I am an American who has worked in Vietnam for many years, but I no longer have my old employment contract. Can I still withdraw my social insurance contributions?

“I am an American citizen who worked for two companies in Vietnam from 2019 to 2024. I have now returned to the US and want to withdraw my social insurance benefits, but I no longer have my old employment contract because I changed computers and lost my documents. Will I still be eligible for social insurance benefits?”

In reality, many people only start looking into withdrawing social insurance benefits after returning to their home country or having been unemployed for a long time. When they need to prepare the necessary documents, they discover that their old employment contract, termination notice, or other related papers have been lost.

Many people worry that if they no longer have their employment contract, the social insurance agency will refuse to process their benefits. However, according to the 2024 Social Insurance Law, the consideration of social insurance benefits is not only based on the paper employment contract but also on the social insurance participation data stored in the social insurance agency's system.

This means that if the previous social insurance contributions were declared and recorded correctly by the employer, the employee may still be considered for benefits even without a complete employment contract. In practice, the difficulty often lies in verifying information when personal records are incomplete. For example, some individuals may have changed passports, so their current information may not perfectly match their old social insurance data. In some cases, individuals may have worked for multiple companies, resulting in data being split into several social insurance numbers, or the previous company may not have completed the finalization procedures before the employee left.

Furthermore, many foreign workers, after leaving Vietnam, often lose contact with their former companies, making it almost impossible to retrieve their employment records. However, if the social insurance participation data is still stored in the system, the social insurance agency can still verify the contribution history based on the social insurance number, passport information, work permit, or related personal data.

This is also why foreign workers should check their social insurance status before returning home or immediately after leaving their job, instead of waiting many years before reviewing their records.

In many cases, even without a previous employment contract, workers can still process their social insurance records if their previous insurance participation data is relatively complete.

However, each case will have a different level of complexity, especially if the worker has worked for multiple companies, changed passports, or had periods of interruption between periods of employment in Vietnam.

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