Where to Put Money You Need Back in Two or Three Months

Your jeonse lease ends, the deposit comes back, and the balance on your next place is two months away. You cannot lock it up for long, but leaving it in a current account feels wasteful. Money with a known spend date has to be handled differently from money you are growing. Here is what the rates actually look like by term.

How much the rate differs by term

Taking time deposits from the 2026-07 disclosure that can be opened without visiting a branch, and converting the top rate for each term into interest on KRW 10,000,000, gives the following.

2026-07 Financial Supervisory Service comparison disclosure, before tax, highest rates among products available for online sign-up. After-tax figures apply the 15.4% interest income tax on a simple-interest basis.

The gap between 1 month and 6 months is 0.6 percentage points. Shorter terms carrying lower rates is the normal pattern. In absolute terms, though, the holding period itself is short, so the interest available on one or two months of funds is modest.

Stretching the term costs you

Looking at the table, the six-month rate is highest and it is tempting. But locking money you need in three months into a six-month product means breaking it early. Early termination replaces the contracted rate with an early-termination rate, which is generally far lower.

Break a six-month product at three months and you can end up with less than if you had simply used a three-month product. When the date is certain, choosing a product that matures within that date is the safer call.

When the date is not certain

If the balance date could slip, or you genuinely do not know when you will need the money, committing to a maturity is itself the risk. Money like this belongs in an account you can move freely that still pays interest. The rate is usually lower than a time deposit, but there is no early-termination penalty hanging over it.

Put simply: certain date, matched time deposit; uncertain date, freely accessible. Chasing an extra fraction of a percentage point and losing liquidity is the most common mistake with short-term money.

If you cannot decide, split it

Sometimes half of it will be spent soon and half could sit longer. Rather than treating the money as one block, split it. Keep the portion you may need in a short maturity or an accessible account, and place the rest on a slightly longer term.

That way an unexpected need only touches the short side, leaving the longer piece intact. It costs far less than locking the whole amount into one maturity and breaking all of it. The larger the sum and the vaguer the schedule, the more this helps.

One more thing for larger sums

Funds like a jeonse deposit are large enough that protection limits matter. The ceiling applies per person, per financial institution, and counts principal and interest combined. Concentrate everything in one place and the excess sits outside protection.

It is easy to assume a short holding period makes this irrelevant, but protection is measured by amount, not duration. For large sums, splitting across institutions is the safer arrangement.

Leaving it past maturity

Short-term deposits mature quickly, and it is common to leave the money sitting rather than collecting it on the day. The rate that applies after maturity is not the one you contracted. Post-maturity rates are generally much lower, and some products step down again after a further period.

Comparing rates carefully and then leaving the funds idle for weeks after maturity cancels out the effort. Mark the maturity date, and if your schedule is unsettled, decide at sign-up what should happen at maturity. Some products let you set automatic rollover.

Frequently asked questions