Vietnam Work Permit 2026: Decree 219/2025 Rules, Documents & Timeline
Decree 152/2020 and Decree 70/2023 were repealed in full on 7 August 2025 — here is the law that actually applies, what it changed, and what non-compliance now costs
Short answer: Vietnamese work permits (giấy phép lao động, GPLĐ) are governed by Nghị định 219/2025/NĐ-CP, signed and effective 7 August 2025, which repealed Decree 152/2020/NĐ-CP and Decree 70/2023/NĐ-CP in full. The separate demand-explanation report is gone, the issuing authority is now the provincial People's Committee rather than DOLISA, the labour ministry itself no longer exists (MOLISA merged into Bộ Nội vụ on 1 March 2025), and renewal is capped at one time only — a hard 2 + 2 = 4-year ceiling on any single permit lineage. Almost every English-language guide online still cites the repealed decrees. This page is written by the Aniday team that files these applications through our Vietnamese entity, Aniday Vietnam Co., Ltd. Verified 3 September 2026.
Which law governs Vietnam work permits in 2026?
Nghị định 219/2025/NĐ-CP, signed and effective on 7 August 2025, is the only decree that governs foreign workers in Vietnam — 5 chapters and 36 articles implementing Articles 151 to 158 of the Labour Code 2019 (Luật 45/2019/QH14). It repealed Decree 152/2020/NĐ-CP and its amending Decree 70/2023/NĐ-CP in full. As of 3 September 2026 no further amending decree has been issued.
The ministry changed too, and this matters practically. Bộ Lao động – Thương binh và Xã hội (MOLISA) ceased to exist on 1 March 2025 and was merged into Bộ Nội vụ (the Ministry of Home Affairs). At provincial level, each Sở LĐTBXH was merged into Sở Nội vụ. Any guide, template or internal SOP that tells you to "submit to DOLISA" is describing an authority that no longer exists — and dossiers addressed to it are a routine source of avoidable delay.
If you are reading a work permit checklist that cites 152/2020, 70/2023, or a demand-explanation report filed 30 days in advance as a standalone step, stop using it. Every one of those elements has been replaced.
What changed under Decree 219/2025 compared with the old decrees?
Nine changes matter to employers, and two of them — the abolished demand report and the single-renewal cap — change how you plan an assignment rather than just how you file it.
| What changed | Under 152/2020 + 70/2023 (repealed) | Under Decree 219/2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Demand explanation (giải trình nhu cầu) | Separate procedure and separate approval | Abolished as a standalone step — folded into the permit application (Mẫu số 03) |
| Issuing authority | Department of Labour (DOLISA) | Ủy ban nhân dân cấp tỉnh — the provincial People's Committee, Art. 4(1) |
| Renewal | Unlimited renewals | One renewal only, maximum 2 years (Art. 29) |
| Experience thresholds | Higher bars for experts and technical workers | Cut for both chuyên gia and lao động kỹ thuật (Art. 3) |
| Exemption list | Narrower list | Expanded to 15 cases (Art. 7) |
| Short-term exemption | Under 30 days, maximum 3 entries per year | Under 90 days per year, unlimited entries |
| Working across provinces | Effectively province-by-province | One permit covers multiple provinces (Art. 22(5)) on 3 working days' notice |
| Criminal record certificate | Obtained separately before filing | Can be requested together with the permit, both issued electronically via the Cổng Dịch vụ công quốc gia (Art. 6(3)) |
| Periodic reporting | 6-monthly and annual foreign-labour usage reports | Abolished |
The single-renewal cap is the change to brief your leadership on. A permit runs for a maximum of 2 years (Art. 21) and can be renewed once for a maximum of 2 more (Art. 29). That is a hard 4-year ceiling on one permit lineage. After it, a full new application is required — new dossier, new documents, new statutory clock. Assignments scoped at five years on the assumption of rolling renewals no longer work as designed.
Which worker category applies, and what does each one require?
