From 1 July 2026, Vietnam’s tax administration legal framework enters a new phase with Tax Administration Law No. 108/2025/QH15, which fully replaces Tax Administration Law No. 38/2019/QH14, together with Decree No. 252/2026/NĐ-CP and Circular No. 89/2026/TT-BTC guiding implementation. This is the most comprehensive overhaul of tax administration in years, directly affecting enterprises, business households, individual businesses and e-commerce platforms alike. The article below, compiled by TrustlineAX from the official text of the Law, Decree and Circular, walks through the changes that matter most.
1. Overview of the new tax administration legal framework
The current legal framework for tax administration rests on three core instruments:
- Tax Administration Law No. 108/2025/QH15: takes effect from 1 July 2026 (Article 13, and the e-invoice requirement for business households and individual businesses under Article 26, take effect earlier, from 1 January 2026). The Law runs to 9 Chapters and 53 Articles — a sharp reduction from the 17 Chapters and 152 Articles of Law No. 38/2019/QH14, reflecting a deliberate move toward a leaner law that codifies high-level principles and delegates detailed rule-making to the Government and the Ministry of Finance.
- Decree No. 252/2026/NĐ-CP (issued 30 June 2026, effective 1 July 2026): sets out detailed provisions and implementation measures for the Law, across 7 Chapters and 76 Articles, replacing Decree No. 126/2020/NĐ-CP.
- Circular No. 89/2026/TT-BTC (issued 30 June 2026, effective 1 July 2026): provides detailed guidance on the provisions delegated under the Law and Decree 252, together with a full set of forms and notice templates for tax administration.
In addition, the Tax Department has issued Official Letter No. 5061/CT-CS dated 22 July 2026 introducing and guiding the rollout of Decree 252/2026/NĐ-CP’s new provisions to provincial and municipal tax authorities, the E-Commerce Tax Sub-department and the Large Enterprise Tax Sub-department.
2. Key highlights of Tax Administration Law 108/2025/QH15
2.1. “Tax inspection” and “tax audit” merged into a single regime
This is one of the clearest structural changes. The 2019 Tax Administration Law devoted two separate chapters and more than a dozen articles to “tax examination” and “tax inspection” (Articles 107 to 121). The new Law consolidates all of this into a single Article 22 – Tax Examination, alongside Article 23 on measures applicable when signs of violation are detected, and Articles 24 and 25 on tax assessment. The consolidation simplifies procedures and removes the overlap between the two review mechanisms that often created confusion for taxpayers under the previous regime.
2.2. Taxpayer segmentation is codified in law for the first time
Article 3 of the Law requires tax authorities to segment taxpayers based on criteria including industry/sector/mode of operation, legal form/ownership structure, scale of operations/revenue/budget contribution, and level of tax compliance. This segmentation becomes the basis for applying preferential treatment, allocating administrative resources and selecting appropriate tax management measures — laying a more systematic foundation for risk-based tax administration.
2.3. Mandatory e-invoices for business households and individual businesses from 1 January 2026
Under Article 26 and the implementation provision in Article 52, the e-invoice requirement for business households and individual businesses takes effect earlier than the Law’s general effective date — from 1 January 2026 — signalling a clear push to accelerate the digitisation of revenue data across the household business sector.
2.4. A standalone chapter for risk management, compliance and digital transformation
Chapter V of the Law (Articles 32–36) separates out, for the first time, the principles governing risk management, compliance management, tax information systems and information security into its own dedicated chapter, rather than scattering them across the text as before — confirming digital transformation as a pillar of tax administration going forward. The roadmap requires tax authorities to complete the rollout of all forms of electronic transactions in tax administration by 1 January 2027.
2.5. A new enforcement measure: petitioning for bankruptcy proceedings
The Law adds an entirely new tax-debt enforcement measure — tax authorities are now empowered to file a petition for bankruptcy proceedings against enterprises and cooperatives with persistent, drawn-out tax debt, alongside the traditional enforcement measures (account fund deduction, suspension of invoice use, asset seizure, licence revocation, and so on).
