Vietnam Company from Pakistan: 2026 Setup Guide

Pakistan and Vietnam traded USD 850 million in 2024, up from USD 750 million the year before, and the flow is uneven.

Pakistan bought USD 522 million from Vietnam and sold USD 328 million to it. Vietnam is a supplier to Pakistan more than a customer of it.

That shapes what a Pakistani company usually wants in Vietnam, and the harder half of the project is the Pakistani side rather than the Vietnamese one.

USD 850mtwo way trade in 2024, up from 750 million in 2023

USD 522mof that flowing from Vietnam to Pakistan, against 328 million the other way

10%of three year average export earnings, the exporter's remittance formula

The corridor as the data describes it

• This is a mid sized corridor, an order of magnitude below the Indian one and growing.
• Targets are reported inconsistently, at three billion dollars in one account and ten billion in another. Neither is a forecast.
• The trade deficit runs Pakistan's way, which makes sourcing and procurement the natural first use of a Vietnamese entity.
• Textiles are the obvious overlap, because both countries compete and cooperate in the same value chains.

What Vietnam asks of you

• Full foreign ownership is available in most sectors, with a short list of closed and conditional lines.
• A legal representative must reside in Vietnam. This is the constraint that decides the timetable.
• Online filing requires a Vietnamese electronic identity, which for a foreign national requires a residence card.
• Since 31 March 2026 you may incorporate first, then obtain the investment certificate within twelve months.

The mechanics are in how to register a company in Vietnam.

The Pakistani side: four doors, not one

1. 1
   Is the investor a company investing to expand its business?If yes, State Bank approval is required. This is the main exception to the exemption
2. 2
   Is the investor an export oriented company?A subsidiary or branch abroad may be funded against a formula tied to export earnings
3. 3
   Is it a fintech or startup building a holding structure?A small remittance to incorporate, then a share swap mirroring the local shareholding
4. 4
   Otherwise, prior approval has largely been removedWhich is a real liberalisation, and does not extend to the expansion case

The framework divides equity investment abroad into four categories, and the differences matter.

• Prior State Bank approval has been removed for resident investors generally, which is the headline change.
• It is retained for investment abroad by resident companies or firms to expand their business, which is exactly what a Vietnamese operating subsidiary is.
• An export oriented company may fund a subsidiary or branch abroad against 10% of its average annual export earnings over the last three calendar years, or USD 100,000, whichever is higher.
• Fintech and startup companies may remit up to USD 10,000 to establish a holding company abroad, followed by a share swap mirroring the local shareholding.
• Employee share plans and sweat equity have their own allowances, with a 20% ceiling on the individual shareholding in the sweat equity case.

The export earnings formula is the practical route for most established Pakistani businesses, and it rewards companies that already export. A domestic only business has a thinner path.

The friction that is not written in the rules

The United States Department of State's assessment is blunt and matches practitioner experience: the Pakistani government does not promote or incentivise outward investment, and while it does not explicitly prohibit it, the approval processes discourage it.

• Budget time rather than fees. The cost of the Pakistani side is the calendar.
• The Vietnamese ninety day capital deadline does not wait for a State Bank file to clear.
• Approvals are easier to obtain against an export track record, which is what the formula measures.
• A company without export earnings should expect the outward investment case to be harder to make than the Vietnamese one.

Sequencing, which is the whole plan

1. Establish which Pakistani category applies to you before anything else.
2. Compute the export earnings formula if you are an exporter, because it caps the capital.
3. Set the Vietnamese charter capital at a figure the formula supports.
4. Obtain the Pakistani approval where the expansion route applies.
5. Incorporate in Vietnam, which starts the ninety day clock.
6. Fund through the investment capital account, not the operating account.

Reversing steps four and five is the most common and most expensive error on this route.

What this changes about the Vietnamese structure

• A capital figure constrained by the export formula may fall below VND 3 billion, which is the threshold for an investor residence card.
• Below that threshold the founder is on an annual visa rather than a residence card, which affects the electronic identity chain.
• Appointing a Vietnamese resident as legal representative solves that, at the cost of concentrating authority in someone else.
• The charter drafting matters more than usual where the representative is not the owner.

The interaction is set out in setting up in Vietnam as a non-resident.

Taking profit back to Pakistan

• Dividends to a corporate shareholder carry no Vietnamese withholding on the majority view, and 5% where the shareholder is an individual.
• Nothing leaves before the audit. Profit cannot be remitted until the audited financial statements and the annual tax finalisation are filed with the Vietnamese authorities.
• Seven working days notice goes to the Vietnamese tax authority before the transfer.
• Funds move through the investment capital account, which is a separate account from the operating one.
• The Pakistani treatment of the receipt is a separate question, and repatriation into Pakistan has its own reporting.

A service fee or management charge moves cash during the year rather than waiting for the annual cycle, at the cost of Vietnamese contractor tax on the gross amount. That trade off is set out in Vietnam tax for non-residents.

What the Vietnamese entity is usually for

The business lines recorded on the certificate are fixed early and widened only with difficulty, so the model has to be settled before the application rather than after it.

Where it goes wrong

• Incorporating in Vietnam before the Pakistani approval is secured, so the funding deadline runs while the file sits.
• Registering a charter capital the formula cannot support, which then has to be reduced.
• Assuming the general exemption applies when the investment is in fact business expansion by a resident company.
• Missing the export earnings calculation window, since it looks back three calendar years and moves each January.
• Treating the Vietnamese entity as a branch of the Pakistani one, when it is a separate company with its own audit and its own filings.

The bottom line

The Vietnamese half of this route is ordinary and the Pakistani half is not. The State Bank framework has been liberalised, but the exemption stops precisely where an operating subsidiary begins.

For an exporter the path is defined and formulaic, and the formula sets the capital. For a domestic business it is harder, and the outward investment case has to be built before the Vietnamese one is worth starting.

Do the Pakistani work first. Everything Vietnamese is faster than it looks, and it runs on deadlines that begin the day you incorporate.