On 21 October 2026, Home Affairs Minister Nguyen Tien Hai presented draft amendments to the Law on Social Insurance to the National Assembly on the Prime Minister's behalf. VietnamNet reports that the draft would let the National Assembly Standing Committee decide which people without formal employment relationships must join the compulsory scheme. Digital platform workers with stable, regular income, such as ride-hailing drivers and delivery workers, are the obvious candidates. Rollout would be gradual.
The objective is sound. The way the draft is built is the problem.
The strongest case for mandatory cover
There is a real argument for compulsion. A driver who is injured, falls ill or ages out of the work has no employer-funded safety net. Voluntary schemes tend to under-enrol, and Vietnam's own experience points that way. According to VietnamNet, the committee noted that only 111 people had joined the existing individual-worker supplementary pension arrangement. People on low and uneven incomes discount the future heavily. A mandate, with contributions scaled to earnings, is the standard tool for closing that gap. The government is also not starting from nothing. The 2024 Law on Social Insurance, Law No. 41/2024/QH15, was signed on 29 June 2024 and took effect on 1 July 2025. Its Article 2(6) already lets the Standing Committee mandate cover, at the Government's proposal, for people with regular and stable jobs and incomes. The ILO said the Government expected the 2024 changes to bring roughly 3 million additional workers into the system.
Where the draft is weak
The committee that reviewed the draft agreed with the goal and objected to the drafting. Committee on Culture and Social Affairs chair Nguyen Dac Vinh said the categories were too broadly defined, which could create significant implementation difficulties. He recommended that, if the eligible groups and start dates cannot be defined, the changes be postponed until a comprehensive revision of the law. A month earlier, Viet Nam News quoted him calling the group "a very broad demographic" that needs careful assessment. He also said any new requirement must be consistent with existing labour and employment rules.
That objection matters. A mandate whose scope is left to a later decision creates uncertainty for exactly the people and firms it affects. Drivers cannot tell whether they will owe contributions. Platforms cannot tell whether they will be asked to verify income, pass on data or co-fund premiums. Investors cannot price the cost of operating in Vietnam. Delegating the definition to the Standing Committee also moves a decision with real economic consequences out of the full legislative debate.
The cost lands on low earners
Debate on 9 November showed how thin the margin is. VietnamPlus reports that several deputies backed extending compulsory cover to digital platform workers. Deputy Le Huu Tri warned of additional financial burdens on low-income workers with unstable earnings. He proposed starting in 2028 for platform workers if conditions are not yet in place. Deputy Pham Van Hoa suggested reviewing five years of implementation of the Law first.
A mandatory contribution is a tax on take-home pay. For a part-time driver working several apps, it may cut disposable income now in exchange for benefits decades away. Fund performance bears on that trade. Deputy Duong Khac Mai told the Assembly that average investment return in 2025 was 3.72%, against consumer price growth of 3.31%. The fund's investment balance has reached 1.5 quadrillion VND, about 58.8 billion USD. A real return of about 0.4 percentage points is not a compelling offer to someone asked to give up income.
A proportionate path
The pro-innovation response is not to refuse cover. Vietnam's platform economy works because it lets people earn flexibly. Any regime should keep that flexibility while protecting against the worst outcomes. Four design choices would help:
- Define the covered group in the statute or a published decree. "Stable, regular income" needs a quantitative test, such as a minimum monthly earnings threshold over a set period. Deputies have asked for exactly this.
- Set start dates in advance. Phasing, as Deputy Tri suggested, gives platforms and workers time to adapt and lets regulators test the administrative systems first.
- Scale contributions to earnings. Contributions should track actual income, and workers on several platforms should not pay twice on the same earnings.
- Fix data responsibilities before the mandate starts. Platforms are the natural source of income data. The law should say what they must share, with whom and under what privacy protections, rather than leave it to later guidance.
The Minister told the Assembly that the drafting agency will report on retaining the current provision authorising the Government to propose additional groups, and that a comprehensive revision of the law is planned for 2027 to 2028. That timetable is a reason for patience. If the government cannot name the groups and dates now, the committee's advice to defer and fold the change into the full revision is the better course. A mandate announced first and defined later invites resistance from workers and platforms alike.
Extending a safety net to people who work through apps is a legitimate goal. It will only be credible if workers can see who is covered, what they pay and when it begins.