Selling clothes in (Thanh Tri, Hanoi), Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan (35 years old) started participating in voluntary social insurance (BHXH) from mid-2025 with a contribution of nearly 700,000 VND per month.
Due to unstable income from freelance business, she chose the method of paying every 6 months to proactively arrange finances.
According to Ms. Lan, she used to think that social insurance was only suitable for people working in enterprises with stable labor contracts. However, after learning about new policies, especially the fact that voluntary social insurance participants are entitled to additional maternity benefits from July 1, 2025, she decided to participate to have more long-term social security support.
I work freelance, so there are no benefits. Now participating in voluntary social insurance has the opportunity to receive a pension, have health insurance when old, and is also supported by the State with a part of the contribution level, so I feel more secure" - Ms. Lan shared.
Voluntary social insurance is a social security policy organized by the State for employees who are not subject to compulsory social insurance participation.
According to the 2024 Law on Social Insurance, effective from July 1, 2025, voluntary social insurance participants, in addition to enjoying retirement and death benefits, also receive a maternity allowance of 2 million VND for each child born.
The condition to be eligible for maternity benefits is that participants must have paid voluntary social insurance for 6 months or more within 12 months before giving birth. This is considered a new point contributing to increasing the attractiveness of the policy to freelance workers.
When meeting the age and contribution period conditions according to regulations, participants will receive a monthly pension and be issued a health insurance card during the pension period. Relatives of participants or pensioners are also granted death benefits according to regulations.
Voluntary social insurance participants can choose their contribution level based on their own income determined within the framework of State regulations. The contribution method is also quite flexible, it can be paid monthly, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months or paid once for many years later.
For cases where people have reached retirement age but lack time to participate, the law allows people to pay once for the remaining time to be eligible for pension benefits. This regulation helps many people have more opportunities to enjoy pension benefits and stabilize their lives in old age.
In addition to flexibility in contribution levels and participation methods, the State currently also supports a part of voluntary social insurance contributions for people to reduce financial burdens and encourage long-term participation.
According to Vietnam Social Security, the number of people participating in voluntary social insurance has increased rapidly year by year. By the end of 2025, the whole country has more than 2.6 million people participating in voluntary social insurance, an increase of 13.83% compared to 2024, accounting for 5.49% of the working age population.
Over the past time, Vietnam Social Security has continued to reform administrative procedures, promote digital transformation and build a digital social security ecosystem to serve people and businesses more conveniently.
Many digital utilities have been deployed such as searching for the participation process, tracking the value of health insurance card use, receiving notifications of the contribution - benefit process through phone applications and digital platforms.
By the end of 2025, the entire industry has provided 84 online public services for all 25 administrative procedures under its authority; 100% of health insurance medical examination and treatment facilities have implemented medical examination and treatment using chip-based ID cards.
The Social Insurance sector also promotes the application of VssID, VNeID, connecting and sharing data with the national population database and ministries, branches, and localities.
