Tiếng Việt
中文 (中国)
Recently, the latest amendment of the Social Insurance Law Project has included a proposal for Vietnamese workers participating in voluntary social insurance to be able to retire early by 2-5 years without deduction in benefits.
The amended Social Insurance Law Project has been discussed by the National Assembly in the session of October 2023, expected to be passed in the next session in May and come into effect from July 1, 2025.
According to the new proposal, workers participating in voluntary social insurance before 2021 can retire at the age of 60 for men and 55 for women, 2-5 years earlier than the regulations without a 2% deduction per year as in the case of mandatory social insurance participants retiring early.
This is a policy applied to workers joining the voluntary social insurance system before the retirement age increases according to the roadmap. The Labor Code stipulates that from 2021, the retirement age increases by three months per year for men until reaching 62 years old in 2028 and increases by four months per year for women until reaching 60 years old in 2035.
This proposal aims to adjust appropriately to the guidance and commitments of the state, avoiding diminishing people’s trust in voluntary social insurance policies because the retirement age has been increased since 2021.
Compared to the draft presented to the Government in August 2023, the latest version has shortened the time and limited the scope of benefits when applied to those who participated before January 2021 instead of before the law takes effect on July 1, 2025.
This policy does not apply to mandatory social insurance participants, regardless of before or after adjustments to the retirement age. Therefore, participants in mandatory and voluntary social insurance from January 1, 2021, onwards who want to receive retirement benefits must still comply with the current regulations, including paying at least 20 years and reaching the retirement age according to the roadmap from 60 to 62 years old.
Voluntary social insurance policies have been applied since 2008 to support non-formal sector workers without labor contracts. After 16 years of implementation, there are about 1.83 million voluntary social insurance participants nationwide.
However, the insurance rate only reaches 3.9% of the working-age population. This policy includes two main regimes: retirement and death benefits, excluding other regimes such as maternity, illness, occupational diseases, or workplace accidents as in mandatory social insurance.
Since 2018, the state has supported 10% of the fee based on monthly income according to poor standards, rural households, encouraging provinces to allocate additional funds from the budget to support workers. In the period from 2016 to 2021, more than 54,000 voluntary social insurance participants nationwide received monthly retirement benefits.
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