Article 3 of Decree 219/2025 recognises four categories — nhà quản lý (manager), giám đốc điều hành (executive director), chuyên gia (expert) and lao động kỹ thuật (technical worker) — and the experience thresholds for the last two were cut. The executive director category is newly separated out of "manager", so a role that used to be squeezed into the manager definition may now have its own, clearer route.
| Category | Requirement under Art. 3 | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Nhà quản lý (manager) | Manages an enterprise under the Law on Enterprises 2020, or heads an agency or organisation. No experience threshold | — |
| Giám đốc điều hành (executive director) | Head of a branch, representative office or business location; or head of a department with direct management responsibility and at least 3 years' experience in the field | Newly separated from "manager" |
| Chuyên gia (expert) | Standard route: university degree or higher plus at least 2 years' experience appropriate to the job. Priority-sector route: a degree in the relevant specialisation plus 1 year's experience, in finance, science, technology, innovation, national digital transformation or a designated priority field | Standard experience cut from 3 years to 2 |
| Lao động kỹ thuật (technical worker) | At least 1 year of formal training plus 2 years' experience; or 3 years' experience with no training requirement | Cut from 3 years and from 5 years respectively |
On the degree-matching question, be careful. Under the standard expert route the "appropriateness" test in the text attaches to the experience rather than to the degree; the explicit degree-to-specialisation match survives in the priority-sector fast track. That is a real relaxation on paper. It is not a licence to file a philosophy degree against a software engineering role: provincial Sở Nội vụ practice has historically been stricter than the text, and a mismatched degree still carries real rejection risk. Where the degree and the job title diverge, invest in experience letters that make the connection explicit rather than relying on the drafting.
Who is exempt from a Vietnam work permit?
Article 7 lists 15 exemption categories, up from the narrower list under the repealed decrees — and exemption is not the same as doing nothing. Notable categories include: an LLC owner or capital-contributing member whose contribution is at least VND 3 billion; a joint-stock company chairman or board member with a contribution of at least VND 3 billion; ODA technical consultants; foreign journalists confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; international students on internships; persons responsible for establishing a commercial presence; intra-corporate transferees (di chuyển nội bộ doanh nghiệp) within the 11 WTO service sectors; persons working under 90 days per calendar year; and a new category covering finance, science, technology, innovation and national digital transformation, confirmed by a ministry or a provincial People's Committee.
Two distinct routes follow from exemption, and they are widely confused:
| Xác nhận — confirmation route | Thông báo — notification route | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | A giấy xác nhận không thuộc diện cấp giấy phép lao động — a certificate of exemption | Nothing is issued. The employer notifies in writing only |
| Filing deadline | At least 10 days before the start date | At least 3 working days before the worker starts (Art. 9(4)) |
| Processing | 5 working days | — |
| Validity | Maximum 2 years (Art. 10), renewable once for up to 2 years | — |
| Re-issuance | 3 working days if lost or damaged (Art. 13) | — |
The under-90-days case sits on the notification route: no certificate, but a written notification at least 3 working days before the person starts. Skipping that notification is a reportable violation in its own right, and the fine for failure to notify or report is small enough that companies ignore it and large enough to be embarrassing in an inspection file.
Do employers still file a separate demand-explanation report?
No — the separate giải trình nhu cầu sử dụng người lao động nước ngoài procedure has been abolished. Under Article 18(1) the demand explanation is now a section of the work permit application itself, Mẫu số 03 (Form 03), signed by the employer. One filing, one decision. This is the biggest workflow change in the decree and it removes an entire approval cycle from the critical path.
- Filing window: at least 10 days and not more than 60 days before the intended start date (Art. 22(1)). Both ends bite — file too early and the dossier is out of window.
- Approving authority: Ủy ban nhân dân cấp tỉnh (Art. 4(1)), in practice delegated to the Giám đốc Sở Nội vụ, or to the management board of the industrial, export-processing, economic or high-tech zone (Ban Quản lý các khu công nghiệp) where the employer sits inside such a zone.
- Decision: 10 working days. A refusal must be given in writing within 3 working days with reasons.
- Channels: the provincial public administration service centre (Trung tâm Phục vụ hành chính công cấp tỉnh), post, an authorised agent, or the National Public Service Portal (Cổng Dịch vụ công quốc gia).
