Vietnam Company Compliance: The 2026 Reporting Year

Most compliance guides for Vietnam are tax calendars. They are accurate as far as they go, and they cover roughly half of what a foreign owned company owes.

A company created through a foreign investment project answers to two authorities. One wants tax returns. The other wants to know how the project it licensed is actually going.

An accountant who handles only the first line leaves the second uncovered, and the second is the one attached to the certificate that lets the company operate.

2reporting lines, one to the tax authority and one to the investment authority

20thof each month, the deadline for the main tax declarations

90 daysafter year end for audited financial statements, with no size exemption

Two reporting lines, not one

The investment line is the one that catches foreign owners, for a simple structural reason: it does not come from the tax system, so a bookkeeping engagement scoped around tax filings does not include it.

• Project implementation reporting tells the authority whether the licensed project is proceeding as described.
• Capital contribution reporting connects to the ninety day funding rule and to the capital account.
• Labour usage reporting overlaps with, but is not the same as, the annual report on foreign employees.
• Foreign loan disclosure applies where the company has borrowed from abroad, including from its own parent.

Ask explicitly whether your provider covers the investment line. The answer is often no, and the question is rarely asked.

The monthly and quarterly rhythm

• Monthly or quarterly status depends on revenue, so a growing company can change filing frequency between years.
• The 20th is the anchor date for most monthly obligations, and it does not move for convenience.
• Corporate tax is paid provisionally, then finalised once the audited accounts exist.
• Electronic invoicing is registered once and then operates continuously, with its own data obligations.
• Invoices are issued from the registered system, so a company that invoices outside it creates a reconciliation problem rather than a saving.
• The invoice data reaches the tax authority, which is why the non cash payment rule and the invoicing system reinforce each other.
• A dormant company still files. Nil returns are returns, and the obligation does not pause because there was no activity.
• A dormant company is also audited, which is the point at which most owners of an unused Vietnamese entity decide whether to keep it.

March is when everything lands

MonthlyTax declarations due on the 20th

Jan to MarAudit fieldwork, ahead of the financial statement deadline

MarchTax finalisation, investment reporting and foreign loan disclosure

MarchAudited financial statements, 90 days after a December year end

MayQuarterly filings, corporate tax payments, annual foreign employee report

1. MonthlyTax declarations due on the 20th
2. Jan to MarAudit fieldwork, ahead of the financial statement deadline
3. MarchTax finalisation, investment reporting and foreign loan disclosure
4. MarchAudited financial statements, 90 days after a December year end
5. MayQuarterly filings, corporate tax payments, annual foreign employee report

March is the most compliance intensive month of the Vietnamese year for a foreign owned company, because the tax finalisation, the investment reporting and the foreign loan disclosure all fall inside the same window as the audited financial statements.

May carries the second concentration: quarterly filings, corporate income tax payments and the annual reporting on foreign employees.

The practical consequence is a scheduling one. Audit fieldwork has to happen in January and February for a December year end, which means the auditor has to be appointed the previous year, not in the spring.

The audit that everything waits for

Every foreign invested enterprise must have its annual financial statements audited by a licensed independent Vietnamese audit firm.

• There is no exemption for size, revenue, profit or level of activity. A dormant company is audited.
• The auditor must be licensed in Vietnam, working to Vietnamese Standards on Auditing.
• The statements are due within 90 days of the financial year end.
• They go to several recipients: financial authorities, the tax authority, the statistics office, the business registration agency and the parent company.
• Profit cannot be remitted abroad until the audit and the tax finalisation are complete.

That last point turns the audit from a compliance item into a cash flow item. A group waiting on a dividend from Vietnam is waiting on an audit, whatever the bank balance says.

Costs and the wider annual bill are set out in Vietnam company registration cost.

What changed in 2025 and 2026

Five changes in eighteen months, and each one invalidates a piece of older guidance.

• The licence fee removal is the only one that reduces work. The other four add to it.
• The non cash payment rule changes daily behaviour, not just year end reporting.
• The identity requirement is binary. Without it the company cannot file online at all.
• Beneficial ownership is not a one off. It updates when the ownership changes.

Payroll, which arrives with the first employee

The moment the company has one employee, including its own legal representative, a third stream of obligations starts.

• Labour and social insurance registration is triggered by the first hire rather than by the company's formation.
• Regional minimum wages rose 7.2% on average from 1 January 2026, and several statutory ceilings move with them.
• The Law on Social Insurance 2024 and the Employment Law 2025 widened the categories of worker inside compulsory social and unemployment insurance.
• Work permit requirements and exemptions have to be analysed before an expatriate starts work, not after they arrive.
• Knowledge transfer to Vietnamese staff is a stated obligation for foreign experts rather than an aspiration.
• Payroll, contracts, personal income tax filings and social insurance records are increasingly cross checked against one another.

That last point is the one that changes how the work should be organised. Vietnamese authorities are reconciling these datasets, so a payroll run that disagrees with the personal income tax filing is now visible rather than merely inconsistent.

The filings that are triggered by change, not by the calendar

The calendar is the visible half. The other half fires when something about the company changes, and these have their own deadlines that nobody circles in advance.

1. 1
   Has the enterprise registration content changed?Name, address, charter capital, legal representative, business lines, owners
2. 2
   If yes, register the change with the business registration authorityThe beneficial owner list is updated at the same time for companies formed before July 2025
3. 3
   Does the change also affect the licensed project?Capital, objectives, location, scale or duration recorded on the investment certificate
4. 4
   If yes, the investment certificate is amended tooA change registered on one line and not the other leaves the two records inconsistent

• Charter capital changes have to be registered, and a reduction carries conditions that an increase does not.
• A change of legal representative touches the electronic identity chain, because the new representative needs their own verified account.
• A change of registered address can move the company between provincial authorities, which is more than an administrative update.
• Adding business lines is a registration change, and for a company on the incorporation first route it is barred until the investment certificate issues.
• Ownership changes trigger the beneficial owner filing, whether or not the change reaches the 25% threshold on its face.

The inconsistency risk is the real one. Two registers describe the same company, and a change that reaches one and not the other produces a discrepancy that surfaces at the worst moment, usually during a bank review or a licence renewal.

What happens when things are missed

• Late tax filings attract penalties and interest, calculated from the due date rather than from discovery.
• A missed investment report is a matter for the licensing authority, which is also the authority that can amend or revoke the certificate.
• An unfiled audit blocks profit repatriation, regardless of whether anyone has complained about the audit itself.
• Cash payments without documentation surface at the audit and produce adjustments rather than fines, which is worse for the accounts.
• Records must be kept for ten years from deregistration, and the tax authority can audit a dissolved entity within that period.

The last one is worth reading twice. Closing the company ends the filings and does not end the exposure.

Scoping the work, and the questions that reveal a gap

Compliance in Vietnam is almost always outsourced, and the quality of the outcome depends on how the engagement was scoped rather than on the diligence of the provider.

• The audit is the item most often left out, because it is a separate profession and a separate engagement.
• Identity credentials are a control question, not an administrative one, since whoever holds them can file on the company's behalf.
• Change filings are frequently billed separately, which is reasonable, but they should be named rather than discovered.
• A provider who cannot describe the March window in detail has probably not been through one.

None of this is exotic. It is the difference between an engagement that keeps the certificate in good standing and one that keeps the tax returns filed.