Knowledge base

The Ministry of Finance confirmed Dorco Living Vina Co., Ltd.'s interpretation of Article 9, Clause 2, Point i of Decree 320/2025/NĐ-CP: Costs related to assets held for lease during a period with no tenant (including depreciation, land rent, infrastructure maintenance and management costs) are deductible when determining taxable CIT income, provided the assets are owned or legally used by the enterprise. Specific case: Phase 2 factory building (construction completed December 2022, investment certificate amended to add leasing purpose on January 17, 2025, officially leased from April 2025). Costs from January 17, 2025 to March 31, 2025 are deductible in the 2025 tax year. The Ministry of Finance advises the company to apply per regulations and contact the direct tax authority for any remaining issues.

The Ministry of Finance guides a public college classified as Group 3 on 2025 salary-reform fund contribution rates under Point g, Clause 3, Article 4 of Circular 88/2024/TT-BTC: at least 40% of retained revenue after deducting directly related costs; at least 35% for healthcare revenue; at least 40% of the revenue-over-expenditure surplus for service fees (including tuition), joint ventures, and other income. The repeal of Decree 60/2021/ND-CP Article 16(1)(b) by Decree 111/2025/ND-CP does not remove the salary-reform contribution obligation under Circular 88/2024/TT-BTC, which has a separate legal basis.

The Ministry of Finance advises that a household business that purchases round logs (pine, eucalyptus, etc.) and saws them into planks or pieces for sale to processing companies is engaged in manufacturing activity, not merely basic primary processing. Therefore the higher manufacturing tax rate applies. Under Articles 4 and 6 of Circular 84/2021/TT-BTC and Decree 359/2025/ND-CP, the applicable rate is 4.5% (3% VAT + 1.5% PIT) rather than the distribution rate of 1.5% (1% VAT + 0.5% PIT). The classification depends on the actual nature of the processing: simple trimming or de-barking may qualify as basic primary processing, but sawing into commercial-dimension planks or pieces constitutes manufacturing.

The Hanoi Tax Department provided guidance on the personal income tax (PIT) exemption under Clause 3 of Article 71 of Law No. 93/2025/QH15 for income earned from participating in science, technology, and innovation (STI) task evaluation and acceptance councils. Under Clause 1 of Article 5 of Circular 03/2023/TT-BTC, costs for advisory council, evaluation council, and acceptance council activities in STI tasks are classified as **task management costs** (not task implementation costs). However, Law No. 93/2025/QH15 exempts from PIT income earned from wages and salaries **when performing STI tasks**. The Tax Department advises taxpayers to self-assess whether council participation activities qualify as "performing an STI task" in order to apply the correct tax treatment. If further clarification is needed, taxpayers may consult the Hanoi Tax Department's website or contact the tax authority directly.

The Ministry of Finance clarified that the preferential land use fee provisions under Point c, Clause 2, Article 10 of Resolution 254/2025/QH15 apply to three specific cases: (i) garden, pond, or agricultural land within the same parcel as residential land recognized when the land use right was granted, converted to residential use; (ii) land originally constituting garden/pond attached to residential land that users have separated to transfer use rights; (iii) garden/pond land attached to residential land that a surveying unit had self-measured and separated into distinct parcels before 01 July 2014. The Ministry clarified that the phrase 'before 01 July 2014' modifies only case (iii) regarding the surveying separation, not case (ii) concerning user-initiated separation for rights transfer. For specific circumstances, individuals should consult local competent authorities.

The Ministry of Finance clarifies how public service units (category 3, with 10-30% self-financing) should handle the accounting transition for fixed assets purchased from service revenue before 31 December 2024, as they move from Circular 107/2017/TT-BTC to Circular 24/2024/TT-BTC. Under Circular 107/2017, the residual value of fixed assets was tracked on separate accounts by funding source (accounts 3661, 3662, 3663, 43142, 421, etc.). The unit must identify which account currently carries the residual value of fixed assets purchased from service revenue as of 31 December 2024. The absence of a balance on Account 366 does not mean the source is missing - the unit must trace which accounting account reflects that residual value, then transfer the corresponding source balance to Account 421 and continue accounting under Circular 24/2024/TT-BTC from fiscal year 2025.

This is a consolidated version of Circular No. 23/2024/TT-BCT dated 07 November 2024 (effective 01 January 2025), as amended by Circular No. 38/2025/TT-BCT (effective 01 July 2025) and Circular No. 15/2026/TT-BCT (effective 10 April 2026). It governs the management and use of industrial explosives and explosive precursor chemicals under the authority of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), applying to agencies, organizations, businesses and individuals that produce, trade, import/export, transport, store, or use these materials - primarily mining, construction blasting and precursor-chemical trading companies. Key content includes: the official lists of permitted industrial explosives and explosive precursors; the division of licensing authority among the Department of Industrial Safety Technique and Environment, the Chemicals Agency, and provincial People's Committees for issuing, reissuing, or adjusting production certificates, trading permits, import/export permits, and usage permits; the procedure for registering new explosive products; and the construction and operation of a national database on industrial explosives and precursors. Businesses in this sector must conduct safety risk assessments, prepare blasting plans and blasting passports, build emergency response plans, and submit periodic six-month/annual reports (due by the 18th-20th of June and December) plus ad-hoc reports when incidents occur. This is a specialized safety and licensing regulation for the explosives industry - it does not touch tax, accounting, e-invoicing, labor, or customs matters, so it is only relevant to the small number of mining, blasting-service, and explosive-precursor trading businesses.