3. Notable changes under Decree 252/2026/NĐ-CP
Decree 252/2026/NĐ-CP is the most detailed implementing instrument, with a direct, day-to-day impact on accountants and businesses. The key areas are set out below.
3.1. Tax registration: shorter, simplified deadlines
- First-time tax registration deadline for branches and transaction offices of credit institutions: 10 working days from the date operations commence (rather than from the date of the establishment licence, as before).
- First-time tax registration deadline for dependants: fixed at 31 December of the tax year (previously 10 days from the date of family circumstance deduction registration).
- Taxpayers eligible for a refund but without a tax code must register for a tax code before filing the refund application, removing a previous source of timing confusion.
- Individuals will no longer need to file a change-of-registration-information procedure once the National Population Database is connected and automatically shares data with the tax authority.
- Taxpayers relocating their head office to another province may continue any pending tax procedures at the tax authority of their former location, rather than being required to complete all obligations before relocating, as under the previous rule.
3.2. Tax filing: a new deadline for finalisation dossiers
- Tax finalisation dossier deadline: the last day of the third month from the end of the tax finalisation period (the finalisation period follows the annual accounting period; personal income tax follows the calendar year).
- Per-occurrence tax filing deadline: the 10th day counted from the day following the date the tax obligation arises (rather than from the date it arises itself).
- New exemptions from filing obligations in several cases: foreign contractors registered for monthly filing in a month with no withholding; organisations claiming VAT refunds funded by non-refundable aid or diplomatic privileges; and cases where the tax authority has already sourced the relevant data from national databases and can self-assess and notify tax due without requiring a filing from the taxpayer.
- Individuals with additional tax payable after finalisation of VND 50,000 or less must still file the finalisation dossier (even though the tax itself is waived), so the tax authority has a documented basis for confirming the exemption.
3.3. Tax refunds and exemptions/reductions: significantly shorter processing times
- Pre-refund inspection can now be applied only to the portion of a refund claim flagged as high-risk by the system; the non-risk portion proceeds through normal refund processing — a wholly new approach compared to the previous regime.
- Processing deadline for refund dossiers subject to pre-refund inspection: cut from 40 days to 10 working days from the date the inspection conclusion is issued.
- Similarly, the processing deadline for exemption/reduction dossiers subject to inspection at the taxpayer’s premises is also cut from 40 days to 10 working days.
- New exemption for business households and individual businesses with tax payable of VND 50,000 or less on their filing/finalisation dossier.
3.4. Debt freezing and write-off: more flexible, more decentralised
- New grounds for debt freezing added for taxpayers whose land or mineral extraction rights are restricted due to circumstances beyond their control, as confirmed by the competent state authority; no late-payment interest accrues during the freeze period.
- Write-off of amounts owed for mineral extraction rights, land use fees, land rental, and similar charges is only available once the competent authority has issued a decision to revoke the land or extraction rights in question.
- Debt write-off authority is decentralised to provincial/municipal Tax Department heads, the head of the Large Enterprise Tax Sub-department, the head of the E-Commerce Tax Sub-department, the head of regional Customs Sub-departments, and similar officials — rather than being concentrated at the provincial People’s Committee level as before.
- Processing deadline for write-off dossiers: cut from 60 days to 30 days.
3.5. Exit suspension: an easier path to lifting the measure
This is a provision that matters a great deal to businesses and business-household owners:
- The tax authority will immediately lift an exit suspension once the outstanding tax debt falls below VND 50 million for individuals/business households, or below VND 500 million for enterprises/cooperatives — rather than requiring the debt to be paid in full, as under the old rule.
- Taxpayers no longer operating at their registered address will be placed under exit suspension if, 120 days after tax authority notification, they have neither restored their status nor terminated their tax code.
- The process for lifting exit suspension has been digitised: taxpayers can submit a scanned copy of a payment receipt through the Tax Information Management System if the payment record has not yet been updated in the system, for immediate processing.
