EPS-TOPIK explained: the 100-point Korean test for work in Korea, the minimum score by industry, and the 2025 pass figures by country

The test has two parts and nothing else: reading, 20 questions in 25 minutes and listening, 20 questions in 25 minutes. Each part is worth 50 points, so the whole test is 100 points. There is no speaking and no writing in the first round.

Every question is multiple choice with four options. The reading questions are about pictures and situations, vocabulary and grammar, signs (traffic, directions and occupational safety signs), and short texts such as job advertisements and machine manuals. HRD Korea says the test covers three things: everyday Korean, the Korean needed at work, and Korean workplace culture.

To sit it you must be 18 to 39 years old, with no criminal record, no past deportation from Korea, and less than five years in Korea on E-9 or E-10 visas combined.

Registration in person costs USD 28, paid at the reception desk, first come, first served. If you cancel during the registration period you get the fee back in full.

HRD Korea calls EPS-TOPIK a relative evaluation. The Korean page gives the minimum score for each industry, which the English page leaves out:

Manufacturing: 60 out of 100. All other industries: 45 out of 100. Fisheries special track: 30 out of 100, pass or fail.

Reaching the minimum does not make you a passer. HRD Korea's rule is that, among everyone above the minimum, passers are chosen in score order until the planned number for that round is filled. In a round with many applicants and few places, a candidate well above 60 can still miss out in manufacturing.

Our reading: treat the industry minimum as the floor, and the score that actually gets through as unknown until the results come out. A student aiming for manufacturing who stops studying at 60 is aiming at the wrong number.

Passing the first round makes you a candidate for the Skill Test (2nd round). It has a physical fitness test (grip and back strength, plus one cardio task drawn at random: burpees, moving equipment or pushing a hand cart), an interview and a basic skills test for your industry, such as using a grinder, connecting pipes, or packaging and loading.

HRD Korea's score table for all industries is 205 points: 100 from the first round (the Korean test), 100 from the second round, and up to 5 extra points for job capacity: 2 for work experience in the industry (1 year or more), 1 for training (120 hours or more), 1 for education (a community college diploma or higher in a related field) and 1 for a national qualification in the industry. Certificates obtained abroad do not count, and language certificates and driving licences are not recognised. One more point goes to people who worked in Korea for more than five months on a Seasonal Worker (E-8) visa.

The interview is in Korean: self-introduction, basic conversation, following instructions, and safety awareness. In March 2026 HRD Korea published study material for the interview with tool names in Korean for each industry and level, from a grinder and a safety cover to rubber gloves and a life jacket.

The fisheries special track is scored differently: 200 points, with the Korean test only pass or fail, 110 for the second round and 90 for job capacity.

Our reading: outside fisheries, the Korean test is still half of the total, and the second round adds more Korean through the interview. A student who learns the tool words for their industry is studying for both rounds at once.

HRD Korea publishes a table by country for 2025, counting the tests whose final passers were announced that year. It has three columns: examination taking, no-show and pass. Across the table, 50,077 passed against 240,220 in the examination-taking column, about 21%, or roughly one in five. Another 63,056 registered and did not turn up.

The share varies a lot by country. Compared with the examination-taking column: Indonesia 7,517 of 48,174 (15.6%), Cambodia 5,060 of 29,753 (17.0%), Sri Lanka 5,739 of 27,654 (20.8%), Nepal 3,559 of 26,804 (13.3%), Myanmar 5,516 of 26,753 (20.6%), Vietnam 5,414 of 23,317 (23.2%), Pakistan 4,372 of 12,124 (36.1%), Bangladesh 3,539 of 9,837 (36.0%), Timor-Leste 1,917 of 9,974 (19.2%), Philippines 1,107 of 8,287 (13.4%) and Laos 1,154 of 2,425 (47.6%).

Sri Lanka had 23,509 no-shows, close to the 27,654 who took the test. Nepal had 10,174 and Myanmar 11,974.

Our reading: the table does not define its columns further, and one row in it has no country name, so read the percentages as a rough guide. The number of places each country gets, which drives the pass share, is set by Korea and is not in the table.

The Special EPS-TOPIK is for workers who left Korea voluntarily before their stay ran out (departures from 1 January 2010). It is taken on computer or on a mobile-based system and is scored out of 200: reading 100 (8 job-related questions for manufacturing plus 12 common questions) and listening 100, in 25 minutes each. If HRD Korea finds the candidate did not leave voluntarily, the test is invalidated whatever the score.

Workers who passed it for the same industry as their last workplace, after more than a year there, can be placed back with that employer.

HRD Korea publishes its own NEW Standard Korean Textbook for the test, with audio, plus an open question bank and a self-study book. Book 2, Korean for the Workplace, was revised in June 2026 (Lesson 33 changed), so re-download it if you have an older copy.

Since the test is all multiple choice, timed practice matters: 25 minutes for 20 reading questions is about 75 seconds each. Listening questions are about sounds and spelling, pictures, and short conversations.

For the interview, speaking practice in Korean is the part a textbook cannot give you. A live teacher can run the self-introduction and the instruction-following tasks with you until they are automatic.

If you are moving to Korea for longer, the [KIIP](/learn/korean/kiip-korea-immigration-integration-program-explained) is Korea's integration programme, and the [TOPIK](/learn/korean/topik-levels-explained) is the general certificate with levels.