Human-Service Business Income Earner
인적용역 사업소득자
A taxpayer classified under South Korean income tax law as providing human services (인적용역) as an independent business, subject to 3.3% withholding tax. The category covers individuals who supply personal services without physical facilities or employees, including writers, lecturers, insurance agents, delivery drivers, door-to-door salespeople, translators, and freelancers. Numbering approximately 8.69 million in 2024 per National Tax Service data, these workers are legally self-employed but functionally dependent on capital, falling outside the protections of the Labor Standards Act and trade union law, thus constituting a class of 'workers outside labor law' in the Korean labor market.
Sources
- 국세청(National Tax Service), '원천징수 대상 사업소득', defines the legal scope of 인적용역 (human service) categories subject to business income withholding tax, establishing the tax-law basis for the category.
- 통계청, 2025년 8월 경제활동인구조사 근로형태별 부가조사 결과 — provides the non-regular worker count (8.568 million) against which the 인적용역 사업소득자 population is compared; the latter falls outside this survey entirely.
- 국세청, 인적용역 사업소득 원천징수 자료; 차규근 의원실 공개 (경향신문 2026.1.14) — reports 8.69 million human-service business income earners in 2024, up from approximately 4 million in 2014, demonstrating the category's rapid growth and its emergence as a labor-market mainstream.