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“I am a Korean national who worked in Ho Chi Minh City for 3 years before taking a break for almost 10 months to return to my home country. After that, I returned to Vietnam to work for a new company. Will my previous social insurance contributions be lost?”
This is a fairly common situation for foreign workers in Vietnam, especially those who have changed companies, returned home for a period, or are waiting for a new work permit and visa. Many people think that if they take a long break from work or don't contribute to social insurance for a long time, their entire previous social insurance participation will be canceled or no longer recorded. Some only start worrying when they are about to withdraw their social insurance contributions because they see their work history interrupted for months, or even more than a year.
However, according to the 2024 Social Insurance Law, the previously valid social insurance participation period is, in principle, still preserved if the employee has not yet received a lump-sum social insurance payment or is not subject to termination of benefits as stipulated. This means that taking breaks between companies or having periods of not working in Vietnam does not automatically result in the loss of all previously accumulated social insurance contributions.
In reality, the problem often isn't the "loss of social insurance" data, but rather whether the social insurance data is accurately updated and synchronized.
For example, many foreign workers, after returning to Vietnam, have had their new company register a different social insurance number due to passport changes, name changes, or discrepancies in work permit information. In some cases, the previous company didn't finalize the social insurance records before the employee left, resulting in a disruption in the system's participation data.
Furthermore, some individuals no longer retain their old records after a long period away from their home country, only discovering missing documents or discrepancies in information between different employment periods when they need to withdraw their social insurance. This is why foreign workers should check the status of their social insurance number and participation data after each company change or before leaving Vietnam for an extended period.
If the data is not synchronized or multiple social insurance numbers are generated, the subsequent processing of claims may require additional verification time with the social insurance agency. In many cases, even if workers have returned to their home country or left their jobs a considerable time ago, their previous social insurance data can still be reviewed and processed if their social insurance participation information is still stored in the system.
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