3.6. E-commerce tax administration: the Decree’s biggest reform
This is identified as one of the most significant reforms in Decree 252/2026/NĐ-CP (Articles 40 to 46), aimed at clearly assigning responsibility among platform operators, withholding organisations, sellers and the tax authority:
- Operators of e-commerce platforms with both online ordering and payment functions (domestic or foreign) must withhold and remit VAT and corporate income tax on behalf of foreign suppliers for each transaction generating revenue in Vietnam.
- Foreign suppliers must declare the payment-receiving accounts linked to transactions that generate revenue in Vietnam, so the tax authority can cross-check and monitor them.
- Where it cannot be determined whether a transaction involves goods or services, withholding will apply at the highest applicable percentage tax rate to prevent revenue loss.
- A new offset mechanism has been added for withheld and remitted tax on cancelled or returned transactions, protecting sellers’ interests.
- Non-resident individuals doing business on platforms without online ordering/payment functionality must register, file and pay tax electronically themselves through the Tax Information Management System.
3.7. Tax debt enforcement: a digitised process, tighter but with humane thresholds
- Enforcement will not be applied to organisations with tax debt below VND 3 million, or to business households/individuals with debt below VND 1 million (except where they are not operating at their registered address).
- Salary-deduction enforcement is removed for recipients of pensions, disability allowances, or payments guaranteeing a minimum standard of living.
- The process for account fund deduction/freezing enforcement between the tax authority and credit institutions is now fully digitised, requiring the enforced amount to be transferred the same day or, at the latest, the following working day.
- Taxpayers under an invoice-suspension enforcement measure who need to issue an invoice for a specific transaction now pay only 18% of the total invoice payment value (rather than 18% of revenue, as before), and may have account enforcement suspended for up to 10 working days in proportion to the amount paid.
- A new enforcement measure under the Law: petitioning for bankruptcy proceedings against enterprises or cooperatives that have not operated at their registered address for more than three years, or that have been subject to other enforcement measures for three years or more without debt recovery.
4. Circular 89/2026/TT-BTC: detailed guidance and a full set of forms
Circular 89/2026/TT-BTC provides detailed guidance on the specific articles and provisions delegated under Tax Administration Law 108/2025/QH15 and Decree 252/2026/NĐ-CP — covering taxpayer segmentation, tax filing and payment, refunds, exemptions and reductions, debt freezing and write-off, exit suspension, data-sharing connections, and tax debt enforcement — while also issuing the accompanying set of forms and notice templates for tax administration work. This is a document accountants and businesses will need to consult alongside the Law and Decree when carrying out tax procedures under the new framework from 1 July 2026.
5. What should businesses and business households prepare?
Drawing on the changes above, businesses and business households should consider taking the following steps:
- Review tax registration, filing and finalisation deadlines against the new milestones to avoid late payment and the resulting late-payment interest.
- Business households and individual businesses should get ready to transition to e-invoices ahead of the 1 January 2026 effective date.
- Businesses with outstanding tax debt should track the relevant thresholds closely (VND 1 million, 3 million, 50 million, 500 million) to act proactively before enforcement measures or exit suspension are applied, or to have them lifted.
- E-commerce platforms, digital platforms and foreign suppliers should update their withholding, declaration and remittance mechanisms under Articles 40–46 of Decree 252/2026/NĐ-CP immediately to avoid non-compliance.
- Keep track of the forms and notice templates issued alongside Circular 89/2026/TT-BTC to make sure the correct forms are used when dealing with the tax authority.
This article was compiled by TrustlineAX based on the official text of Tax Administration Law No. 108/2025/QH15, Decree No. 252/2026/NĐ-CP, Circular No. 89/2026/TT-BTC, and Official Letter No. 5061/CT-CS dated 22 July 2026 issued by the Tax Department. It is for general information purposes only and does not replace the original legal texts or professional tax advice tailored to a specific case.