Jeonse ↔ Wolse Conversion Calculator

Is Your Landlord's Rent Offer Fair? Check Korea's Legal Conversion Rate

If you've apartment-hunted in Korea, you've run into jeonse (전세) — a huge upfront deposit instead of monthly rent — and wolse (월세) — a smaller deposit plus monthly rent. Many listings blend the two ("반전세"), and landlords convert between them using a "conversion rate" (전월세전환율). The problem: most foreign tenants have no way to check if the rate they're being offered is fair.

Korea's Housing Lease Protection Act actually caps this rate — but only in specific situations, which is where most confusion happens.

The legal cap: Bank of Korea base rate + 2 percentage points (currently 4.75%, updated automatically in our tool). This cap applies when you're renewing an existing lease or changing its terms. It does not apply to a brand-new lease with a new tenant — landlords can set jeonse/wolse terms freely for a new contract, though the legal rate is still a useful benchmark for negotiating.

How to use it:

The calculator has three modes:

1. Deposit → Monthly Rent — enter your original jeonse deposit and your new (lower) deposit to see what your monthly rent should be at the legal rate.
2. Is My Rent Fair? — enter your landlord's offered deposit and rent to see if it's within, near, or above the legal cap.
3. Monthly Rent → Jeonse Equivalent — comparing a wolse listing to a jeonse listing? Convert the wolse into an equivalent jeonse deposit for an apples-to-apples comparison.

A surprise most renters don't expect: because this cap only binds renewals, some landlords quote a much higher rate on a brand-new contract than the legal cap suggests. That's legal — but knowing the benchmark still gives you real negotiating leverage.