the old cross-reference to the National Basic Living Security Act with that same defined term.

The exception in Article 8의2(3) is the operative novelty for tenants of social housing. Where the recipient leases housing from the state, a local government, 한국토지주택공사 or a local public enterprise, the fee may be paid into a designated account in the name of the lessor who signed the tenancy agreement; where unavoidable grounds set out in a Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport ordinance apply, the payment method may be varied as that ordinance provides.

Applications, separated payments and recovery

New Article 10(3) allows a special self-governing city mayor or governor, a city mayor, a county head or a district head who receives an application for the fee to investigate the matters needed for payment set out in the ministry ordinance. Article 11(1) is renumbered so that those matters become the new item 3 of the benefit payment rules.

Article 7의2(1) is widened in two directions: the separated payment regime now covers “rent or maintenance fees”, and it applies to “an entitled person or a recipient”. Under the explanatory note, this lets the unmarried children of an entitled person who does not in practice receive the benefit obtain a separate payment.

References elsewhere are aligned with the new category. Article 14(2)(2) and Article 17(3), items 1, 2 and 5, which spoke of rent and repair costs, now read “rent, repair and maintenance costs and maintenance fees”.

The single transitional provision fixes entry into force on 1 January 2028, with no phased timetable and no grandfathering clause.

The change matters most for low-income tenants in rental housing where a monthly maintenance charge sits alongside the rent, a cost the benefit previously could not touch. By naming maintenance fees in the statute, allowing payment to a public landlord’s account and letting the ministry set the criteria by ordinance, the amendment converts a discretionary gap into an entitlement to be regulated — but the practical reach will depend on the thresholds the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport sets before the January 2028 start date.

Source: 관보 (Gwanbo), Official Gazette of the Republic of Korea, No. 21348, 27 October 2026, section I (Statutes), 법률 제22123호 (Housing Benefit Act, partial amendment).