Laid Off or Unpaid? What You Can Claim in China and in What Order

Losing income is stressful enough without losing the benefits you are entitled to. These are the steps that matter most, roughly in order.

1. Apply for unemployment insurance online right away

If you and your employer paid in for at least one year and you did not resign voluntarily, you can claim after completing unemployment registration. Entitlement is up to 12 months for 1 to under 5 years of contributions, 18 months for 5 to under 10 years, and 24 months for 10 years or more. While you receive benefits, unemployment insurance pays your employee medical insurance.

Benefits run from the day you register, so a month's delay is a month's money lost. Do not sign a resignation letter saying "personal reasons" — voluntary resignation generally disqualifies you. Benefit levels differ widely by province.

2. Unpaid wages: complain to labour inspection, then arbitrate — both are free

Call 12333 or go to the labour inspection office. After a complaint is accepted, the inspection must be completed within 60 working days, and the employer can be ordered to pay by a deadline, failing which it owes an additional 50% to 100%. Next comes labour arbitration, which has a 45-day time limit. Note the difference between "case closed" and "money received": if the company has no assets or the boss has fled, you can win and still not be paid, and there is no official data on how many wage cases ultimately pay out.

Serious arrears can also be a crime: for example, unpaid wages to one person for three months or more above a provincial threshold (5,000 to 20,000 yuan), or to ten or more people above a larger cumulative threshold (30,000 to 100,000 yuan), where the employer still refuses after being ordered to pay. Check your province's exact figure. On construction sites, the general contractor is more useful to pursue than the labour subcontractor. Unlicensed workshops and shops still count as employers; private household work such as a nanny is not an employment relationship and goes through the courts.

3. Can't afford a lawyer? Apply for legal aid

Wage claims, maintenance, social insurance or subsistence benefits, and work injury cases fall within legal aid. Call 12348 or visit the local legal aid centre. Since 1 January 2022 you no longer need to go back to your home registration place for a proof of hardship; a truthful statement of your finances is enough.

4. Use free public job services, not paid agencies

Public employment service centres and labour markets offer job introductions, career guidance, policy advice and registration at no cost, and the law forbids them from profiting from these services. Registering as unemployed is also the prerequisite for claiming unemployment benefits and for "employment-difficulty" status. If you do day labour, settle wages on the spot and keep a record.

5. Ask for employment-difficulty status

Once recognised, you may receive a social insurance subsidy for what you pay yourself (generally capped at two thirds of actual payments, for up to three years), and employers who hire you or place you in a public-benefit job may get subsidies too. Such jobs pay little (around the local minimum wage) but come with social insurance, so they suit a transition. Subsidies are often paid after you pay, so you advance the money.

6. A gap in social insurance is not the end of your pension

Pension entitlement is based on cumulative years, not continuous years: a gap does not reset the count, and you can draw a monthly pension once you reach retirement age with 15 accumulated years (the threshold rises by six months a year from 2030 toward 20 years). The real impact of gaps is on purchase, household registration and points-based schemes that require continuous payment. Paying a stranger to "register" you is risky and not recommended.

For help estimating your runway, try our emergency fund guide and savings goal calculator.

Source and license: adapted from HowToLiveBetter (高性价比人生指南) by eternity4719, Section 5 "Don't Waste Money", licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://github.com/eternity4719/HowToLiveBetter). We condensed and translated the original entries; see the source for evidence grades and citations. Rules described here apply to mainland China and may change. This is educational content, not investment, tax or insurance advice.