Large quantity but unstable income

According to statistics from the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, the country has more than 5.1 million individual business households, six times the number of enterprises with 1.7 million households with revenue of over 100 million VND/year paying taxes.

Currently, individual business households do not have to pay compulsory social insurance, only a few households participate in voluntary social insurance.

To increase the coverage of social insurance policies, the new Social Insurance Law includes this group of subjects as compulsory participants in social insurance. However, the group of business owners is considered quite rich and diverse, so the law assigns the Government to provide detailed regulations.

Business owner photo Anh Nguyen .jpg
Many individual business households have unstable income. Illustration photo: Nguyen Vu.

Mr. Duong Van Hao, Head of the Collection Management Department - Books and Cards (Vietnam Social Security) said that according to the provisions of the new Social Insurance Law, from July 1, 2025, individual business households are the group of subjects that must participate in compulsory social insurance. However, because this group has unstable income, it will be very difficult to regulate the compulsory contribution level like other groups.

Vietnam Social Security is coordinating with the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs to assess the income levels of individual business households to have appropriate policies and a certain roadmap to make compulsory social insurance participation of individual business households feasible.

“The decree should be developed in a way that has a roadmap to specify which groups will participate first and which will participate later. This can be assessed through tax data from industries and business households,” said Mr. Hao.

The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs is advising the Government to issue a Decree detailing and guiding the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Social Insurance on compulsory social insurance. The drafting agency proposes two options for participation in compulsory social insurance.

Option 1: Business owners with business registration pay taxes according to the declaration method. Business owners with business registration are not subject to tax registration according to the declaration method but have requested to participate in compulsory social insurance.

Option 2, business owners have business registration and request to participate in compulsory social insurance.

The representative of Ninh Binh province Social Insurance proposed to choose the option of compulsory social insurance participants as "Heads of business households with business registration paying taxes according to the declaration method". Because this is a group with stable income.

What level of participation is required for everyone?

Ms. Nguyen Thi Xuan in Bac Tu Liem district (Hanoi), the owner of a grocery store, shared that according to the new Social Insurance Law, from July 1, 2025, all individual business households must pay compulsory social insurance.

However, due to the unstable income from the family business, the regulation of compulsory participation in social insurance is really a big difficulty. She thinks that voluntary contribution would be more suitable.

Sharing the same view, Mr. Ho Ngoc Dai, owner of a restaurant in Hoang Mai district (Hanoi), said that because individual business households have unstable and uncertain incomes, it would be more appropriate to regulate voluntary social insurance contributions instead of compulsory ones. In case the law requires compulsory contributions, only a low level should be set so that business households can participate without interruption.

According to the representative of the Social Insurance Department (Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs), the contribution level of business household owners has been clearly stipulated in the Social Insurance Law 2024. Accordingly, business household owners participating in compulsory social insurance can choose their salary as the basis for compulsory social insurance payment, but the lowest is equal to the reference level and the highest is 20 times the reference level at the time of payment.