The Lastest Vietnam Law on Social Insurance 2024

On June 29, 2024, the 7th Session of the 15th National Assembly passed the amended Law on Social Insurance in Vietnam. The Law takes effect from July 1, 2025. The 2024 Law on Social Insurance consists of 11 chapters and 141 articles (an increase of 2 chapters and 16 articles compared to the current Law on Social Insurance). The Law on Social Insurance is the main legal basis regulating the social insurance regime. In the article below, Viet An Law will outline the notable contents of the lastest Vietnam Law on Social Insurance 2024.

Overview of the Vietnam Law on Social Insurance 2024

• Number: 41/2024/QH15
• Date of issue: June 29, 2024
• Effective date: 01/07/2025
• Cease to have effect: The Law on Social Insurance 2014
• Amended and supplemented text:
  • Labor Code 2019;
  • Law on Labor Safety and Hygiene 2015;
  • Employment Law 2013;
  • Law on the Elderly 2009.

Main contents of the lastest Vietnam Law on Social Insurance 2024

• Subjects participating in compulsory social insurance and voluntary social insurance;
• Types and modes of social insurance;
• Rights and responsibilities of agencies, organizations and individuals regarding social insurance and social insurance implementation organizations;
• Social retirement benefits;
• Register to participate and manage social insurance collection and payment;
• Compulsory social insurance and voluntary social insurance policies and regimes;
• Social insurance fund;
• Supplementary retirement insurance;
• Complaints, denunciations and handling of violations of social insurance;
• State management of social insurance.

Social insurance participants

Subjects participating in compulsory social insurance

Compulsory social insurance is a type of social insurance organized by the State in which employees and employers who are subject to compulsory social insurance must participate. The compulsory nature of compulsory social insurance is shown through: subjects of participation, premium levels and payment methods, and benefits.

Employees who are Vietnamese citizens and are subject to compulsory social insurance include those subject to Clause 1 and Clause 2, Article 2 of the Law on Social Insurance 2024. They can be generalized into the following main groups of subjects:

One of the new points in Article 2 of the Law on Social Insurance 2024 is the regulation to expand the subjects participating in compulsory social insurance to: Business household owners (with business registration); Part-time workers in villages and residential groups similar to part-time workers at the commune level; Business managers, controllers, representatives of state capital;…

Subjects participating in voluntary social insurance

Voluntary social insurance is a type of social insurance organized by the State in which Vietnamese citizens voluntarily participate and can choose the contribution level and payment method suitable to their income.

Accordingly, subjects participating in voluntary social insurance include:

• Vietnamese citizens aged 15 years or older are not subject to compulsory social insurance and are not recipients of pensions, social insurance benefits, or monthly allowances;
• The above subjects are temporarily suspending the performance of labor contracts or work contracts, except in cases where the two parties have an agreement on compulsory social insurance payment during this period.

Types of social insurance

Types and regimes of social insurance according to Article 4 of the Law on Social Insurance 2024 include:

Social retirement benefits

Social retirement benefits include the following:

• Monthly social pension;
• Funeral cost support;
• Enjoy health insurance paid by the state budget.

This is a new regime added according to the provisions of the Social Insurance Law 2024. Accordingly, social retirement benefits are a type of social insurance guaranteed by the State budget, built on the basis of inheriting and partly developing from the regulations on monthly social allowances for the elderly without pensions or monthly social insurance benefits.

Compulsory social insurance

Compulsory social insurance has the following regimes:

• Sick;
• Maternity;
• Retirement;
• Death;
• Occupational accident and disease insurance according to the provisions of the Law on Labor Safety and Hygiene.

Voluntary social insurance

Voluntary social insurance has the following benefits:

• Maternity benefits;
• Retirement;
• Death;
• Occupational accident insurance according to the provisions of the Law on Occupational Safety and Hygiene.

Thus, compared to compulsory social insurance, the voluntary social insurance regime does not have occupational disease and sickness regimes. The new point of the 2024 Law is to add maternity regime to the voluntary social insurance policy to increase the attractiveness of the voluntary social insurance policy, attracting people (especially young workers) to participate in voluntary social insurance.

Other modes

• Unemployment insurance according to the provisions of the Employment Law.
• Supplementary retirement insurance.

Note: Although the occupational accident and disease insurance regime is a social insurance regime, the Social Insurance Law 2024 does not directly regulate it, but this regime is subject to the regulation of the Law on Labor Safety and Hygiene 2015.

