Many multinational corporations and foreign-invested enterprises (FDI) entering Vietnam assume that having a parent company located in a jurisdiction with a signed Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTA) guarantees automatic exemption or reduction on cross-border payments. Tax audit realities indicate the exact opposite. DTA relief is never granted automatically under Vietnamese tax law. Misunderstanding this statutory mechanism frequently leaves foreign contractors and loc

On 18 September 2026, the Tax Department issued Official Letter No. 6936/CT-QLTT to provincial and municipal tax offices. The letter sets out uniform guidance on the handling of value-added tax (VAT) refund claims. It is accompanied by a guidance note published for taxpayers. The letter is issued on the basis of Articles 18 and 33 of Law on Tax Administration No. 108/2025/QH15, Article 30 of Decree No. 252/2026/ND-CP, Articles 48 and 49 of Circular No. 89/2026/TT-BTC, and Cla

Am I a tax resident of Vietnam? You’re a Vietnam tax resident if you meet any one of these tests: present in Vietnam 183 days or more in a calendar year; present 183 days or more in any rolling 12-month period from your first day of arrival; or you maintain a registered permanent residence or qualifying leased dwelling in Vietnam. Only one condition needs to be true — you don’t need to meet all of them. This is the single classification that determines almost everything else

The short answer Employers with foreign staff in Vietnam are responsible for classifying each employee’s tax residency status, withholding personal income tax monthly at the correct rate structure, and managing annual finalization — with real financial and compliance consequences for getting the classification wrong. Since 1 July 2026, this sits under Vietnam’s new PIT Law (Law No. 109/2025/QH15), which simplified resident progressive rates to five brackets (5%–35%) and raise

The short answer M&A due diligence in Vietnam covers the same broad categories as anywhere — financial, legal, tax, commercial, and operational — but the specific risks concentrate differently than in mature markets: VAS-to-international accounting standard conversion, undocumented related-party transactions, land use rights validity, licensing completeness, and historical tax exposure are consistently where Vietnamese targets carry the most underappreciated risk. Financial d

The short answer M&A transactions in Vietnam sit at the intersection of the Law on Investment, the Law on Enterprises, sector-specific regulations, and — for larger deals — the Law on Competition. Foreign parties need to navigate capital contribution/share purchase registration, sector-specific conditional investment rules, and (where thresholds are met) merger control notification, all layered on top of the standard commercial contract negotiation that any M&A deal requires.

The short answer A foreign buyer acquiring a Vietnamese company generally chooses between a share deal (acquiring equity in the existing legal entity, converting it into a foreign-invested enterprise) and an asset deal (acquiring specific assets or business lines into a newly or separately established entity). Share deals are more common for acquiring an established operating business with valuable licenses, contracts, or market position; asset deals are more common where the

The short answer US-style M&A due diligence assumes a level of documentation, GAAP-consistent accounting, and legal formality that Vietnamese target companies — particularly private, founder-owned businesses — frequently do not have in the same form. The gaps aren’t a sign of fraud or bad faith; they reflect genuine differences between Vietnamese Accounting Standards (VAS) practice and US GAAP, informal historical practices around related-party dealings and cash transactions,

The short answer Wealth structuring in Vietnam means building a coherent legal and tax plan across four layers: entity structure (how business and investment assets are held), succession (wills, governance agreements, and inheritance planning), tax residency management (given how differently residents and non-residents are taxed), and cross-border coordination (aligning Vietnam-based structures with any offshore trusts, foundations, or holding companies). Because Vietnam’s ci

The short answer Vietnam does not recognize trusts. As a civil law jurisdiction, Vietnamese law has no statutory concept of separating legal and beneficial ownership the way common law trust law does. Foreign nationals who are Vietnam tax residents, hold Vietnamese assets, or have Vietnamese family members cannot simply set up a domestic trust — they need alternative Vietnamese legal instruments for local assets, and, for assets held outside Vietnam, may still use an offshore

The short answer Vietnam has no dedicated legal framework for family offices in the way jurisdictions like Singapore or Hong Kong do, and — being a civil law system — does not recognize trusts. That does not mean family office functions are impossible in Vietnam; it means they have to be built from the legal tools that do exist: holding companies, investment management contracts, wills, shareholder agreements, and, for cross-border assets, offshore structures in trust-recogni

The short answer Vietnam generally offers more straightforward 100% foreign ownership across a broader range of sectors and stronger recent FDI momentum in manufacturing; Thailand offers a long-established US tax treaty, deep automotive and agribusiness supply-chain infrastructure, and Board of Investment incentives that can be very attractive for specific promoted industries — but foreign ownership in Thailand is more frequently restricted under the Foreign Business Act, oft