I am a foreigner who has resigned from my job in Vietnam and would like to receive my social insurance benefits before my visa expires. Is this possible?

“I am an Australian citizen who recently quit my job at a company in Ho Chi Minh City, and my visa will expire in about a month. I want to receive my social insurance benefits before leaving Vietnam. Is there enough time to process it?”

Many people only start researching their social insurance benefits after they have quit their job or when their company announces the termination of their employment contract. At this point, they realize their visa is about to expire, their time in Vietnam is running out, and their social insurance application has not yet been processed.

Many people worry that if they leave the country before completing the procedures, they will lose all the social insurance contributions they have made during their time working in Vietnam. However, according to the 2024 Social Insurance Law, an expiring visa does not automatically mean that foreign workers lose their social insurance benefits. The important thing is that the worker must meet the eligibility requirements for social insurance at the time of application and that their social insurance participation data must be fully processed. In reality, the issue causing many applications to be delayed is not the visa itself, but the fact that the company has not yet completed the procedures related to social insurance.

For example, there are cases where workers have left their jobs but the company has not yet finalized their social insurance records. Some people discover that their social insurance data contains incorrect passport information or that they have multiple social insurance numbers due to having worked for several companies in Vietnam.

Furthermore, many foreign workers often don't have much time left in Vietnam after leaving their jobs because their work visas linked to their former companies are about to expire. This leads many to try to process their social insurance claims in a very short time before their departure. However, not all applications can be completed immediately if there is missing data or additional verification is needed with the social insurance agency.

One point that many foreigners are unaware of is that leaving Vietnam does not mean that social insurance claims cannot be processed. In many cases, if the worker has not completed the procedures before their visa expires or before their departure date, the application can still be processed from abroad through appropriate means in accordance with Vietnamese law.

However, checking the social insurance status before leaving Vietnam is still very important, especially to determine:

• Has the company finalized the social insurance records yet?
• Is the social insurance data inaccurate?
• Does the employee have multiple social insurance numbers?
• What documents are missing from my personal file that need to be processed before departure?

In reality, many foreign workers only discover problems after returning home, so the subsequent processing often takes longer. That's why workers should review their social insurance records as soon as possible after leaving their job, instead of waiting until close to their visa expiration date to start processing them.

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