Social security continues to be strengthened
During a conference recently held by Viet Nam Social Security to review the key achievements of 2025; and to clearly identify orientations, tasks, and key solutions to continue maintaining growth momentum and expanding coverage of social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance towards the goal of a sustainable and inclusive social security system, Le Hung Son, Director of Viet Nam Social Security, affirmed that 2025 was a year of special significance as the entire system simultaneously carried out organisational restructuring and streamlining under a special-unit model under the Ministry of Finance and implemented the two-tier local government model, while demands for ensuring social security remained high.
Director Le Hung Son emphasised that, in this context, the entire social security system from the central to local levels made strong efforts and demonstrated determination in synchronously and flexibly implementing solutions, proactively carrying out tasks related to participant development and reducing overdue contributions.
In particular, in advising the Ministry of Finance on issuing guiding documents, local-level agencies proactively advised Party committees and authorities at all levels to develop task targets, allocate local budget resources to provide additional support for contribution levels for voluntary social insurance and health insurance participants, and coordinate with organisations and commune-level People’s Committees to compile lists of increases and decreases in participants during the transition to the two-tier local government model.
The results achieved in 2025 show that the social security landscape continued to be strengthened in both scale and quality.
The number of people participating in social insurance reached 21.53 million, an increase of 1.67 million compared with 2024. Of this total, compulsory social insurance accounted for 18.91 million participants, while voluntary social insurance reached 2.619 million, maintaining stable and sustainable growth. The number of people covered by health insurance reached 97.395 million, with a coverage rate of 95.16% of the population, reaffirming health insurance as a pillar of universal healthcare.
Alongside the expansion of participants, revenue collection continued to record positive results. Total cumulative revenue in 2025 reached 630.935 trillion VND, exceeding the government-assigned estimate. The rate of overdue contributions was controlled at the lowest level in many years, contributing to the safety and sustainability of social security funds.
At the end of 2025, the number of people participating in social insurance reached 21.53 million, an increase of 1.67 million compared with 2024, including 18.91 million in compulsory social insurance and 2.619 million in voluntary social insurance. The number of people covered by health insurance reached 97.395 million with a coverage rate of 95.16% of the population.
Chairing the discussion session of local social security agencies, Tran Dinh Lieu, Deputy Director of Viet Nam Social Security, stressed that these results were the outcome of the coordinated involvement of the entire political system, the proactiveness of local authorities, and the persistent efforts of social security officials and civil servants.
According to Tran Dinh Lieu, the most important factor is not only growth figures but the quality of growth, reflected in stability, sustainability, and social trust in social insurance and health insurance policies.
At the conference, many localities with outstanding achievements shared effective models and approaches in revenue collection and participant development. Several provinces and cities reported that they had proactively incorporated social insurance and health insurance development targets into Party committee resolutions and local socio-economic development plans; strengthened the role of steering committees for the implementation of social insurance and health insurance policies at all levels; and linked the accountability of leaders to the results of target implementation. Many communication models such as “going to every alley, knocking on every door” and direct consultations in residential areas, industrial zones, traditional markets, and areas with freelance workers helped bring policies closer to the public, especially informal workers.
From practical experience, Deputy Director Tran Dinh Lieu affirmed that effective approaches and models from localities constitute important practical resources for the entire Viet Nam Social Security system to learn from and replicate, thereby creating system-wide spillover effects and contributing to a firm consolidation of the social security foundation.
To continue maintaining growth momentum and expanding coverage in the coming period, the conference determined that revenue collection and participant development should not stop at expanding numbers, but must shift strongly towards depth in governance, quality of implementation, and system sustainability.
Accordingly, Viet Nam Social Security has clearly identified that participant development must be closely linked with data governance, digital transformation, inter-sectoral coordination, and the proactive role of grassroots levels. On that basis, local social security agencies need to proactively advise on incorporating social insurance and health insurance targets into socio-economic development resolutions; allocate budget resources to support contribution levels for voluntary social insurance and health insurance for suitable groups; and develop monthly scenarios for participant development, revenue collection, and reduction of overdue contributions by locality and target group.
Deputy Director Tran Dinh Lieu emphasised the need to renew implementation methods in a manner that clearly defines responsibilities, tasks, timelines, and outcomes, considering this a key factor in ensuring that revenue collection and participant development are substantive. An important highlight is the identification of potential participant groups based on shared inter-sectoral data, including data on enterprises, cooperatives, household businesses, labour, and population. This enables participant development to be carried out with clear addresses, targets, roadmaps, and accountability.
