Around 10 to 11 percent of your gross salary goes to social insurance, your employer adds close to 30 percent more.
If you work in Shanghai on a local contract, social insurance (社保, shebao) is not optional. Your employer must enrol you within 30 days of hiring you, roughly 10 to 11 percent comes out of your gross salary, and the employer adds close to 30 percent on top. When you leave China for good you can claim back the money sitting in your personal pension account, which is the 8 percent you paid, but not the rest. Since December 2024 the card this system issues you also carries your work permit, so it is no longer a document you can afford to ignore until you get sick.
Almost nobody explains this to you. You see a line on your first payslip, you work out that a chunk of your salary has gone somewhere, and then you either shrug or you spend an evening reading forum posts written by people who left in 2015. So here is the whole thing: what you pay, what you get for it, what happens if your country has a treaty with China, and how to get the refundable part back on your way out.
Do expats have to pay social insurance in China?
Yes, if you are legally employed on a Chinese labour contract. National rules bring foreign employees into the same system as local staff, and your employer is required to register you within 30 days of your start date. It is a legal obligation on the company, not a benefit they choose to offer, and an employer who quietly skips it is exposing you as well as themselves.
Two situations sit outside this. If you are seconded to China by an overseas parent company and stay on that company's payroll, the picture is more complicated and depends on your paperwork. And if your home country has a social security treaty with China, some contributions can be waived, which is covered further down.
What are the five insurances, and what do they actually give you?
The bundle everyone calls 五险 has five parts, and they are genuinely different things rather than one tax with a friendly name.
- Pension (养老保险). The largest slice. Your own 8 percent goes into a personal account with your name on it. The employer's share goes into a pooled fund.
- Medical (医疗保险). Gives you a public medical insurance card usable at public hospitals, which cuts the bill on ordinary visits substantially. It is not a substitute for private cover at international hospitals, and our health insurance guide covers how the two fit together.
- Unemployment (失业保险). Small contribution, narrow eligibility in practice for foreign employees.
- Work injury (工伤保险). Paid entirely by the employer. Covers accidents at work.
- Maternity (生育保险). Also employer-paid, and in most places now merged into the medical fund. It can cover a meaningful share of a public hospital delivery, which matters if you are weighing options in our having a baby in Shanghai guide.
How much comes out of your salary?
Roughly 10 to 11 percent of your gross, made up of about 8 percent pension and about 2 percent medical, plus a small unemployment contribution. Your employer pays a much larger share on top: in the region of 16 percent pension, 10 percent medical, half a percent unemployment, around 1 percent maternity and a work injury rate that varies by industry. Add it up and a foreign hire costs a Shanghai employer roughly a third again on top of the salary they quote you.
Two details change the arithmetic and neither is obvious from a payslip:
- There is a ceiling. Contributions are calculated on a base that is capped, and for the current year that cap sits at 36,549 RMB a month in Shanghai. If you earn more than that, your contributions stop rising. The figure is reset every July from the previous year's average wage statistics, so it moves.
- There is a floor too. Below a minimum base, contributions are calculated on the floor rather than on your actual salary, which mostly matters for part-time or unusually structured pay.
None of this is deducted from your taxable income in the way some newcomers assume. Social insurance and income tax are separate calculations, and our income tax guide covers the second one.
Is my social security card also my work permit now?
Yes, if you applied for or renewed a work permit from 1 December 2024 onwards. China folded the Expat's Work Permit into the social security card on that date and stopped issuing the separate plastic permit card, so the same card now proves both that you are insured and that you are legally allowed to work here.
That has three practical consequences worth acting on:
- Register the electronic version early. The electronic social security card app (电子社保卡) has a login portal for expats holding a work permit. You register with your name exactly as printed in your passport plus your work permit number from the Notification Letter, then clear facial recognition. Until you do, you have no quick way to show your permit.
- The physical card still gets issued. Once the social security authority assigns your number, a physical card follows, and that is the one you hand over at a public hospital pharmacy counter.
- An enrolment gap is now a bigger problem than a missing benefit. If your employer never registered you for social insurance, you are missing the credential that carries your work permit information, not just a medical discount.
If you already hold an old plastic work permit card, nothing breaks. It stays valid until you renew or amend the permit, and you move onto the integrated card at that point. The full sequence, including what to bring to the Exit-Entry Administration now that the plastic card may not exist, is in our guide to getting a work permit and residence permit in Shanghai.
What about the housing fund (公积金)?
The housing provident fund is the 一金 in 五险一金, and it is the part where foreign employees in Shanghai are treated differently. Participation for foreign staff here is not universally enforced the way the five insurances are, and in practice many foreign employees and their employers agree not to enrol. If you are enrolled, both sides contribute at a matched rate and the balance is yours, usable towards housing and claimable when you leave.
This is worth raising directly with HR before you sign rather than after. If they do enrol you, the employer match is real money in your name. If they do not, ask for it in writing so there is no confusion later about what you were owed. It also matters for a reason that has nothing to do with housing: contribution records are the clock that property purchase eligibility is counted from.
