Manual payment of contributions to the Social Security Fund

Most often, contributions to the social security fund are paid automatically, by a one-time debiting. We talked about how to set it up in the article “Official employment of a foreigner in China”.

But sometimes it turns out that automatic debiting does not work. This happens most frequently for two reasons:

1. On the day of debiting (most often this is the fifth day of each month) there were not enough funds in the company’s account
2. The employee was hired later than the debiting date, but in the same month. Or, the work permit was issued before the employee was entered into the social security fund system. For example, the work permit was issued on June 28, and the worker was entered into the social insurance system on July 6. Contributions for June will not be automatically debited, but the actual contributions must be made, since according to the documents the employee worked for several days in June.

In any case, debts are debts and they must be paid. According to Article 84 of the Social Insurance Law of the People’s Republic of China, late payment of contributions is punishable by a fine in the amount of one to three unpaid amounts for an enterprise (in other words, if they did not pay contributions for 5,000 yuan on time, a fine of 5 to 15 thousand yuan will be charged) and a fine of 500 to 3000 yuan for a responsible employee.

What is important to know – contributions can be paid by anyone, by any available method. It is not necessary to pay them from the corporate account or directly from the account of the shareholder/employee. In essence, this is just a cash deposit to the account of another bank client. It is only that this client is the district SSF, and its account number is the number of your company in the social insurance system.

Please take note:

1. if you pay at the same branch of the bank where you signed the automatic debiting agreement, the number of the company in the social insurance system will be enough. If your company is quite young, it will be identical with your social credit code (社会信用代码), indicated in your business license. If the company was founded before switching to 五证合一 or on the basis of other conditions – check this number with the person responsible for contributions. All the rest will be communicated to you directly by the bank employee
2. if you pay at any other bank in the PRC, in addition to that indicated in paragraph 1, you will need the details of your district SSF. More often than not, it’s just a name (in my case, 北京市朝阳区社会保险基金管理中心). But, perhaps, your district SSF also requires an account number – it is better to clarify this point directly with them.
   In principle, that’s all – you just need to come to the bank and provide this information to the employee. Then s/he will check it, announce the exact amount, you will pay it and receive your 回单 with a description of the service 社保缴费. It’s not actually 缴费, but 补费, but it doesn’t matter.

The contributions have been paid, and the SSF will not vex us now. Everything is fine.