No employer, but still able to open an account and contribute to the housing provident fund? Experts: Improving legislation to include the flexible employment group within the coverage of the housing provident fund system

Ask AI · How do pilot public housing provident fund programs for flexible employees benefit more than a million contributors?

After converting a commercial loan into a housing provident fund loan, the total repayment amount I save is nearly 20,000 yuan. This is the tangible benefit Cao Ming (a pseudonym) in Pingliang, Gansu Province, has truly experienced.

This benefit comes from the fact that Cao Ming opened an account and began contributing to the housing provident fund locally in April 2025 as a flexible employee. Pingliang became one of the third batch of pilot cities nationwide where flexible employees participate in the housing provident fund system.

Since January 2021, following an approval from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, with cities including Shenzhen in Guangdong Province becoming the first batch of six cities to pilot flexible employees’ participation in the housing provident fund system, our country has been steadily expanding the scope of these pilots to more cities. According to the “National Housing Provident Fund 2024 Annual Report,” by the end of 2024, the 36 pilot cities had accumulated contributions from more than 1 million flexible employees, among whom 240k had already used the housing provident fund to rent or buy homes.

How should flexible employees contribute to, withdraw, and use the housing provident fund? How can the housing provident fund system benefit more flexible employees? How can supporting systems be improved so they can enjoy more dividends in housing security? Reporters from the Legal Daily interviewed people about this.

Cartoon: Li Xiaojun

Realistically Enjoying Policy Dividends

In recent years, Cao Ming has been doing odd jobs in a city in Shaanxi Province. Working hard while being thrifty, after years of saving every possible penny, he managed to gather money for a down payment and returned to Pingliang to buy a two-bedroom apartment. He obtained a commercial loan and pays back more than 2,000 yuan per month.

For Cao Ming, who earns a living through odd jobs, this money is “like a heavy stone”—he has to pay his mortgage and support his family, and he can’t afford to spend even a single yuan recklessly.

In April 2025, he happened to learn from a friend that flexible employees could open an account to contribute to the housing provident fund in Pingliang, and could also process a “commercial-loan-to-public-provident-fund-loan” (“shop-to-gong”) business.

After doing further research, Cao Ming learned that Pingliang had previously been exploring expanding housing provident fund coverage to flexible employees. Starting April 1, 2024, flexible employees who are at least 16 years old and have not yet reached the statutory retirement age within Pingliang’s administrative areas may contribute to and use the housing provident fund. In November 2024, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development released the list of third-batch pilot cities nationwide for flexible employees to participate in the housing provident fund system, and Pingliang was included.

Cao Ming went to consult the local housing provident fund management center about the procedures. He learned that for flexible employees to participate in the housing provident fund system, they only need to provide the original identity card, sign the “Pingliang City Housing Provident Fund Contribution and Use Agreement for Flexible Employees” with the local housing provident fund management institution, and they can open a personal housing provident fund account. The contribution base is their average monthly income in the previous year. The staff patiently explained the specific policies to him and helped him open an account and contribute to the housing provident fund as a flexible employee.

After making contributions for six consecutive months, Cao Ming obtained eligibility to apply for a loan. This January, he went again to the local housing provident fund management institution, and following the staff’s guidance, submitted the materials related to the “shop-to-gong” business, successfully converting his original commercial loan into a housing provident fund loan.

“Since the interest rate on housing provident fund loans is lower than that of commercial loans, compared with before, I can pay nearly 100 yuan less per month on my loan. For me, it’s already very good!” Holding the documents proving the successful processing, Cao Ming smiled.

Zhang, from Dezhou City, Shandong Province, is also enjoying the benefits. Zhang works in the delivery business in Dezhou urban area. He often wakes up at a bit past 5 a.m. to accept orders, delivering up to nearly 100 orders of takeout in a day. In November 2024, Dezhou was approved as a pilot city nationwide for flexible employees’ participation in the provident fund system. In the summer of 2025, after learning that as a flexible worker he could participate in the housing provident fund system, he logged onto Dezhou Housing Provident Fund Management Center’s official website, filled in his personal information in order, confirmed the contribution frequency and contribution amount, signed the contribution and use agreement, and began contributing to the housing provident fund.

The reporter’s review found that in recent years, more and more cities have issued related policies to strengthen housing security for flexible employment groups. For example, recently, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region released and implemented the “Policy Guidance on Flexible Employees Participating in the Housing Provident Fund System (Trial)”—the coverage of the housing provident fund system continues to expand. Self-employed businesses, delivery riders, and workers in new forms of employment such as emerging business models can all apply to participate in the housing provident fund system. In addition, when opening personal accounts in the autonomous region, they are no longer subject to restrictions such as household registration location or insurance participation location. On April 1, 2025, the Housing Provident Fund Management Center of Hengshui City in Hebei Province formally implemented the “Implementation Details for the Pilot Program of Flexible Employees Participating in the Housing Provident Fund System.” After flexible employees participate in the housing provident fund system, they enjoy deposit relief and rent reductions for subsidized rental housing.

