Can officials who retire under Decree 178 continue to pay social insurance contributions?

On October 3rd, the Culture and Social Affairs Committee of the National Assembly held a plenary session to review the draft law amending and supplementing several articles of the Social Insurance Law.

PHOTO: NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

At the meeting, Deputy Chairman of the Culture and Social Affairs Committee Ta Van Ha cited the fact that some officials, civil servants, and workers retired under Decree 178 but had not contributed to social insurance for the required number of years, resulting in low pension payments at the time of retirement.

Many of these individuals expressed a desire for a mechanism that would allow them to continue contributing to social insurance, in order to receive the full monthly pension of up to 75% of the average salary used as the basis for social insurance contributions.

According to Mr. Ha, this issue is not currently regulated, but it has arisen in practice, so it should be studied and considered for inclusion in the next amendment to the law.

Regarding this matter, Pham Truong Giang, Director of the Department of Wages and Social Insurance (Ministry of Interior), stated that there are currently two groups of people retiring under the provisions of Decree 178.

The first group receives a one-time allowance and is entitled to retirement benefits. The second group receives a one-time allowance but is not yet entitled to retirement benefits; this group will continue working and contributing to social insurance.

Previously, according to Vietnam Social Security, those who retired early under Decree 67 amending and supplementing Decree 178 were entitled to a pension as prescribed by the Social Insurance Law without any reduction in their pension rate.

However, the benefit rate must still be based on the current Social Insurance Law. Specifically, male workers receive 45% of their salary for 20 years of social insurance contributions, while female workers receive 45% for 15 years of social insurance contributions.

After that, for each additional year of social insurance contributions, the employee receives an extra 2% until the maximum rate of 75% is reached.

Therefore, male workers must have 35 years of social insurance contributions, and female workers must have 30 years of social insurance contributions to receive the maximum pension of 75% of their salary calculated at the levels when they were still working.

According to information from the Ministry of Interior, the payment and implementation of policies and regulations under Decree 178 will be completed by December 2025.

Statistics at that time showed that nationwide, 146,839 people had decided to retire (47,913 at the central level and 98,926 at the local level). 71,610 people benefited from early retirement policies, and 75,237 people benefited from termination policies.

According to data from the State Treasury, by the end of 2025, 163,482 billion VND had been disbursed to 117,073 people who retired under Decree 178.