Korean Wedding Gift Money Calculator

What is Korean wedding gift money?

Chuguigeum (축의금), or wedding gift money, is the money that guests at a Korean wedding give to the couple. The calculator bases its amounts on Korean surveys and bank transfer data. Two terms come up again and again on this page.

• Meal cost: what it costs to feed one guest at the wedding.
• Chamgagyeok: the Korea Consumer Agency’s price trend survey for wedding services. Every meal cost figure on this page comes from it.

How to use the calculator

The questions come in three groups.

1. Relationship and attendance: Choose your relationship, how long you have known each other, how often you were in touch in the past year, and whether you are attending. The relationship is one of Friend, Coworker, Acquaintance or business contact, or Family or relative. If you choose Family or relative, you can also enter an amount your family has agreed on.
2. If you attend: This group appears once you choose Attending. Enter the number of guests coming with you, the meal cost per person, the meal type and the distance to the venue. If you choose “Far” for the distance, say how you will get there as well.
3. Your own wedding: Say whether you are married. If you are, enter what the other person did for your wedding and how much they gave.

The result gives you three amounts.

Both the reference amount and the recommended amount are there to guide you. Neither is a figure you have to stick to.

How the recommended amount is worked out

A “floor” here is a line the recommended amount never drops below.

Step 1: Closeness level

1. How often you were in touch in the past year sets the starting level. “Often” starts you at close, “Sometimes” at moderate and “Rarely” at distant.
2. If you have known each other for 3 years or more, you move up one level. Close is as high as it goes.
3. If you send money without attending, you move down one level. Distant is as low as it goes.

Point 3 follows the Shinhan Bank survey, where people who did not attend gave less on average (80,000 won) than people who did (110,000 won).

Step 2: Base amount

• For friends, and for acquaintances and business contacts, the calculator uses the two most common amounts in NH NongHyup Bank’s transfer data (50,000 won and 100,000 won).
• For coworkers it uses the Incruit survey, which asked separately about coworkers you are close to and coworkers you know only through work.
• For family and relatives, we couldn’t find a survey we could rely on. So the calculator uses 100,000 won as a minimum amount, whatever the closeness level. If you enter an amount your family has agreed on, that becomes the base amount. If the agreed amount is less than 100,000 won, the base amount is 100,000 won.

Step 3: Meal-cost floor (only if you attend)

The meal-cost floor is the meal cost per person multiplied by the number of people attending, which is you plus the guests coming with you. The idea is that if you give at least this much, the couple isn’t left out of pocket for feeding your party.

The calculator settles on a meal cost per person in this order.

1. If you entered a meal cost per person, it uses that.
2. If you left the meal cost blank but chose a meal type, it uses the Chamgagyeok meal cost for that meal type.
3. If you did neither, it uses the Chamgagyeok nationwide median.

Step 4: Reciprocity floor (only if you are married)

1. If you are married and you entered how much the other person gave for your wedding, that amount is the reciprocity floor.
2. Even if the other person sent money without attending, the full amount you received is the reciprocity floor.
3. If you aren’t married yet, this step is skipped.
4. If the other person neither attended nor sent money, this step is skipped.

Step 5: Travel adjustment (only if you attend)

1. If the venue is far away and you pay your own way, the base amount drops to the amount for the next closeness level down. That is the same level you would be at if you didn’t attend. It recognizes the money and time the trip is already costing you. But if you are already at the distant level, or the next level down has the same amount, the base amount stays as it is. It actually falls in only three cases, each from 100,000 won to 50,000 won: a friend or a coworker at the moderate level, and an acquaintance or business contact at the close level.
2. The meal-cost floor and the reciprocity floor are not lowered. So the recommended amount never ends up below what it would be if you only sent money.
3. The base amount for family and relatives is not lowered.
4. If the venue is nearby, the base amount stays where it is.
5. If you ride a chartered bus arranged by the couple, the calculator assumes the trip costs you nothing and leaves the base amount where it is.

We couldn’t find a survey that puts a number on how distance changes what people give. This step is the calculator’s own rule, not a survey finding.

Step 6: Rounding up to a customary amount

1. The calculator takes the largest of three figures: the base amount, the meal-cost floor and the reciprocity floor.
2. It rounds that figure up to a customary amount. The customary amounts are 30,000, 50,000, 70,000, 100,000, 150,000, 200,000, 300,000, 500,000 and 1,000,000 won. The recommended amount is the smallest of these that is no less than the figure from point 1.
3. If the figure from point 1 is over 1,000,000 won, the calculator rounds it up to the next 100,000 won.

A worked example

Here is the situation. A friend is getting married. You have known each other for 2 years and are in touch sometimes. You are going alone. You leave the meal cost blank and choose Buffet as the meal type. The venue is far away and you pay your own way. You are married, and this friend sent 50,000 won for your wedding without attending.

1. Closeness level: “Sometimes” means moderate. You have known each other for less than 3 years, so it stays there.
2. Base amount: for a friend at the moderate level, 100,000 won.
3. Meal-cost floor: 62,000 won for a buffet × 1 person = 62,000 won.
4. Reciprocity floor: the 50,000 won you received.
5. Travel adjustment: the base amount drops to the distant-level amount, 50,000 won.
6. Rounding up to a customary amount: of 50,000 won, 62,000 won and 50,000 won, the largest is 62,000 won. Rounded up, that is 70,000 won.

