The rate
The standard rate in Vietnam is 10%. Some goods and services carry reduced or zero rates and others are exempt. The difference matters: zero-rated sales still let you reclaim the tax on your purchases, exempt sales do not.
A reduced 8% rate applies to most of the 10% band from 1 July 2025 to 31 December 2026 under Resolution 204/2025/QH15. It excludes telecommunications, finance, banking, securities, insurance, real estate, metal products and mined products other than coal.
Who must register
There is no registration threshold for a company. A company is a VAT taxpayer from incorporation, because tax registration happens inside business registration. The threshold applies to household and individual businesses: annual revenue of VND 1 billion or less is outside VAT and outside personal income tax on business income. The VAT Act itself still sets that line at VND 500 million; the Government lifted the operating figure to VND 1 billion by decree with effect from 1 January 2026. Lump-sum tax for households has been abolished, so a household above the line declares like anyone else.
How to register
A company or cooperative has no separate VAT application. Tax registration runs inside business registration, and the registration file reaches the tax office automatically (Decree 252, Article 6). The choice that matters is the calculation method. Under Article 11(2) of the VAT Law, the deduction method (input VAT credit) is compulsory for a business that is not a household and has revenue of VND 1 billion a year or more. Smaller businesses may opt into it, but only with full accounting and invoicing. Household and individual businesses cannot use it and pay the percentage-of-revenue rates.
A foreign supplier of digital or e-commerce services without a Vietnamese entity registers online. It applies for electronic tax transactions together with its first tax registration, receives a tax code through the tax management system, and must declare every bank account, payment account or e-wallet that receives Vietnamese payments (Decree 252, Article 40(1)). A supplier whose full Vietnamese revenue is already taxed through a Vietnamese deduction-method business or withheld by a platform is exempt from this registration.
Filing and paying
Registered and filed with Tax Department (Cục Thuế), Ministry of Finance.
VAT is declared monthly or quarterly. A monthly return is due by the 20th of the following month. A quarterly return is due by the last day of the first month of the next quarter. Quarterly filing is open to smaller taxpayers only; if you find you no longer qualify, you move to monthly from the first month of the next quarter and refile the earlier quarters as monthly returns, with late-payment interest but no late-filing penalty. Everything is filed electronically on eTax.
Penalties for getting it wrong
Late filing: a warning for 1 to 5 days late with mitigating circumstances; VND 2,000,000 to 5,000,000 for 1 to 30 days; VND 5,000,000 to 8,000,000 for 31 to 60 days; VND 8,000,000 to 15,000,000 for 61 to 90 days, or for any delay of 91 days or more where no tax was due; VND 15,000,000 to 25,000,000 where the return is more than 90 days late and tax was payable. Late payment runs at 0.03% of the unpaid amount per day. Understating tax costs 20% of the shortfall; evasion costs one to three times the tax evaded.