Consolidated Document No. 19/VBHN-VPQH: Social Insurance Law (Consolidating Amendments Through 2025)

Document overview

Consolidated Document No. 19/VBHN-VPQH (Official Gazette No. 133, dated 28 February 2026) merges Social Insurance Law No. 41/2024/QH15 (passed by the National Assembly on 29 June 2024, effective from 1 July 2025) with amendments introduced by four subsequent laws:

• Law on Teachers No. 73/2025/QH15 (16 June 2025), effective 1 January 2026
• Law on Inspection No. 84/2025/QH15 (25 June 2025), effective 1 July 2025, which removed the phrase «specialized inspection of social insurance, unemployment insurance, and health insurance contributions» from the social insurance agency's powers and responsibilities
• Population Law No. 113/2025/QH15 (10 December 2025), effective 1 July 2026
• Law on Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy No. 142/2025/QH15 (11 December 2025), effective 1 March 2026

Scope

The law governs the rights and responsibilities of agencies, organizations, and individuals regarding social insurance; social retirement allowances; registration for and collection of social insurance contributions; mandatory and voluntary social insurance regimes; the social insurance fund; supplementary retirement insurance; complaints, denunciations, and violation handling; and state management of social insurance.

Who must participate (mandatory)

• Vietnamese employees on labor contracts of one month or more; civil servants and public employees; armed forces personnel; standing militia; workers sent abroad under labor contracts
• Registered household business owners
• Enterprise managers, controllers, state capital representatives, and elected managers (board chairs, general directors, directors) of cooperatives and cooperative unions, including unpaid positions
• Part-time officials at commune, village, and residential-group level
• Foreign employees working in Vietnam under labor contracts of 12 months or more, except for intra-company transferees, those already past retirement age when the contract is signed, or where an international treaty provides otherwise
• Mandatory-participation employers include state agencies, public service units, enterprises, cooperative groups, cooperatives, cooperative unions, household businesses, and any organization or individual employing workers under a labor contract

Individuals not receiving a pension, social insurance allowance, or monthly allowance and not falling into the categories above may join voluntary social insurance.

Mandatory social insurance contribution rates

For the general worker group (points a, b, c, d, i, k, l of Clause 1 and Clause 2, Article 2):

• Employee: 8% of the salary used as the contribution base, paid monthly into the retirement and death-benefit fund
• Employer: 3% into the sickness and maternity fund plus 14% into the retirement and death-benefit fund (17% combined), on top of occupational accident and disease insurance contributions under the Law on Occupational Safety and Hygiene

For the armed forces group (points dd and e, Clause 1, Article 2): the employer pays 22% of the contribution-base salary monthly into the retirement and death-benefit fund.

Prohibited acts

Late payment or evasion of mandatory social insurance or unemployment insurance contributions; misappropriating social insurance or unemployment insurance benefit funds; obstructing the rights of participants; fraud or falsification of records; unlawful use of the social insurance fund; unauthorized access to the social insurance database; false registration or reporting; colluding in or covering up violations; and pledging, trading, or mortgaging social insurance books in any form.

Maternity regime (detailed provisions excerpted)

The document sets out eligibility conditions for maternity benefits (having paid mandatory social insurance for at least 6 months within the 12 months immediately before giving birth, or at least 3 months if medically required to rest during pregnancy after having already paid for 12 months); prenatal check-up leave (up to 5 visits, no more than 2 working days each); leave for miscarriage, abortion, or stillbirth (10 to 50 days depending on gestational age); and paternity leave when a spouse gives birth (5 working days, or 7 working days if the spouse's delivery requires surgery or occurs before 32 weeks).

Implications for businesses and SMEs

This is a technical consolidation. It creates no new legal content but compiles the amending laws into a single text, and it is currently the most complete official reference for HR and accounting teams to:

• Correctly identify who must be enrolled in mandatory social insurance, particularly registered household business owners and foreign staff
• Apply the correct contribution rates: 8% for employees and 17% (or 22% for armed forces employers) for employers, depending on the worker category
• Avoid relying on provisions that have since been amended or repealed by the Law on Inspection, Law on Teachers, Population Law, or Law on Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy

Note: the Gazette extract used for this summary ends at the detailed maternity-benefit provisions (Article 53); the chapters on retirement benefits, death benefits, complaint procedures, and violation handling in the full consolidated document were not captured in this source excerpt.