The recommended amount is 70,000 won and the suggested range is 70,000–100,000 won. Under the same conditions, if the venue is nearby or you ride a chartered bus, the recommended amount is 100,000 won. If you send money without attending, it is 50,000 won.

Where the reference amounts come from

The situation names in this table are the surveys’ own categories, and you won’t see them on screen. What the screen shows is a reference amount and its source, and which one you get depends on your situation.

• Coworker (attending): At the close level you see “Reported range ₩100,000–₩200,000”. That is the range Incruit’s respondents said they give a coworker they are close to. At the moderate and distant levels you see “Reported range ₩50,000–₩100,000”, the range the same respondents gave for a coworker they know only through work.
• Friend: No survey breaks friends down by closeness, so you see the figures for all respondents, whatever their relationship. That is “Average ₩110,000 · ₩50,000 (42.3%) · ₩100,000 (39.7%)” if you attend and “Average ₩80,000” if you only send money. A note also explains that no survey covers this relationship on its own.
• Coworker (sending money only): You see “Average ₩80,000”, the figure for all respondents whatever their relationship, with the same note.
• Family or relative, and acquaintance or business contact (including people at companies you do business with): We couldn’t find a reliable survey that looks only at these relationships. The screen reads “No reference data”.

Surveys the calculator leaves out

The average largest amount given, for family and relatives and for acquaintances: Hankook Research’s 2025 survey of congratulatory and condolence money (1,000 people aged 18 and older nationwide) asked respondents for the most they had ever given on a single occasion. For occasions in the lives of “family or relatives”, the answers averaged 860,000 won. For occasions in the lives of “others or acquaintances”, they averaged 320,000 won. These figures aren’t for weddings alone, so the calculator doesn’t use them. What they do show is a tendency to give more to family and relatives.

The overall average for friends: In the Gayeon × Opensurvey survey, unmarried respondents gave a “friend” 130,000 won on average and married respondents gave 290,000 won. The survey was designed with an 80% confidence level, which is lower than usual. Its amounts are also far higher than the transfer data (in the 110,000-won range). So the calculator leaves it out of the recommended amount. It appears only when the relationship is Friend and you are attending, under the label “For reference (low confidence)”. If you say you are married, you see the average for married respondents. Otherwise you see the average for unmarried respondents.

Transfer amounts by region: NH NongHyup Bank’s 2025 transfer data showed 134,000 won in Seoul, 128,000 won in Busan, 124,000 won in Gwangju and 119,000 won in Incheon, with a nationwide average of 117,000 won. The news reports don’t say whether “region” means where the sender lives or where the wedding was held. So you can’t read these numbers as “this is what a wedding in that region calls for”.

Average wedding spending in the Hankook Research survey (not broken down by relationship or attendance): The same 2025 Hankook Research survey of congratulatory and condolence money described above found that spending on weddings averaged 260,000 won. The survey doesn’t break the figure down by relationship or attendance, and it doesn’t say whether it is an amount per wedding. That makes it hard to compare directly with Shinhan Bank (110,000 won) or NH NongHyup Bank (117,000 won).

What a wedding meal costs

Every figure here is a Chamgagyeok meal cost per person at a wedding.

Meal costs by meal type were published for the first time in the February 2026 survey. The calculator uses only the nationwide median and the meal costs by meal type. It makes no use of the regional differences.

Customs worth knowing

Odd amounts: In Korea it is customary to give an amount that comes out odd when you count it in units of 10,000 won, such as 30,000, 50,000 or 70,000 won. One cultural explanation points to yin and yang: odd numbers are yang, so odd amounts suit a happy occasion. No statistics back this explanation up.

100,000 won: Counted in units of 10,000 won, 100,000 won is an even number. By custom it is widely used as an exception all the same, because people think of it as a “full” number. The data shows how often people choose it. In NH NongHyup Bank’s 2025 transfer data, 50,000 won was the most common amount (42.3%) and 100,000 won came second (39.7%). In Incruit’s 2025 and 2023 surveys, 100,000 won was the amount chosen most often for coworkers.

The Anti-Graft Act: Public officials, journalists, school staff and others covered by Korea’s Anti-Graft Act (the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act) face a cap on congratulatory and condolence money, set by the act’s enforcement decree. The cap is 50,000 won in cash, and the total can’t exceed 100,000 won when a flower wreath is included. The cap applies only to those occupations. It is not a customary benchmark for everyone else.

What this calculator doesn’t cover

• The Anti-Graft Act cap: The recommended amount doesn’t take it into account.
• Regional differences: The calculator uses no regional figures, for gift money or for meal costs.
• How you are related within the family: For family and relatives, the amount doesn’t change with the exact relationship or with closeness.
• What the trip actually costs: You only choose “Nearby” or “Far” for the distance. The calculator doesn’t ask for a travel cost.

The recommended amount is what the steps above produce when applied in order. What you actually give may differ, depending on your relationship and your budget.