Why 60% of Foreign Executives Abandon Their Social Insurance When Relocating

Most foreign directors I meet in Saigon are brilliant at running companies and terrible at leaving them.

Last month, an operations director earning $12k a month was packing up his apartment in Thao Dien. His flight to Frankfurt was in 48 hours. Sitting on his kitchen counter was a small blue booklet: his Vietnamese social insurance book.

Inside that booklet was roughly $16,000 of his own money, accumulated over three years.

I asked him what he planned to do with it. He shrugged: "HR handed it to me yesterday. They said I could go to the local social security office to claim it. But honestly, look around. I haven't even finished packing my suitcases."

He was about to walk away from sixteen thousand dollars.

This happens constantly. Over half the foreign professionals leaving Vietnam never claim their lump-sum payout.

Not because they do not care about the money, but because the timing is brutal.

When you resign, your company HR has one job: complete your exit checklist, cancel your work permit, and hand you that blue book. Their responsibility stops at the office door. They do not file your personal government claim for you.

Meanwhile, your final two weeks in Vietnam are pure chaos. You are wrapping up projects, handing back your apartment keys, coordinating movers, and attending farewell dinners. The last thing you have the patience for is spending four hours at a district administrative office in Binh Thanh or District 7 trying to decipher Vietnamese legal forms.

So people tell themselves: "I'll sort it out once I get settled back home."

Then life takes over. Your Vietnamese SIM card expires. Your local banking app locks up. You get busy with your new role in London, Singapore, or Frankfurt. And your money sits in a local treasury account indefinitely.

Here is what most expats realise too late: You do not have to choose between catching your flight and getting your money.

You can sign a simple Power of Attorney before you leave. It takes about 15 minutes at a local notary office. Once you board your flight, a licensed specialist on the ground handles the entire filing, resolves the paperwork, and the funds get wired straight to your account.

If you are packing your bags in Vietnam right now, check that blue booklet before you throw it into a moving box.

Send me a DM with how long you worked here. I will tell you in two minutes whether it is worth filing, and exactly how much is sitting in there.