Does your country have a treaty that lets you skip some of it?
Possibly. China has signed bilateral social security agreements with a number of countries, and where one applies you can be exempted from specific contributions, most commonly pension and unemployment, so that you are not paying twice into two national systems for the same working years. Germany, South Korea, Denmark, Finland, Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Luxembourg, Japan, Serbia and Kyrgyzstan all have agreements in force, and an agreement with France has been signed but is not yet effective. Coverage differs agreement by agreement, and several cover pension only.
The exemption is not automatic. Someone, usually your employer, has to apply with a certificate of coverage from your home country's social security authority, and the exemption runs for a defined period. If you are from one of these countries and nobody has mentioned it, ask. If you are from a country with no agreement, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, you pay in full.
Which one is for you 哪个适合你
If you are on a local contract and staying several years, treat the contributions as the price of the medical card and use it. If your country has a treaty, ask HR to apply for the exemption before your first payroll run rather than trying to unwind it later. If you are leaving China permanently, start the pension refund while you still have a working phone number and bank account here. If you are seconded from an overseas parent company, get your status confirmed in writing before you arrive, because this is the one case where the rules genuinely differ.
How do you claim your money back when you leave?
You can claim the balance of your personal pension account, which is the 8 percent you contributed. The employer's pooled contributions stay in the fund. Medical, unemployment, maternity and work injury contributions are not refundable either; those buy you cover while you are here rather than a balance you own.
The claim is made when you are permanently leaving China and your employment has ended, and it sits inside the wider exit checklist you work through on the way out. In outline:
- Have your employer close the account properly. Contributions must be stopped and your record marked as terminated. A company that simply stops paying without filing anything leaves your account in a state that is awkward to unwind from abroad.
- Gather the paperwork. Passport, your residence permit or the visa page showing your status, the termination document from your employer, your social insurance record, and your Chinese bank account details.
- Apply at the local social insurance bureau in the district where your contributions were paid. Some cities accept applications through the government service app; in Shanghai it is worth checking what can be done through Suishenban before making the trip.
- Get paid into a Chinese account. This is the step that catches people. The refund normally lands in a domestic account, which means closing your Chinese bank account on your last week here is a mistake. Keep it open, claim the refund, move the money out, and then close it. Our guide to sending money out of China covers the transfer.
One genuine alternative: if you intend to come back to China later, you can leave the account dormant instead of cashing it out. Contribution years accumulate, and if you eventually reach the qualifying period you may draw a pension rather than a lump sum. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on how many years you already have and how likely you are to return, so do the arithmetic rather than defaulting either way.
What if your employer is not paying it?
It happens, usually framed as a favour: your take-home looks bigger. It is not a favour. You lose the medical card, you lose the pension balance you would otherwise have claimed back, and you lose the contribution record that other things in this city are counted from. It is also the employer's legal obligation rather than an optional extra you can waive by agreeing.
Check your own record rather than trusting a payslip line. Contribution histories are visible through the Shanghai government service channels, and a record with gaps is worth raising with HR in writing early, while the relationship is good. If it cannot be resolved internally, labour arbitration is the formal route and unpaid social insurance is squarely within what it handles.
Common questions
Do expats have to pay social insurance in Shanghai?
Yes, if you are employed on a Chinese labour contract. Your employer must register you within 30 days of your start date, and around 10 to 11 percent of your gross salary is deducted for pension, medical and unemployment.
Can I get my social insurance back when I leave China?
You can claim the balance of your personal pension account, the 8 percent you contributed yourself. Employer contributions to the pooled fund, and the medical, unemployment, maternity and work injury portions, are not refundable.
How much is social insurance in Shanghai in 2026?
About 8 percent pension plus about 2 percent medical and a small unemployment contribution from the employee, and roughly 28 to 30 percent in total from the employer. Contributions are capped at a monthly base of 36,549 RMB, a figure that is reset each July.
Do expats pay the housing fund in Shanghai?
Often not. Unlike the five insurances, housing fund participation for foreign employees in Shanghai is not uniformly enforced, and many employers and foreign staff agree not to enrol. Confirm your position with HR in writing.
Which countries have a social security agreement with China?
Agreements in force include Germany, South Korea, Denmark, Finland, Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Luxembourg, Japan, Serbia and Kyrgyzstan, and each covers different contribution types. France has signed but its agreement is not yet effective. The United States, United Kingdom and Australia have none, so their citizens contribute in full.
Do I need to keep my Chinese bank account open to get the refund?
Yes. The pension refund is normally paid into a domestic account, so close your Chinese bank account only after the money has arrived and you have transferred it out.
Do I need a social security card to get my work permit in 2026?
They arrive together now. Since 1 December 2024 the work permit information is embedded in the social security card rather than issued as a separate plastic card, so registering for the electronic card after you arrive is how you end up holding proof of your permit at all.
