Social Welfare Fund

Government special fund

The cash fund established in Chapter Two of the Law of Mongolia on Social Welfare (19 January 2012, revised edition), whose purpose includes determining the type and scope of social welfare pensions, allowances and services, forming a social welfare fund, and spending the fund's assets (Law on Social Welfare, Articles 1 and 6, via legalinfo.mn, unofficial translation dated 19 September 2023). The fund has two types: a pension and allowance fund, and a social service fund (Law on Social Welfare, Article 6.2).

Its pension and allowance money may be used only for social welfare pensions and allowances, its social service money finances living support, community-based welfare, specialised care, social development services and related costs, and spending the fund for inappropriate purposes is prohibited (Law on Social Welfare, Article 8).

MONEY

Sources of income - DOCUMENTED

Income of the welfare fund consists of state and local budget funds, interest on depositing the free balance of the fund's assets in a bank, donations and assistance from international organisations and foreign countries, donations and assistance from enterprises, organisations and citizens, and other sources, and the fund's income is exempt from all taxes and fees; the amount allocated from the state budget is determined by the annual budget law (Law on Social Welfare, Articles 7 and 9, via legalinfo.mn).

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Expenditure scale, 2012 to 2023 - DOCUMENTED

The expenditures of the Social Welfare Fund amounted to MNT 225 billion in 2012 and increased to MNT 2,125,244 million (MNT 2.1 trillion) in 2023, a ninefold growth over 12 years, while the number of individuals covered, counted with duplications, rose from 1.5 million in 2012 to 2.7 million in 2023, equivalent to 77 percent of the total population; within the 2023 total, the Child Money Program was MNT 1,520,097 million, the social welfare pension MNT 197,793 million and social welfare allowances MNT 180,785 million (UNDP Mongolia, Empowering Vulnerable Households to Access Affordable and Clean Energy, 2025, citing Open Society Forum Mongolia, Welfare Expenditures in the State Budget of Mongolia, 2025).

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Payments in January to May 2021 - DOCUMENTED

In the first five months of 2021, pensions and allowances worth MNT 828.0 billion were granted to 2.3 million persons, by duplicated counting, from the Social Welfare Fund, including MNT 602.9 billion granted to 1.2 million children aged below 18 as children's cash allowances, and 57.1 thousand persons received social welfare pensions totalling an increase of MNT 22.2 billion on the same period of the previous year (National Statistics Office of Mongolia, Social welfare and insurance release, published 14 June 2021).

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Welfare disbursements in the first half of 2025 - REPORTED

As reported from National Statistics Office figures, a total of MNT 1,241.4 billion was disbursed to 2.3 million individuals for social welfare services in the first half of 2025; the number of welfare recipients decreased by 125,200 compared with the same period in 2024, while the amount increased by MNT 83.2 billion (Montsame, via Qazinform, Social insurance revenue rises in Mongolia in H1, 23 July 2025).

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RECORD

Legal structure and reporting - DOCUMENTED

The Law on Social Welfare provides that soum and district, aimag and capital city, and state welfare organisations report the fund's income and expenditure quarterly and at year end up a chain to the state central administrative organisation in charge of social welfare, which reviews and issues a conclusion on the fund's year-end balance sheet (Law on Social Welfare, Articles 10 and 11, via legalinfo.mn).

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Who receives welfare - DOCUMENTED

A World Bank analysis found that just about half (49 percent) of all citizens are direct beneficiaries of at least one social welfare program when the Child Money Program is included, and 19 percent without it, that all but one program is categorically targeted to groups deemed vulnerable or meritorious rather than directly to poverty, and that the Food Stamp Program is the only program currently poverty-targeted, covering approximately 3 percent of households nationwide; over a third (34 percent) of total benefits go to individuals in the poorest quintile (World Bank, Social welfare programs in Mongolia - are they helping the poor?, East Asia and Pacific blog).

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Delivery effectiveness - DOCUMENTED

The Asian Development Bank's completion report for its Building Capacity for an Effective Social Welfare System technical assistance states that delivery of social welfare benefits and services to Mongolia's poor and vulnerable was less effective, limiting impact on poverty and vulnerability, and identified limited capacity of social workers and policymakers to design and deliver programs among the main issues; the project was approved 9 December 2019 and completed 30 April 2023 (Asian Development Bank, Technical Assistance Completion Report, TA 9893-MON).

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A filled seal is documented. An open seal is an allegation, source named.

How to read this page. Every line names its source. A line marked ALLEGATION is a claim already published by the named source and already in the public record. Decode Mongolia republishes it as reported, with the source named, and has not verified it. An allegation is not a finding, and nothing on this page is proof of wrongdoing.

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