Social insurance contribution rate

Compulsory social insurance contribution rate

For Employees: The monthly contribution is mainly 8% of the salary used as the basis for compulsory social insurance contributions to the pension and death fund, except for some cases where the monthly contribution is 22% of the salary to the pension and death fund, and the monthly contribution is 3% of the salary to the sickness and maternity fund.

For Employers: The monthly contribution level for compulsory social insurance is calculated based on the salary used as the basis for compulsory social insurance contribution as follows:

• 3% to the sickness and maternity fund;
• 14% to pension and death fund.

Voluntary social insurance contribution level

Voluntary social insurance participants pay 22% of their monthly income as the basis for voluntary social insurance contributions to the pension and survivorship allowance fund.

Voluntary social insurance participants can choose one of the following payment methods: Monthly; Every 3 months; Every 6 months; Every 12 months; One time.

Contents of compulsory social insurance regime

The contents of the compulsory social insurance regime are stipulated in Chapter V of the Law on Social Insurance 2024. Specifically, it includes the following main contents:

Sick leave

Subjects and conditions for enjoying sick leave benefits

The subjects entitled to sick leave when taking leave fall into one of the following cases:

• Treatment for non-occupational diseases;
• Treatment for accidents other than work-related accidents;
• Treatment for accidents while traveling from home to work or from work to home by reasonable route and time as prescribed by law on occupational safety and hygiene;
• Treatment and rehabilitation of occupational functions when injuries or illnesses recur due to work accidents or occupational diseases;
• Donate, take, and transplant human tissues and organs according to the provisions of law;
• Take care of sick children under 7 years old.

Note that employees are not entitled to sick leave if they fall under the cases specified in Clause 2, Article 42 of the Law on Social Insurance.

Sick leave benefits

• Sick leave period: calculated by working days, excluding holidays, Tet, weekly days off and based on working conditions, social insurance payment period, medical treatment period, and time taking care of sick children.
• Sickness allowance: equal to 100%/75%/65%/55%/50% of salary used as basis for social insurance payment depending on each subject according to Clause 2, Article 45 of the Law on Social Insurance.
• Recuperation and health recovery after illness: Employees who have taken sick leave for 30 days or more in a year, and whose health has not recovered within 30 days from the end of the sick leave, are entitled to recuperation and health recovery for a maximum of 10 days in a year.

Maternity leave

Subjects and conditions for maternity benefits

Subjects are entitled to maternity benefits when falling into one of the following cases:

• Pregnant female workers;
• Female workers giving birth;
• Female workers as surrogates;
• Female workers using surrogacy;
• Employees adopting children under 6 months old;
• Employees using contraceptive measures that must be performed at medical examination and treatment facilities;
• Male workers participating in compulsory social insurance whose wives give birth or whose wives are surrogate mothers.

Maternity benefits

• Time off work to enjoy maternity benefits when having a pregnancy check-up: Article 51;
• Time off work to enjoy maternity benefits in case of miscarriage, abortion, stillbirth, stillbirth during labor, ectopic pregnancy: Article 52;
• Time off work to enjoy maternity benefits when giving birth: Article 53;
• Maternity benefits for female employees who are surrogate mothers: Article 54;
• Maternity benefits for female employees through surrogacy: Article 55;
• Maternity leave when adopting a child under 6 months old: Article 56;
• Time off work to enjoy benefits when implementing contraceptive measures: Article 57;
• Lump-sum allowance for giving birth, adopting a child through surrogacy or adopting a child under 6 months old: Article 58;
• Maternity allowance: Article 59;
• Recuperation and health recovery after maternity leave: Article 60.

Retirement mode

Subjects and conditions for receiving retirement benefits

Employees who have paid compulsory social insurance for 15 years or more when retiring are entitled to receive a pension if they fall into one of the following cases:

• Reach retirement age as prescribed in Clause 2, Article 169 of the Labor Code;
• Reaching retirement age as prescribed in Clause 3, Article 169 of the Labor Code and having a total period of compulsory social insurance payment of 15 years or more when working in a arduous, toxic, dangerous or especially arduous, toxic, dangerous occupation or job on the list of arduous, toxic, dangerous or especially arduous, toxic, dangerous occupations or jobs or working in areas with particularly difficult socio-economic conditions, including working time in areas with regional allowance coefficient of 0.7 or more before January 1, 2021;
• Be at least 10 years younger than the age specified in Clause 2, Article 169 of the Labor Code and have at least 15 years of experience working in underground coal mining;
• People infected with HIV/AIDS due to occupational accidents while performing assigned tasks.

