Teaching English in Korea, Japan, China or Taiwan: Which One Actually Leaves You With More Money?

If you are choosing between Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan to teach English, the headline salaries will mislead you. Korea pays the least of the four — roughly ₩2.0–2.5 million a month to start, about USD 1,500–1,850 — while China's international schools pay two to three times that. But Korea hands most teachers a rent-free furnished apartment, a month's severance per year worked, and a pension refund worth ₩2.5–5 million on a one-year contract. What you keep and what you earn are different questions, and the answer flips depending on which one you ask.

Where we're coming from: SharedHomies runs share houses in Seoul. We make money when people choose Korea. So every number below is cited, and we have led with the number that makes Korea look worst.

What does each country actually pay?

Korea sits at the bottom. That is the honest starting point and we would rather state it plainly than bury it under a paragraph about lifestyle.

China's range is the striking one — the gap between an international school and a training centre in the same city is larger than the gap between any two countries on this list. In China, what you are hired as matters more than where you go.

Korea's EPIK scale is at least transparent, which the private market rarely is: ₩2.0 million for a bachelor's with no experience, ₩2.1 million with a TEFL certificate or a year's experience, ₩2.2–2.3 million with both, ₩2.4 million for a master's or two years plus TEFL, and ₩2.7 million or more for a licensed teacher with K-12 classroom experience. Rural and hard-to-place postings add ₩100,000–200,000.

What does the package add that the salary does not show?

This is where the ranking changes, and it is the part recruiter comparisons underplay because it pays out at the end rather than monthly.

Korea's free apartment removes the single largest line in a teacher's budget. That one benefit is worth more than the salary difference between Korea and Japan, and it is the reason Korea's lowest-paying headline converts into competitive savings.

The two entitlements at the end are the ones teachers most often leave on the table. Severance (퇴직금) is statutory: a minimum of 30 days of your average wage over your final three months, multiplied by your years of service — so roughly a month's pay for a one-year contract. The pension refund is separate. Foreign teachers contribute to the National Pension Service like everyone else, and nationals of countries with a social security agreement with Korea can reclaim those contributions as a lump sum on permanent departure, including the employer's matching contribution and accrued interest.

You can receive both. For a one-year contract that combination is commonly ₩5–8 million landing in the month you leave — which is not a rounding error on a salary of ₩2.4 million.

The eligibility caveat matters: the pension refund depends on your nationality and the agreement your country has with Korea. Check before you count on it.

What do you actually keep each month?

Taiwan offers the best raw monthly savings without a package attached: NT$55,000–80,000 earned against roughly NT$38,000 in basic living costs. If you want money in hand every month rather than a lump sum at the end, Taiwan is the straightforward answer.

China has the widest spread because its salary range is so wide. Reports of USD 30,000 saved in a year are real and come from international-school teachers, not from training-centre hires.

Korea's monthly figure looks mid-pack, and it is — until you add the ₩5–8 million that arrives on departure. Add it and Korea becomes competitive with Taiwan without ever having paid a competitive salary.

A necessary caution on this entire table: these figures come from recruiter and TEFL-industry guides, which are commercially motivated. No government or statistical agency publishes a series on foreign English-teacher pay in any of these markets. We looked. Treat every number here as a range, and be sceptical of any article that gives you a precise figure or a confident ten-year trend — including confident claims about which direction pay is moving.

What can be said with more confidence is that pay is not rising. Eikaiwa salaries in Japan have eroded roughly 9% in real terms since 2007, and nominal English-teaching pay there has been broadly flat for fifteen years. Nobody in this market is being priced upward.

What does each country require before it will hire you?

Korea's E-2 visa requires a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution, citizenship of a designated English-speaking country, a criminal background check and a health check. That is stricter than some markets and there is no route around it — a school cannot sponsor you without the degree.

That restriction cuts both ways. It closes the door on non-degree holders and on speakers from outside the designated countries, which is a genuine unfairness in the system. It also means the market is not flooded, and pay has not collapsed the way it has in some less-regulated markets.

So which one should you choose?

If you want the highest ceiling, China, aiming specifically at international schools rather than training centres. The gap between those two hiring tracks is the single largest financial decision in this comparison.

If you want the best monthly cash, Taiwan. Good salaries against modest living costs, without needing to wait for an end-of-contract payout.

If you want the most predictable total, Korea. The salary is the lowest and the package is the best, and because housing, severance and the pension refund are all contractual or statutory rather than negotiated, you can calculate your outcome before you arrive with more confidence than anywhere else here.

Japan is the hardest to recommend on money alone. The salary looks competitive, the housing subsidy does not cover the rent, and real pay has been falling for fifteen years. People choose Japan for Japan, which is a perfectly good reason — just not a financial one.

What should you check before signing anything?

Get the housing arrangement in writing, specifically whether the apartment is provided or an allowance is paid, and what happens in the gap between contracts. Confirm severance is stated in the contract, not merely implied. Check whether your nationality qualifies for the pension refund. And find out what the school does about the month between your arrival and your first pay cheque, because that gap catches people every year.

If you land in Korea, you will want an ARC before you can open a bank account, and you may need somewhere to live for the weeks before school housing opens up or after your contract ends. Our guide to monthly rentals in Seoul covers what those gap months cost, and finding work in Korea without Korean covers what comes after teaching, if you decide to stay. If you stay past five years, the tax rules change in ways worth knowing early.

We run furnished share houses across Seoul with a one-month refundable deposit and no key money, on 30-day minimum stays — built for exactly the between-contracts gap that catches teachers. Tell us what you need.

Sources

Checked 10 September 2026. Salary figures in this sector come from commercially motivated sources; treat every one as a range.

• Korvia, EPIK 2026 pay scale by level — the public-school scale
• JET Program USA, contract, salary and benefits — the JET multi-year scale and housing arrangements
• Seoulstart, severance pay (퇴직금) in Korea for foreign workers and the NPS lump-sum refund
• China By Teaching, teaching salaries, living costs and saving potential
• Japanomics, the flatlining eikaiwa salary — the real-terms erosion figure
• Numbeo Asia cost of living, 2026 mid-year — living-cost comparison across the four cities