Heilongjiang Launches Injury Insurance Pilot for Gig Workers
Heilongjiang Province has launched a pilot program for occupational injury insurance targeting workers in new employment forms, including ride-hailing drivers, instant delivery couriers, and intra-city freight workers. The initiative, reported by People’s Daily on July 23, aims to close a critical gap in China’s social safety net for the rapidly growing gig economy workforce.
Under the pilot, all insurance costs are paid by platform enterprises on a per-order basis, with workers bearing no personal financial burden. The province has adopted an innovative “per-order enrollment, per-day payment, total enrollment and total coverage” model, ensuring that every order and every worker is insured.
Background: A National Push for Gig Worker Protection
The Heilongjiang pilot is part of a nationwide expansion of occupational injury insurance for new employment form workers. As reported by the Economic Daily, the pilot was rolled out across all 31 provinces and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps on July 1, 2026.
China’s gig economy has grown rapidly, with approximately 84 million workers in new employment forms as of 2024, accounting for about 21% of the total workforce. These workers — including delivery riders, ride-hailing drivers, and freelance platform workers — have historically lacked the workplace injury protections afforded to traditional employees.
The national pilot began on July 1, 2022, in seven provinces covering seven major platform companies. It followed a “three-year, three-step” approach: an initial pilot phase, gradual expansion to 17 provinces and 11 platform companies by 2025, and full national rollout in 2026. As of the end of June 2026, the program had cumulatively covered 29.9 million people.
How Heilongjiang’s Model Works
Heilongjiang’s implementation features several distinctive elements tailored to the realities of gig economy work. The province has set unified contribution base amounts by industry category, recognizing that risk profiles differ between ride-hailing, instant delivery, and intra-city freight sectors.
The pilot adopts a “government-led, commercial insurance institution-operated” unified service model, integrating three processes — occupational injury confirmation, labor capability assessment, and benefit payment — into a single one-stop service for workers.
According to the Heilongjiang Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security, workers who suffer injuries such as collisions, falls, or traffic accidents while on delivery or transportation routes can file claims directly through the platform apps they already use. A “one-click report” feature allows them to submit injury information online, streamlining what was previously a complex bureaucratic process.
Significance for Platform Economy
The pilot addresses a fundamental vulnerability in China’s platform economy: the classification of gig workers as independent contractors rather than employees, which has historically excluded them from traditional workers’ compensation coverage.
By formalizing injury insurance through a per-order contribution model, the policy helps legitimize and sustain the platform economy while providing a safety net for its workers. The approach is particularly well-suited to the fragmented work patterns and multi-platform employment common in the gig economy, where workers may take orders from several different apps in a single day.
Heilongjiang’s model could serve as a template for other provinces. Several regions, including Gansu, Yunnan, Liaoning, and Jilin, have already published their own implementation measures or are in the process of doing so, with most taking effect on July 1, 2026.
Looking Ahead
The national government plans to explore expanding the pilot to other platform economy sectors with higher occupational injury risks in 2027. As the program generates data on gig economy injury rates, further policy refinements are expected.
Key questions remain about enforcement — particularly how provinces will ensure compliance by smaller or non-local platform enterprises — and about inter-provincial coordination for workers who take orders across provincial borders. The cost impact on platform pricing and commission structures also bears watching.
For now, Heilongjiang’s pilot represents a significant step forward in extending social protections to millions of workers in China’s rapidly evolving labor market, demonstrating how innovative policy design can adapt traditional social insurance frameworks to the realities of the digital economy.