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Many workers who want to increase their retirement savings are asking whether they can keep paying voluntary social insurance while also being enrolled in compulsory social insurance through their employer.
Vietnam Social Security states that under the 2024 Social Insurance Law, effective from July 1, 2025, workers are not allowed to participate in compulsory social insurance and voluntary social insurance in parallel.
Clause 4, Article 2 of the 2024 Social Insurance Law defines participants in voluntary social insurance as Vietnamese citizens aged 15 and older who do not fall under the compulsory social insurance category.
Voluntary social insurance is intended to give opportunities to freelancers, farmers, or people who are not employed under a labor contract to accumulate contribution time in order to receive pensions and other social security benefits in old age.
Therefore, once a worker signs a labor contract and is classified within the compulsory social insurance category, they no longer belong to the group eligible for voluntary social insurance.
Vietnam Social Security notes that each individual has a single unique social insurance number to manage the process of contributions and benefits.
The law allows workers to switch between participation forms. For example, a worker may leave a company to become a freelancer and then continue participating in voluntary social insurance. In such cases, the time contributed under both forms will be accumulated to determine future benefits.
However, workers are not allowed to contribute to compulsory and voluntary social insurance simultaneously during the same period.
For workers who work for multiple enterprises concurrently and each signs an employment contract of at least one month, Clause 5, Article 2 of the 2024 Social Insurance Law provides that compulsory social insurance participation will be based on the first employment contract.
As a result, even if a worker works at multiple places, compulsory social insurance contributions will be made at only one unit. The other employers are responsible for paying additional amounts equal to the compulsory social insurance contributions for the same payroll period.
To raise pension benefits or create an additional financial source in old age, Vietnam Social Security recommends that workers consider options such as contributing to compulsory social insurance on a higher salary.
It also recommends participation in supplemental retirement insurance. This is a voluntary insurance under market principles, where workers and employers contribute to a personal retirement account to receive a second pension in addition to mandatory social insurance. The government currently has policies to encourage citizens to participate in this form through tax incentives.
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