On the local-recruitment advertisement, treat the position as unsettled. The advertisement requirement still exists but in reduced scope, and the period is reported to have been cut from 15 to 5 working days with no mandated platform. That reading rests on a single professional source rather than on text we can point you to, provincial application of it is inconsistent, and we would not build a filing plan around it. Confirm the current expectation with the specific province before you rely on the shorter period.
What documents are required for a new work permit (cấp mới)?
Seven items make up the dossier, and three of them carry validity windows that expire while you are still collecting the rest. Document dates falling outside their window at the moment of filing is the single commonest cause of rejection we see.
| # | Document | Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mẫu số 03 | Application form with the integrated demand explanation, signed by the employer |
| 2 | Giấy khám sức khỏe (health certificate) | Valid no more than 12 months from issue to filing; Vietnamese or foreign licensed facility |
| 3 | Phiếu lý lịch tư pháp (criminal record certificate) | Issued no more than 6 months before filing |
| 4 | Passport | Certified copy of a valid passport |
| 5 | Photographs | 02 colour photos, 4×6 cm, white background, front-facing, bare-headed, no glasses, taken within the last 6 months |
| 6 | Evidence of category | Degrees, professional certificates, and employer confirmation of experience proving the Art. 3 threshold |
| 7 | Evidence of employment form | Labour contract, intra-corporate transfer letter, service contract, enterprise registration certificate, or investment certificate as applicable |
The criminal record rule, which guides commonly get wrong
Which certificate you need depends on where the person is, not on their nationality. A foreigner already residing in Vietnam obtains a Vietnamese phiếu lý lịch tư pháp from the Sở Tư pháp, or through VNeID or the public service portal. A foreigner still abroad obtains a home-country certificate. Either way it must be no more than 6 months old at filing.
New under Art. 6(3): the employer can request the criminal record certificate simultaneously with the work permit through the Cổng Dịch vụ công quốc gia. The portal routes the request to both the labour authority and the police, and both documents are issued electronically — so a separate criminal record document does not have to be obtained first. Where it applies, this removes one of the two serial waits from the front of the process.
Do foreign documents still need consular legalisation?
No — from 11 September 2026 Vietnam is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, so a public document issued in another Convention state needs only an apostille from the issuing state, and hợp pháp hóa lãnh sự is no longer required for it. Until 10 September 2026 inclusive, every foreign-issued document had to go through consular legalisation and then certified Vietnamese translation.
| Document origin | Step 1 — authentication | Step 2 — translation |
|---|---|---|
| Convention state (from 11 Sep 2026) | Apostille from the issuing state | Dịch thuật công chứng — certified Vietnamese translation, still required |
| Non-party state | Hợp pháp hóa lãnh sự — consular legalisation, as before | Dịch thuật công chứng — certified Vietnamese translation |
| Any origin, until 10 Sep 2026 | Hợp pháp hóa lãnh sự | Dịch thuật công chứng |
Three qualifications decide whether this actually helps you. First, the simplification applies only between Vietnam and other Convention parties that did not object — we are not in a position to confirm the objection list, so do not assume your specific country is covered; check before you plan around it. Second, the Convention excludes documents executed by diplomatic or consular officers and administrative documents dealing directly with commercial or customs operations. Third — and this is the one that catches people — an apostille certifies form and signature only, not content. The certified Vietnamese translation requirement is unaffected and remains.
For documents going the other way, Vietnamese outbound apostilles are issued by the Consular Department (Cục Lãnh sự) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hanoi and by the Department of External Relations (Sở Ngoại vụ) in Ho Chi Minh City.
How long does a work permit take, how long is it valid, and can it be renewed?
