![Rep. Park Ji-won of the Democratic Party of Korea [provided by the lawmaker's office]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/08/19/news-p.v1.20260819.24fcc22572a442b18d49caaf54ca3a54_P2.jpg)
Legislation to extend the statute of limitations on clawback rights for linked pension benefits — paid by combining the national pension with occupational pensions such as the civil servant and military pension — from three years to five years is moving forward in the National Assembly.
Rep. Park Ji-won of the Democratic Party of Korea, who represents North Jeolla Province's Gunsan, Gimje and Buan constituency, introduced the amendment to the Act on Linkage of National Pension and Occupational Pensions on Tuesday to align the clawback limitation periods across pension systems.
Under current law, pension management agencies are required to recover linked benefits paid in error. The statute of limitations on the right to receive linked benefits stands at five years, while the right to collect overpayment clawbacks is set at three years.
According to Park, a revision to the National Pension Act passed on May 26 extended the statute of limitations on national pension clawback rights from three years to five years. Occupational pension systems — including the civil servant and military pensions — also set the limitation period for clawback rights at five years.
As a result, a regulatory mismatch has emerged: while the clawback limitation periods for the national pension and each occupational pension individually stand at five years, only the clawbacks on linked benefits — paid by combining those same pensions — remain subject to the shorter three-year period.
The amendment revises Article 25 of the Act on Linkage of National Pension and Occupational Pensions to extend the statute of limitations on linked benefit clawback rights from three to five years. The aim is to bring the clawback standards for linked benefits in line with those of the national pension and occupational pensions individually, and to strengthen legal consistency across pension systems.
In addition, the bill calls for immediate effect upon promulgation and stipulates that the new five-year limitation period would also apply to clawback rights whose existing three-year period had not yet expired at the time of enactment.
"There is no reason to apply a different three-year standard only to benefits that link the national pension and occupational pensions, when the clawback limitation period for each of those systems is already five years," Park said. "The more a pension system is responsible for people's retirement security, the more carefully even small institutional gaps and inconsistencies must be examined. I will continue to look closely at unreasonable rules from the public's perspective and work to improve them."
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