In parallel, Viet Nam Social Security will continue to promote digital transformation in managing revenue collection and participant development for social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance. Building a database that is “accurate, sufficient, clean, dynamic, unified, and shared” not only serves professional management but also provides a foundation for analysis, forecasting, and the development of proactive, scientific, and modern scenarios for expanding social security coverage.
Alongside data governance, policy communication is identified as a key pillar. Communication should go beyond policy dissemination to focus on changing awareness and social behaviour, while helping people understand that social insurance and health insurance are long-term social security pillars and a financial “shield” for individuals and families against life’s risks. This forms the foundation for sustainable expansion of coverage based on voluntariness, proactiveness, and social trust.
Policy communication must be given top priority
In concluding remarks, Director of Viet Nam Social Security Le Hung Son stated that, in order to successfully fulfil tasks related to revenue collection and participant development for social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance in 2026, policy communication must be prioritised, while going one step ahead and serving as the foundation for policy implementation.
According to Le Hung Son, policy communication must be strongly renewed, with communication plans directly linked to participant development in social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance, focusing on key target groups such as informal workers, household businesses, freelance workers, and small and medium-sized enterprises. Communication should emphasise practical, long-term benefits, place people at the centre, and take social trust as the core objective.
Local social security agencies should proactively advise provincial and municipal People’s Committees to submit proposals to People’s Councils to include participant development targets for social insurance and health insurance in annual socio-economic development resolutions; and propose the allocation of local budgets to provide additional support for voluntary social insurance and health insurance contributions. Integrating social security objectives into local development plans must become a regular task, not a campaign-based or sporadic effort.
Based on resolutions and decisions of the Government and People’s Councils at all levels, localities must advise People’s Committees to issue decisions assigning participant development targets, revenue collection targets, and overdue contribution reduction targets down to each commune, ward, and township from the beginning of 2026, considering these as the “grassroots operational units” for social security development.
For compulsory social insurance, efforts should focus on sharing data on enterprises, cooperatives, and household businesses to identify units that have not yet participated or have not fully participated; clarifying groups subject to compulsory coverage but still overlooked, such as unpaid enterprise managers, cooperative managers, and short-term contract workers.
For voluntary social insurance and health insurance, coordination with commune-level People’s Committees, residential groups, villages, and neighbourhoods is needed to review lists of potential participants by household, population group, and residential area, enabling targeted and focused mobilisation.
Director Le Hung Son requires localities to develop monthly scenarios for participant development, revenue collection, and reduction of overdue contributions, with clear assignment of responsibilities to each professional division, grassroots social security unit, and individual officer, ensuring the principle of clear tasks, clear accountability, clear timelines, and clear outcomes. Management must be based on actual implementation progress, with regular monthly reviews and timely adjustments, avoiding year-end pressure.
Early revenue collection efforts should be strengthened to prevent the emergence of new arrears; coordination with agencies managing beneficiaries should ensure that state budget contributions for health insurance and social insurance are transferred fully and on time; prolonged overdue contributions, evasion, and avoidance must be strictly handled, while safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of labourers.
The network of organisations supporting participant development, collection staff and collaborators should continue to be expanded and standardised; training in communication and mobilisation skills should be enhanced; and professional operations must be strictly controlled to ensure compliance with procedures and regulations, preventing errors and risks.
Director Le Hung Son affirmed that 2026 is a pivotal year, opening a new development phase for the social security system. Therefore, the entire Viet Nam Social Security system must achieve a high level of unity in thinking, management methods, and implementation discipline, taking expansion of coverage, quality of revenue collection, effectiveness in reducing arrears, and public satisfaction as benchmarks for assessing management capacity.
The overarching focus is decisive management, implementation down to the grassroots level, data-based control, and evaluation based on substantive results, thereby creating a solid foundation for successfully fulfilling social security tasks in 2026 and subsequent years.
Earlier, Government Resolution No. 01/NQ-CP on the key tasks and solutions for implementing the socio-economic development plan and state budget estimate for 2026, issued in early January 2026, emphasised the continued improvement of regulations in the fields of wages, social insurance, labour and labour relations; focused implementation of the Party Central Committee’s Resolution No. 28-NQ/TW on social insurance policy reform; and the gradual, firm expansion of social insurance coverage, building a multi-tier social insurance system to ensure sustainable social security.
In addition, several key targets of the 2026 socio-economic development plan have been set, including health insurance coverage reaching 95.5% of the population; the proportion of people beyond retirement age receiving pensions, monthly social insurance payments, and social pension allowances reaching 42%; the proportion of the working-age labour force participating in social insurance reaching 48.1%; and the proportion of the working-age labour force participating in unemployment insurance reaching 37.07%.