Ten working days from a complete valid dossier, two years maximum validity, and exactly one renewal of up to two more years — a hard four-year ceiling. A refusal must be issued in writing within 3 working days with reasons.
| Item | Rule |
|---|---|
| Statutory processing | 10 working days from a complete valid dossier (Art. 22(3)); refusal in writing within 3 working days |
| Issuing authority | Ủy ban nhân dân cấp tỉnh (Art. 4(1)), delegated to Giám đốc Sở Nội vụ or the relevant zone management board |
| Maximum validity | 2 years (Art. 21), set by the shortest of: labour contract term, assignment letter, service contract, ERC or operating licence, or treaty |
| Renewal (gia hạn) | Once only, maximum 2 years (Art. 29). Filing window 10–45 days before expiry. Processing 10 working days |
| After the renewal expires | A completely new work permit application (cấp mới) is required |
| Multi-province working | One permit covers several provinces for the same employer (Art. 22(5)); notify each locality at least 3 working days in advance |
| Fees | Set by each province's People's Council (HĐND) and vary by province — budget locally, there is no national figure |
The renewal dossier is Form 03 with the demand explanation, a health certificate no more than 12 months old, 2 photos, the existing permit, the passport, and evidence that the employment form continues. A new written labour contract must be signed before the renewed permit takes effect — signing it in the wrong order is a recurring compliance finding.
Plan against the four-year ceiling now. 2 + 2 = 4 years is the maximum life of one permit lineage, and missing the 10–45 day renewal window means you do not get the renewal at all — you start a new application from scratch, with the document validity windows reset and the person potentially out of status in the gap.
What is the difference between re-issuance (cấp lại) and renewal (gia hạn)?
Re-issuance replaces a permit that is still valid but lost, damaged or carrying changed details; renewal extends a permit that is approaching expiry. They are different procedures with different triggers, deadlines and processing times, and using the wrong one costs a filing cycle.
| Cấp lại — re-issuance | Gia hạn — renewal | |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger | Permit still valid but lost, damaged, or details changed | Permit approaching expiry |
| Cases covered | Only two (Art. 23): lost, damaged and unusable; or a change to full name, nationality, passport number, or employer name where the identification code is unchanged | Continued employment beyond the expiry date |
| Timing | Any time while the permit is valid | 10–45 days before expiry |
| Processing | 3 working days (Art. 25) | 10 working days (Art. 28) |
| Limit | None stated | Once only |
Two removals are worth noting. A change of workplace is no longer a re-issuance ground — a change of employer now requires a full new work permit application, not an amendment, which materially changes the cost and timeline of moving someone between group entities. And police confirmation for a lost permit is no longer required, which takes a week or more out of the replacement process.
How does the temporary residence card (thẻ tạm trú) work?
The thẻ tạm trú is a separate immigration procedure that never issues automatically and never renews with the work permit. It is governed by immigration law — Luật 47/2014/QH13 as amended by Luật 51/2019/QH14 and Luật 23/2023/QH15 — not by Decree 219/2025, and it is handled by a different authority entirely.
| Item | Rule |
|---|---|
| Card symbols | LĐ1 for permit-exempt foreigners; LĐ2 for work permit holders |
| Validity | Maximum 2 years, and the work permit term caps it — a 12-month permit yields a card of 12 months or less |
| Passport rule | The card must expire at least 30 days before the passport does — in practice around 13 months of passport validity is needed |
| Authority | Phòng Quản lý xuất nhập cảnh, Công an cấp tỉnh (provincial immigration office) |
| Processing | 5 working days |
| Forms | NA6 (sponsor request), NA7 (guarantee), NA8 (declaration) — new templates under Thông tư 70/2026/TT-BCA, effective 1 July 2026. Older versions are rejected |
The correct sequence
- Enter Vietnam on a DN business visa, or on an LĐ visa where a permit already exists.
- Obtain the work permit.
- Sign the labour contract — it must post-date permit approval, not precede it.
- Register the employer with the immigration office.
- File NA6 plus NA7 or NA8.
- Card issued in roughly 5 working days.
Consistency is decisive at this step. Passport number, employer name and job title must match the work permit exactly; a divergence that the labour authority let pass will be caught by immigration. And to repeat the point that costs companies the most: renewing a work permit does not extend an existing temporary residence card. A separate application is always required.
What are the penalties for working without a permit?