Thus, the Social Insurance Law 2024 has reduced the minimum number of years of social insurance contributions to receive a pension from 20 to 15 years. Reducing the minimum number of years of social insurance contributions to receive a pension from 20 to 15 years will increase the opportunity to receive a pension for more people, especially those who participate in social insurance late.

Benefits of retirement

The monthly pension of eligible subjects is calculated as follows:

• For female workers, it is 45% of the average salary used as the basis for social insurance payment corresponding to 15 years of social insurance payment, then for each additional year of payment, an additional 2% is calculated, with a maximum of 75%;
• For male workers, it is 45% of the average salary used as the basis for social insurance contributions corresponding to 20 years of social insurance contributions, then for each additional year of contributions, an additional 2% is calculated, with a maximum of 75%.

In addition, male workers with a social insurance payment period of more than 35 years and female workers with a social insurance payment period of more than 30 years will, in addition to their pension, receive a lump-sum allowance upon retirement. The lump-sum allowance for each year of higher payment is equal to 0.5 times the average salary used as the basis for social insurance payment for each year of higher payment up to retirement age.

Survivorship allowance

The beneficiaries of the survivorship allowance of a deceased social insurance participant are relatives; heirs; organizations and individuals responsible for the burial, depending on each subject.

Accordingly, the benefits of the funeral allowance include:

• Lump-sum funeral allowance: equal to 10 times the reference level in the month in which the social insurance participant dies.
• Monthly survivorship allowance: in certain cases in Article 86.
• Lump-sum survivorship allowance: in certain cases in Article 87.

Contents of voluntary insurance regime

The contents of the voluntary social insurance regime are stipulated in Chapter VI of the Law on Social Insurance 2024. Specifically, it includes the following main contents:

Maternity benefits

The beneficiaries of maternity benefits can be female workers giving birth or male workers whose wives give birth.

If employees voluntarily participate in social insurance when giving birth and meet the conditions (paying social insurance for at least 6 months within 12 months before giving birth), the maternity allowance is 2,000,000 VND for each child born and each fetus from 22 weeks old or older that dies in the womb or dies during labor. This is a new regulation that appears for the first time in the Law on Social Insurance.

Retirement benefits

Voluntary social insurance participants are entitled to pension when they reach retirement age as prescribed in Clause 2, Article 169 of the Labor Code and have paid social insurance for 15 years or more, then they are eligible to receive pension under the voluntary social insurance regime.

Compared with the retirement regime of compulsory social insurance, the retirement regime of voluntary social insurance has some differences as follows:

• There is no priority for early retirement benefits for those working in arduous, toxic, or dangerous jobs, but only general conditions for reaching retirement age and having paid social insurance for 15 years or more.
• There are no separate regulations on conditions for receiving pensions or pension levels when there is a reduction in working capacity.
• Not allowed to receive pension before age.

Survivorship allowance

Unlike the survivorship allowance of compulsory social insurance, the survivorship allowance of voluntary social insurance only provides a lump-sum survivorship allowance, not a monthly survivorship allowance. Accordingly, relatives of people who are participating in voluntary social insurance or are reserving their social insurance payment period or are receiving a pension or are temporarily suspending their pension when they die will receive a lump-sum survivorship allowance.

Note on cases of paying both compulsory and voluntary social insurance

According to Article 111 of the Social Insurance Law 2024, the retirement regime and survivorship allowance regime for people who have both compulsory social insurance and voluntary social insurance payment periods are stipulated as follows:

• Having paid at least 15 years of compulsory social insurance if subject to the provisions of Article 64, having paid at least 20 years of compulsory social insurance if subject to the provisions of Article 65: Conditions and pension levels are implemented according to the compulsory social insurance policy;
• Having paid compulsory social insurance for 15 years or more: Receive monthly survivorship allowances according to the compulsory social insurance policy;
• Having paid compulsory social insurance for 12 months or more: Receive funeral benefits according to the compulsory social insurance policy.

Above are the notable contents of the lastest Vietnam Law on Social Insurance 2024. If you have any related questions or need advice on social insurance regulations, please contact Viet An Law for the best advice and support!