Social Insurance Law 2024: Enhancing legal compliance and protecting labourers’ legitimate rights and interests

The identification of social insurance participants:

Article 30 of the Social Insurance Law 2024 outlines the responsibilities of the Social Insurance offices, ministries, sectors, and localities in identifying compulsory social insurance participants and promoting voluntary social insurance participation. It also mandates that the managing agencies of national databases and specialized databases related to labour, population, taxes, and business registration connect and share information and data concerning social insurance participants and potential participants with the Social Insurance offices, as stipulated by the Government.

Pushing the fulfillment of social insurance and unemployment insurance contribution obligations

The Social Insurance office must: i) issue written reminders; (ii) publicly disclose on the social insurance office's portal information regarding employers who are late or evading compulsory social insurance and unemployment insurance premium contributions; iii) forward information about these employers to the State management agencies for social insurance and unemployment insurance, and relevant inspection agencies for their consideration and handling within their jurisdiction.

Supplementing regulations for handling late and evasive contributions of social insurance and unemployment insurance premiums

The Social Insurance Law 2024 (Articles 38, 39, 40, 41) clarifies the definition and handling of late and evasive contributions of social insurance and unemployment insurance premiums, specifically:

1) Late contribution of compulsory social insurance and unemployment insurance premiums refers to actions by employers who: (i) Have not paid or have not paid in full the amount due according to the registered compulsory social insurance and unemployment insurance participation records, starting from the latest due date for contribution, except for cases stipulated in points (d) and (e) of Clause 1, Article 39 of this Law; (ii) Have not registered or have not fully registered the number of individuals subject to compulsory social insurance and unemployment insurance within 60 days from the end of the stipulated deadline; (iii) Fall under cases not considered as evasion as defined in Clause 2, Article 39 of this Law (with legitimate reasons).

Illustrative image

2) Evasion of compulsory social insurance and unemployment insurance premium contributions refers to actions taken by employers in the following circumstances to avoid paying or to underpay social insurance and unemployment insurance for employees:

(i) After 60 days from the end of the stipulated deadline, the employer has not registered or has not fully registered the number of individuals subject to compulsory social insurance and unemployment insurance;

(ii) The employer registers a salary as the basis for compulsory social insurance and unemployment insurance contribution that is lower than the stipulated amount;

(iii) The employer does not pay or does not pay in full the registered amount for compulsory social insurance after 60 days from the latest due date for compulsory social insurance and unemployment insurance premium contribution, and after the competent authority has issued reminders as stipulated in Article 35 of this Law;

(iv) Other cases considered as evasion of compulsory social insurance and unemployment insurance premium contributions according to government regulations.

(3) Specific regulations on handling late and evasive contributions of social insurance and unemployment insurance premiums: compelling the payment of the full amount of late or evaded social insurance and unemployment insurance premiums; imposing a penalty of 0.03% per day on the amount of late or evaded social insurance and unemployment insurance premiums, calculated based on the amount and the number of days of late or evasive payments;

imposing administrative penalties according to legal provisions; disqualifying the employer from receiving awards or honours. For evasion cases, stronger measures are applied, including criminal prosecution as stipulated by law.

The Social Insurance Law assigns the government to detail Article 39 regarding evasion of compulsory social insurance and unemployment insurance premium contributions and to define cases that constitute evasion but have legitimate reasons and are therefore not considered evasion. The law also includes transitional provisions for compulsory social insurance and unemployment insurance payments that employers were obligated to pay according to Law No 58/2014/QH13 and Law No 38/2013/QH13 on Employment but were not paid or not paid in full by June 30, 2025. Such cases will be handled according to the regulations on late and evasive payments under the 2024 Law./.