15,000,000 to 25,000,000 VND for the worker, and — once the organisation-doubling rule is applied — 60 to 150 million VND for the employer, plus deportation and possible suspension of business operations. The sanctioning decree itself changed: Nghị định 12/2022/NĐ-CP Art. 32 applied until 9 September 2026, and from 10 September 2026 Nghị định 283/2026/NĐ-CP replaced it.
| Violation | Rate as written (individual) | Actual exposure for a company (doubled) |
|---|---|---|
| Foreign worker with no permit, or an expired one | 15–25 million VND | Applies to the individual worker |
| Employer using 1–10 unpermitted workers | 30–45 million VND | 60–90 million VND |
| Employer using 11–20 unpermitted workers | 45–60 million VND | 90–120 million VND |
| Employer using 21+ unpermitted workers | 60–75 million VND | 120–150 million VND |
| Using a worker outside the scope stated on the permit | 5–10 million VND per worker, capped at 75 million | Doubled, subject to the cap |
| Failure to notify, report, or submit the labour contract | 1–3 million VND | 2–6 million VND |
The doubling rule is the single most misreported number in English-language guides. The figures in the decree are the rates for an individual. An organisation pays double. Because employers in this context are almost always companies, every guide quoting "30–45 million VND" as the employer's fine for 1–10 unpermitted workers understates real exposure by half. Budget and brief your board on the doubled figure.
Supplementary sanctions matter more than the fines. The worker faces trục xuất (deportation). In serious cases the employer faces đình chỉ hoạt động có thời hạn — suspension of business operations for 1 to 3 months. Where forged documents are involved, confiscation applies. The limitation period for labour and social insurance violations is 1 year.
We deliberately do not cite an article number for the 283/2026 penalties: the article numbering in the new decree is not something we can confirm, so we cite the decree only.
How long does the whole process realistically take?
Six to ten weeks is the realistic total, with four weeks as a best case where documents are already legalised or apostilled and the worker is already in Vietnam. The statutory clocks are short; real duration is dominated by preparing documents abroad, which no amount of filing skill compresses.
| Step | Realistic duration |
|---|---|
| Collect and legalise or apostille foreign documents | 2–6 weeks — the dominant variable |
| Health certificate in Vietnam | 1–3 days |
| Recruitment advertisement, where applicable | ~1 week |
| Work permit application | Statutory 10 working days; realistically 2–3 weeks with one round of clarification |
| Sign the labour contract (must follow permit issuance) | 1–3 days |
| Temporary residence card | Statutory 5 working days; realistically 1–2 weeks |
| Total | 6–10 weeks typical; 4 weeks best case |
The practical implication: start collecting and authenticating degrees, experience letters and criminal record certificates the day the offer is agreed, not the day the start date is set. Everything else in the chain is measured in working days.
Why do Vietnam work permit applications get rejected or delayed?
The commonest single cause is documents that have fallen outside their validity window by the time the dossier is filed — a health certificate older than 12 months or a criminal record certificate older than 6 months, usually because something else in the pack took longer than expected.
| Cause | Prevention |
|---|---|
| Documents outside their validity window at filing | Date-map the whole dossier backwards from the intended filing date; obtain the short-window items last |
| Missing legalisation or apostille on degrees and experience letters | Audit every foreign-issued document at kickoff and confirm which regime applies to that country |
| Missing or non-compliant certified translation | Remember the apostille does not replace dịch thuật công chứng |
| Experience letters too vague to prove the threshold | Require dates, job title, scope and a named signatory — not a bare service confirmation |
| Degree and job title mismatch challenged by the province despite the Art. 3(3) relaxation | Do not rely on the drafting; document the connection through experience evidence |
| Signing the labour contract before permit approval | Hold the contract until the permit issues, then sign |
| Data inconsistency across passport, permit and TRC application | Freeze one canonical spelling, passport number, employer name and job title at the start |
| Missing the 10–45 day renewal window | Calendar the window at issuance — miss it and you file a new application from scratch |
| Employer not registered with the immigration office | Complete employer registration before the TRC filing, not during |
| Passport with under ~13 months' validity | Renew the passport first; the TRC must expire 30+ days before it |
How does Aniday handle Vietnam work permits for clients?
Our Vietnamese entity, Aniday Vietnam Co., Ltd., acts as the legal employer, files the Form 03 application with the integrated demand explanation, and runs the temporary residence card as a linked but separate workstream — so a foreign company can place someone in Vietnam without incorporating and without owning the filing risk.