There are still limitations in the scope of contribution subjects

The “Regulations on the Administration of Housing Provident Fund” stipulate that housing provident fund refers to the long-term housing savings contributed by employees in active employment, at state agencies, state-owned enterprises, urban collective enterprises, foreign-invested enterprises, urban private enterprises and other urban enterprises, public institutions, private non-enterprise units, and social organizations (hereinafter collectively referred to as “units”), and by their in-service employees.

Qin Hong, a senior researcher at the National Development and Strategy Research Institute of Renmin University of China, told reporters that after the housing provident fund system was established, for a fairly long period of time, it mainly covered employees in urban areas who were working on the job.

This means that if a worker does not have an employing unit, in general they cannot directly contribute to the housing provident fund.

In 2021, following approval from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, six cities—Chongqing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Changzhou—carried out pilot programs for flexible employees to participate in the housing provident fund system, with the aim of guiding and encouraging flexible employees to participate and enjoy the corresponding rights and interests. By 2024, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development expanded the pilot cities to 36.

Qin Hong analyzed that as the size of the flexible employment group grows, more workers in new employment forms—such as couriers, delivery riders, and ride-hailing drivers—have been brought into the security system, effectively addressing the problem of insufficient housing financial support for flexible employees. This has expanded the coverage from traditional employment groups to a broader set of groups with housing needs.

Yin Fei, a professor at the School of Law of Central University of Finance and Economics and head of the Beijing Real Estate Law Research Association, told reporters that the housing provident fund system is an important part of China’s housing security system. With the large influx of new employment forms, housing security for flexible employment and part-time employment groups has attracted widespread social attention. Meeting their housing needs has become an important backdrop for the government’s pilot exploration of the housing provident fund system.

“Under the current ‘Regulations on the Administration of Housing Provident Fund,’ there are clear limitations regarding the contribution subjects. The system’s coverage has long focused on unit employees in active employment. Many flexible employment and part-time practitioners have not yet been included within the scope of statutory housing security.” Yin Fei pointed out that data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2024 there were 473 million employed urban workers in China. According to the “National Housing Provident Fund 2024 Annual Report,” the number of people who actually contributed to the housing provident fund in 2024 was 176 million, indicating that the system’s coverage is relatively low.

In his view, expanding the housing provident fund system’s coverage is both an inevitable requirement to implement central arrangements and a key measure to fill the security shortfalls for groups in new employment forms and to improve the housing security system. The pilots carried out in various places are being advanced based on this real need.

Expanding the system’s coverage according to law

In the view of interviewed experts, although the housing provident fund system has achieved significant results in operation, there are still shortcomings in coverage. The current housing provident fund system needs to be improved legally to comprehensively cover flexible employment groups.

Qin Hong’s recommendation is that as housing development and urbanization enter a new stage, the housing provident fund system needs, on the basis of what already exists, to align with the people’s livelihood goal of “living somewhere with security and living comfortably.” In terms of specific reform measures, the system should expand the scope of coverage according to law, break traditional boundaries, and broaden the coverage of eligible people and scenarios. It should also enrich the contribution dimensions, promote a flexible contribution mechanism, and establish flexible standards that allow more flexibility with contributions—setting principles for “more contributions, less contributions.”

“It is urgently necessary to ensure expansion of system coverage through legislation. With legal protection in place, coverage should be expanded in tandem, fully bringing flexible employees, participants in the platform economy, individual industrial and commercial households, and others into the scope of security. Following the principles of ‘universal and voluntary participation with equal rights and responsibilities,’ implement differentiated contribution ratios, allow individuals to independently determine their contribution amounts within the prescribed upper and lower limits, promote flexible contribution methods such as monthly, quarterly, and yearly contributions, explore productized contribution models, and meet the needs of groups with different income levels.” Qin Hong said.

Qin Hong believes that in improving supporting systems, a “pause–continuation” mechanism should be established—allowing contributions to be paused due to reasons such as unemployment or starting a business, and then seamlessly continuing after re-employment, so as to avoid the situation of “loss of effectiveness upon interruption of contributions.” Improve support policies for special groups: for groups such as rural migrants and low-income workers, implement low-threshold contribution policies and differentiated loan quota policies to enhance the attractiveness of the policies.

In Yin Fei’s view, we should continue to optimize the design of supporting systems for the housing provident fund. Maintain the advantage of interest rates on housing provident fund deposits so that they are higher than ordinary time deposits, providing contributors with stable returns. Strengthen housing consumption support by increasing the security provided for both renting and buying homes, and ensure the continuity of provident fund rights across different employment states. Highlight the advantage of low-interest housing provident fund loans: as market-based loan interest rates trend downward, maintain a relatively favorable interest rate for housing provident fund loans to effectively reduce housing financing costs for middle- and lower-income groups.

Author | Legal Daily full-media reporter Chen Lei, trainee reporter Zhang Jiaxing

Source | Legal Daily

Editor | Song Shengnan, Zhu Yuchen, Liu Xu