28 enterprises are late in paying social insurance from 10 billion VND or more
Statistics from Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance, by the end of 2025, there are 200 businesses that are late in paying social insurance for 3 months or more with large amounts. Among them, there are 28 businesses that are late in paying 10 billion VND or more. This means that tens of thousands of workers are affected in their rights to social insurance, health insurance (HI), and unemployment insurance (UI).
Most notably, Hoa Binh Group Joint Stock Company is late in paying social insurance for more than 1,000 employees in 22 months with an amount of more than 57 billion VND; Saigon Post and Telecommunications Service Joint Stock Company is late in paying social insurance for 93 months (nearly 8 years) with an amount of more than 41 billion VND; Hoang Sinh Import-Export Joint Stock Company is late in paying for 33 months with an amount of more than 32 billion VND...
By the end of January 2026, Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance had issued 44 decisions to sanction administrative violations of businesses with violations of social insurance and health insurance contributions with a total amount of nearly 25 billion VND. After that, businesses paid a part of the fine amount of nearly 4.4 billion VND, accounting for only 17.6% of the total fine amount. At the same time, Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance also issued decisions to enforce administrative sanctions against these businesses.
Not enough grounds for criminal handling
The question is, why have so far, functional agencies not criminally handled any cases of evasion of social insurance contributions as prescribed in Article 216 of the 2015 Penal Code, amended and supplemented in 2017?
Explaining the reason for not criminally handling the act of evading social insurance contributions, Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance said that it is due to the lack of specific regulations on penalties and the old regulations are no longer appropriate.
Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance said that the 2024 Law on Social Insurance has stipulated groups of acts of late payment and evasion of social insurance and unemployment insurance, including: late payment and evasion of social insurance and unemployment insurance amounts registered with social insurance agencies; late payment and evasion of contributions regarding registration to participate in social insurance and unemployment insurance without sufficient number of subjects and salary level as a basis for participating in social insurance and unemployment insurance and changes in regulations on the time to determine late payment and evasion of payment.
Regarding the current decree guiding the handling of administrative violations in the field of social insurance and unemployment insurance (Article 39 of Decree 12/2022/ND-CP), it specifically stipulates acts of late payment of social insurance and unemployment insurance; paying social insurance and unemployment insurance at the wrong level; paying social insurance and unemployment insurance insufficiently for the number of people eligible to participate in social insurance and unemployment insurance and the time limit for determining the act is shorter than the provisions of the 2024 Social Insurance Law.
Accordingly, the act of late payment of social insurance and unemployment insurance does not include the act of registering to participate in social insurance and unemployment insurance with not enough people belonging to the subject group and the salary as a basis for participating in social insurance and unemployment insurance not in accordance with regulations.
On the other hand, Decree No. 12/2022/ND-CP of the Government stipulating penalties for administrative violations in the fields of labor, social insurance, and Vietnamese workers going to work abroad under contracts is built on the basis of the 2014 Social Insurance Law (which has expired).
Thus, the acts of late payment and evasion of payment of the 2024 Social Insurance Law are not synchronized in terms of behavior as well as the time limit for determining behavior, so the application of Decree 12/2022/ND-CP is no longer appropriate for handling administrative violations.
Meanwhile, according to the provisions of Article 216 of the 2015 Penal Code, amended and supplemented in 2017, only when a person who is obliged to pay social insurance for employees fraudulently or by other means fails to pay or does not fully pay for 6 months or more and has been administratively sanctioned for this act but still violates and falls into certain cases are there sufficient grounds to handle the crime of evading social insurance payments. Because the crime of evading social insurance payments has not been punished, there will not be enough grounds to criminally handle the crime of evading social insurance payments.
Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance has issued a document requesting functional agencies to provide guidance on identifying violations in the fields of social insurance, unemployment insurance, health insurance and applying current legal regulations while waiting for the amended and supplemented decree on sanctioning administrative violations in the fields of social insurance, unemployment insurance and health insurance" - a representative of Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance informed.