This is a consolidated text issued by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV/NHNN) merging Circular 50/2024/TT-NHNN dated October 31, 2024 (effective January 1, 2025) with the amendments introduced by Circular 77/2025/TT-NHNN dated December 31, 2025 (effective March 1, 2026). It sets mandatory safety and security requirements for providing online banking services, applying to credit institutions, foreign bank branches, payment intermediary service providers, credit information companies, and (new under the amendment) Mobile Money service providers. Key technical requirements include: information systems must meet security level 3 or higher (level 4 or higher for financial switching and clearing systems) and comply with Vietnamese standard TCVN 11930:2017; network infrastructure must include application and database firewalls plus DoS/DDoS protection; application software must undergo source-code control and testing against the OWASP Top Ten (web) or OWASP Mobile Application Security standard (mobile); Mobile Banking apps must be distributed only through official app stores and must detect and auto-exit when debuggers, emulators, or rooted/jailbroken devices are detected. Transaction confirmation is risk-tiered, combining passwords, PINs, OTPs (SMS/Voice/Soft Token), biometric matching, or e-signatures; payment transactions by organizational customers must separate the creation and approval steps, except for household businesses or micro-enterprises using simplified accounting. A notable new element introduced by Circular 77/2025/TT-NHNN is the «newly established organizational customer» category (entities incorporated or newly onboarded within the past 12 months), which must undergo a risk assessment to determine when biometric or secure e-signature verification applies, with exemptions for state agencies, listed companies, and Fortune Global 500 entities. The new rules under Articles 3 and 10 take effect on a staggered timeline: providers serving both individual and organizational customers must comply from July 1, 2026, while providers serving organizational customers only must comply from October 1, 2026. This is a cybersecurity and technical-standards document for banks and payment intermediaries, outside the tax, accounting, e-invoice, labor, or customs scope that RegHub tracks.

The Law on Roads (Luật Đường bộ) No. 35/2024/QH15, passed by the National Assembly on June 27, 2024 and effective January 1, 2025, comprehensively regulates road activities in Vietnam, including road network planning, road classification (national highways, provincial roads, commune roads, urban roads, dedicated-use roads), land reserved for road infrastructure, road safety corridors, and maintenance responsibilities for road structures. This consolidated document, No. 49/VBHN-VPQH, updates the law with amendments from Law No. 118/2025/QH15 (effective July 1, 2026), which mainly transfers authority over national highway management and road planning from the Ministry of Transport to the Ministry of Construction. For SME owners, the law is mainly relevant where it touches land use within road safety corridors, construction near roads, installation of advertising billboards near roadways, and motor-vehicle transport business licensing (a transport business license is required to operate). It also sets detailed rules for building infrastructure works (telecom, power, water supply/drainage) within road protection zones, which require written approval from the road management authority. This is a specialized transport-infrastructure law and does not directly regulate tax, accounting, e-invoicing, customs, or labor matters - RegHub's core coverage areas. As such, it is more reference material than a direct compliance requirement for most businesses, except for transport operators, outdoor advertising companies, or construction firms working near roads.

The Ministry of Finance answered two questions about the 3-year Corporate Income Tax (CIT) exemption for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) under Resolution 198/2025/QH15 and Decree 20/2025/ND-CP. For the first question: if during the 3-year exemption period the enterprise grows beyond SME criteria and becomes a large enterprise, it continues to enjoy the CIT exemption for the remainder of the 3-year period counted from the date of first business registration. The incentive is not terminated when the enterprise outgrows SME thresholds. For the second question: the exclusion from incentives applies only to enterprises newly established through merger, consolidation, division, separation, ownership transfer, or type conversion from enterprises that existed BEFORE Resolution 198 took effect. Enterprises established after NQ198 became effective that subsequently change their business type (e.g., from single-member LLC to multi-member LLC or joint stock company) retain their exemption.

The Ministry of Finance clarifies: a public service unit classified as Group 3 for 2021-2025 by the provincial People's Committee must set aside salary-reform funds for 2025 under Point g, Clause 3, Article 4 of Circular 88/2024/TT-BTC (which covers Group 3 and fully state-funded units). It may not apply Point h, which is reserved for Group 1 and Group 2 self-financing units. If in practice the unit is already fully self-financing for recurrent expenditure (equivalent to Group 2), it may seek reclassification by preparing a five-year financial autonomy plan, proposing an upgraded autonomy level, and reporting to its supervisory authority for an official decision.