Social insurance for foreign employees working in Vietnam

Regulations on social insurance for foreign employees working in Vietnam take effect from July 1st, 2025

Post date: 02-08-2025

51 view(s)

 

Social insurance for foreign employees working in Vietnam

Social insurance for foreign employees working in Vietnam

1. Conditions for compulsory social insurance for foreign employees working in Vietnam (Clause 2, Article 2 of the Social Insurance Law 2024):

Foreign employees working in Vietnam are subject to compulsory social insurance when working under a fixed-term labor contract with a term of 12 months or more with an employer in Vietnam, except for the following cases:
a) Internal transfer within the company according to the provisions of the law on foreign employees working in Vietnam;
b) At the time of signing the labor contract, they have reached the retirement age as prescribed in Clause 2, Article 169 of the Labor Code;
c) International treaties to which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a member have other provisions.

Note:
i) Internal transfer within an company according to the provisions of law on foreign employees working in Vietnam (Clause 1, Article 3 of Decree No. 11/2016/ND-CP) includes:
- Foreign employees transferring within an company are managers, executive directors, experts and technical workers of a foreign company that has established a commercial presence in Vietnam;
- Foreign employees temporarily transferring within an enterprise to a commercial presence in Vietnam and have been recruited by the foreign company for at least 12 months.

ii) In case an employee does not work and does not receive salary for 14 working days or more in a month, the employee does not have to pay social insurance for that month. This period is not counted for social insurance benefits, except for cases of maternity leave.

2. Social insurance regimes for foreign employees

When participating in compulsory social insurance, foreign workers are entitled to the same regimes as Vietnamese workers, including:
• Sickness regime;
• Maternity regime;
• Occupational accident and disease insurance regime;
• Retirement and death regime.
However, foreign workers are not eligible to participate in unemployment insurance.

3. Social insurance contribution rates for foreigners from July 1, 2025

The regulations on social insurance contribution rates for foreign emplyees  are similar to those for Vietnamese employees, except for unemployment insurance. Accordingly, employers and employees will contribute as follows:

3.1 Retirement and death benefit fund (Article 9 of Decree 158/2025/ND-CP and Point a, Clause 1, Article 33 of the Social Insurance Law 2024): Foreign employees contribute 8% and employers contribute 14%.
3.2 Sickness and maternity fund (Article 18 of Decision No. 595/QD-BHXH in 2017): Employers contribute 3%.
3.3 Occupational accident and disease insurance (Article 4 of Decree No. 58/2020/ND-CP): Employers contribute 0.5%.
3.4 Health insurance fund (Article 18 of Decision No. 595/QD-BHXH in 2017): Foreign employees contribute 1.5% and employers contribute 14%.

Thus, the total compulsory social insurance contribution for foreign employees is 30% of the monthly salary used as the basis for social insurance contribution, of which foreign employees contribute 9.5% and foreign employers contribute 20.5%.

4. Procedures for participating in compulsory social insurance for foreign employees

The procedures for participating in social insurance for foreign employees working in Vietnam basically use some similar forms for domestic employees. However, there are some specific regulations for foreign employees.

4.1 Procedures for employers
When foreign employees are required to pay social insurance, the employer must submit the following documents:

• Form TK3-TS: declaration of participation, information adjustment.

• Form D02-TS list of declarations of increased foreign employees participating in social insurance.

4.2 Procedures for employees
Foreign employees participating in social insurance use the social insurance and health insurance participation and adjustment declaration form according to the latest form TK1-TS issued by the social insurance agency to declare and only use it when they have not been granted a social insurance code. When filling in the information, the data fields on full name, country, and gender must be recorded in international phonetic transcription.

4. Can foreign employees accumulate their social insurance participation process?

Foreign employees will have their social insurance participation process recorded in Vietnam according to the bilateral agreement signed between Vietnam and other countries.

Source:
- Vietnam Social Insurance Law 2024
- Decree No. 158/2025/ND-CP detailing and guiding the implementation of a number of articles of the Social Insurance Law on compulsory social insurance in Vietnam.

Lawyer Vietnam Law Firm- Vietnamese lawyer, attorney at law, solicitor, advocate, barrister
 

comment(s) (0)

Send your comment

Captcha reload