Accordingly, Vietnam Social Security (BHXH) emphasized that to increase the pension benefit level or have more financial resources when old, workers can consider some solutions such as:
Compulsory social insurance contributions on a higher salary level.
Participating in supplementary pension insurance. This is a voluntary insurance type according to market principles, allowing employees and employers to contribute to their personal pension accounts to receive a second pension in addition to compulsory social insurance. The State currently has policies to encourage people to participate in this form through tax incentives.
Vietnam Social Security also noted that currently, many workers want to increase their savings for the future, so they are wondering whether they can continue to pay voluntary social insurance if they are participating in compulsory social insurance at the enterprise.
According to the provisions of the 2024 Law on Social Insurance (effective from July 1, 2025), employees are not allowed to participate in both compulsory and voluntary social insurance for the same period.
Only people who are not subject to compulsory social insurance can participate in voluntary social insurance.
Clause 4, Article 2 of the 2024 Law on Social Insurance stipulates that voluntary social insurance participants are Vietnamese citizens aged 15 and over and not subject to compulsory social insurance participation.
The voluntary social insurance policy is built to create conditions for freelancers, farmers or those who do not work under labor contracts to have the opportunity to accumulate contribution time to receive pensions and social security benefits in their old age.
Therefore, when employees have signed labor contracts and are subject to compulsory social insurance, they will no longer be in the group of subjects eligible for voluntary social insurance contributions.
According to current regulations, each individual only has a unique social insurance code to manage the entire process of contribution and enjoyment of benefits.
The law allows employees to switch between two forms of participation, for example, resigning from a business to switch to freelance labor, then they can continue to participate in voluntary social insurance. At the same time, the time of participation in both forms will be accumulated to calculate benefits later.
However, employees are not allowed to pay both compulsory social insurance and voluntary social insurance for the same period.
In case employees work for multiple enterprises at the same time and all sign labor contracts for 1 month or more, Clause 5, Article 2 of the 2024 Law on Social Insurance stipulates that compulsory social insurance participation will be implemented according to the first signed labor contract.
Thus, even if working in many places, employees only pay compulsory social insurance at one unit. The remaining businesses are responsible for paying employees an additional amount equivalent to the compulsory social insurance contribution level in the same payroll period.