- Category assessment first. Before anything is collected we test the role against Art. 3 — nhà quản lý, giám đốc điều hành, chuyên gia or lao động kỹ thuật — and against the exemption list, because an exemption route (xác nhận or thông báo) is faster and cheaper where it genuinely applies.
- Document date-mapping. We schedule the 12-month health certificate and 6-month criminal record certificate against the intended filing date, and identify apostille versus consular legalisation per issuing country at kickoff.
- One filing, one decision. Form 03 with the demand explanation, submitted through the provincial channel or the Cổng Dịch vụ công quốc gia, with the criminal record requested in parallel under Art. 6(3) where that route is available.
- Sequencing that survives an inspection. Permit first, labour contract second, employer registration, then NA6/NA7/NA8 on the current Thông tư 70/2026/TT-BCA templates.
- Renewal discipline. We calendar the 10–45 day window at issuance and flag the four-year ceiling to your mobility plan, so a multi-year assignment is not built on renewals that no longer exist.
Aniday is trusted by 5,000+ companies and works with a network of 50,000+ headhunters, combining EOR, payroll and hiring in one place. Model the full cost of the hire with our Vietnam Employment Cost Calculator and the Vietnam PIT Calculator, or read more about Employer of Record in Vietnam.
Legal sources
- Nghị định 219/2025/NĐ-CP — foreign workers in Vietnam; effective 7 August 2025; repealed Decree 152/2020/NĐ-CP and Decree 70/2023/NĐ-CP in full
- Bộ luật Lao động 2019 (Luật 45/2019/QH14), Articles 151–158
- Luật 47/2014/QH13 as amended by Luật 51/2019/QH14 and Luật 23/2023/QH15 — entry, exit and residence of foreigners in Vietnam
- Thông tư 70/2026/TT-BCA — immigration form templates, effective 1 July 2026
- Nghị định 283/2026/NĐ-CP — administrative sanctions in labour, from 10 September 2026, replacing Nghị định 12/2022/NĐ-CP
- Aniday — Doing Business in Vietnam (country hub)
- Last verified 2026-09.
Vietnam work permits — frequently asked questions
Which law governs work permits in Vietnam in 2026?
Nghị định 219/2025/NĐ-CP, effective 7 August 2025 — 5 chapters and 36 articles implementing Articles 151–158 of the Labour Code 2019. No amending decree has been issued as of 3 September 2026.
Is Decree 152/2020 still in force?
No. Decree 152/2020/NĐ-CP and Decree 70/2023/NĐ-CP were repealed in full on 7 August 2025. The ministry named in them is gone too: MOLISA ceased to exist on 1 March 2025 and merged into Bộ Nội vụ, with each provincial Sở LĐTBXH merged into Sở Nội vụ.
Do we still file a separate demand-explanation report?
No — it is now a section of the permit application itself, Mẫu số 03, under Art. 18(1). File at least 10 and not more than 60 days before the start date; decision in 10 working days.
How many times can a work permit be renewed?
Once, for a maximum of 2 years (Art. 29), filed 10–45 days before expiry. With the 2-year maximum initial validity that is a 4-year ceiling on one permit lineage; after that a new application is required.
Do foreign documents still need consular legalisation?
From 11 September 2026, public documents from Hague Apostille Convention states need only an apostille. Documents from non-party states still need consular legalisation. Either way the certified Vietnamese translation is still required — the apostille certifies form and signature, not content.
What is the fine for employing someone without a permit?
Under Nghị định 283/2026/NĐ-CP: 30–45 million VND for 1–10 workers as written, but an organisation pays double — so 60–90 million VND in reality, and 120–150 million for 21 or more. The worker faces 15–25 million VND and deportation.
Does renewing the work permit extend the temporary residence card?
No. The thẻ tạm trú never issues automatically and never renews with the permit — a separate application to the provincial immigration office is always required, on the Thông tư 70/2026/TT-BCA form templates.
Can we move an employee to another group company on the same permit?
No. Change of workplace is no longer a re-issuance ground under Art. 23, so a change of employer requires a full new work permit application.
How much does a work permit cost?
State fees are set by each province's People's Council and vary, so there is no national figure — budget against the province where the employer is registered.
