Work Permit Exemption in Vietnam: Who Qualifies and What to File

Updated 2026-09-25

Not every foreign national working in Vietnam needs a work permit. Article 154 of the Labour Code (45/2019/QH14, in force 1 January 2021) and Article 7 of Decree 219/2025/NĐ-CP (in force 7 August 2025) list the exemption cases. Being exempt rarely means doing nothing: depending on the case, the employer either sends the authority a short notice at least 3 working days before work starts, or applies for a formal work-permit exemption certificate 60 to 10 days before. This guide sets out every case, which track it falls on, and what the file contains — each point with its article, so you can check it against the decree yourself.

Three tracks: notice, exemption certificate, or a full work permit

Every foreign national working in Vietnam falls on one of three tracks. Knowing which one before anyone books a flight is the whole game:

• Notice only — for the cases listed in Article 9(4) of Decree 219/2025 the employer does not apply for anything; it notifies the authority at least 3 working days before the start date. The notice states the worker's full name, date of birth, nationality, passport number, the employer's name, the place of work and the working period.
• Exemption certificate — every other exempt case needs a written certificate that the person is not subject to a work permit (giấy xác nhận không thuộc diện cấp giấy phép lao động, Form 02 of the decree), applied for 60 to 10 days before work starts (Article 9(1)–(3)).
• Work permit — anyone not covered by Labour Code Art. 154 or Decree 219/2025 Art. 7 needs a full work permit. That includes company owners and board members whose capital contribution is below VND 3 billion, who are expressly listed as work-permit cases in Article 2(1)(l).

Cases that only need a notice (Decree 219/2025, Art. 9(4))

These are the exempt cases that do not go through the certificate procedure at all — the employer's notice to the provincial authority is the only filing:

• Owner or capital-contributing member of a limited liability company with a contribution of VND 3 billion or more (Art. 7(2))
• Chairman or member of the Board of Directors of a joint-stock company with a contribution of VND 3 billion or more (Art. 7(3))
• Managers, executive directors, experts and technical workers whose total working time in Vietnam is under 90 days in a calendar year, counted from 1 January to 31 December (Art. 7(13)(a))
• The person responsible for establishing a commercial presence in Vietnam (Art. 7(10))
• Entering Vietnam for under 3 months to offer services for sale (Labour Code Art. 154(4))
• Entering Vietnam for under 3 months to deal with a complex technical or technological incident affecting production or business that Vietnamese experts and foreign experts already in Vietnam cannot resolve (Labour Code Art. 154(5))
• Foreign lawyers holding a licence to practise law in Vietnam (Labour Code Art. 154(6))
• Foreigners married to a Vietnamese citizen and living in Vietnam (Labour Code Art. 154(8))
• Foreign journalists accredited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Art. 7(5)), and family members of foreign diplomatic mission staff permitted to work under a treaty (Art. 7(8))

Cases that need an exemption certificate

All remaining exempt cases go through the certificate procedure. The ones businesses meet most often:

• Intra-corporate transferees: managers, executive directors, experts or technical workers sent temporarily by a foreign enterprise to its commercial presence in Vietnam, within the 11 service sectors of Vietnam's WTO services schedule, who were employed by that enterprise for at least 12 consecutive months beforehand (Art. 7(13)(b)). A commercial presence here means a foreign-invested company, a branch or representative office of a foreign trader, or a foreign investor's operating office under a business cooperation contract.
• Students and trainees studying at schools in Vietnam or abroad who have an internship agreement or an invitation letter from an employer in Vietnam; trainees on Vietnamese sea-going ships (Art. 7(7))
• Heads of a representative office or project of an international organisation or foreign NGO in Vietnam, or the person chiefly responsible for its activities (Labour Code Art. 154(3))
• People confirmed by a ministry, ministerial-level agency or provincial People's Committee to work in finance, science, technology, innovation, national digital transformation or other priority socio-economic fields (Art. 7(15)); and people confirmed by the Ministry of Education and Training for international-programme teaching or research, or for management roles in schools set up at the request of a foreign mission (Art. 7(14))
• Consultants and staff on ODA-funded programmes and projects under a treaty (Art. 7(4)); unpaid volunteers under a treaty (Art. 7(11)); people implementing an international agreement signed by a central or provincial body (Art. 7(12)); official-passport holders working for state bodies (Art. 7(9)); cases under a treaty Vietnam is party to (Labour Code Art. 154(7)); and teachers or managers sent to certain treaty-based or mission-sponsored schools (Art. 7(6))

The VND 3 billion line, and the '30 days, 3 times a year' rule that no longer exists

For company owners, the exemption turns on one number: a capital contribution of VND 3 billion or more (Art. 7(2)–(3)). Below that, Article 2(1)(l) lists the same owners and board members as people who need a work permit. If a founder's exemption matters to you, plan the charter capital and each member's contribution with that threshold in mind at incorporation — raising capital later means a change of registration first.

Many guides still describe a general exemption for anyone working 'under 30 days at a time and no more than 3 times a year'. That rule is not in Article 7 of Decree 219/2025. The short-stay exemption that exists today is the under-90-days-per-calendar-year rule, and it covers only managers, executive directors, experts and technical workers (Art. 7(13)(a)). Anyone else on a short assignment needs to fit another case — for example service sales or technical troubleshooting under 3 months (Labour Code Art. 154(4)–(5)) — or get a work permit.

Exemption certificate: the documents (Art. 8)

The employer files one set of documents:

• Application on Form 01 of the decree's appendix
• Health certificate from a qualified medical facility — unless the result is already shared on the national health database. A health certificate issued abroad is accepted only where Vietnam and that country have a mutual-recognition treaty or agreement, and only within 12 months of issue.
• Two colour photos, 4 × 6 cm, white background, facing forward, head uncovered, no glasses
• Valid passport
• Proof of the exemption case: the authority's document (Labour Code Art. 154(3), Art. 7(9), (14), (15)); or the foreign employer's assignment letter with the agreement or treaty (Art. 154(7), Art. 7(4), (6), (7), (11), (12)); or, for intra-corporate transferees, proof of manager/executive/expert/technical status under Article 19 plus the foreign employer's letter assigning the person to the commercial presence and confirming at least 12 consecutive months of prior employment (Art. 7(13)(b))

Where, when and how long

Filing window: no earlier than 60 days and no later than 10 days before the intended start date (Art. 9(1)). The employer files at the Public Administration Service Centre of the province or city where the person will work — for a job in Da Nang, Da Nang's centre — in person, by public postal service, through a service provider or an authorised representative; or online on the National Public Service Portal (Art. 6(1)).

Authority: the provincial People's Committee decides (Art. 4(1)) and may delegate the work to a specialised agency (Art. 4(2)); since the mid-2025 restructuring that is generally the Department of Home Affairs (Sở Nội vụ), no longer the former labour department. If one employer uses the person in several provinces, the province of the head office is competent (Art. 4(1)), and the employer must notify each other province at least 3 days before work there starts (Art. 9(5)).

Processing time: 5 working days from a complete file; a refusal must be given in writing with reasons within 3 working days (Art. 9(3)). The clock runs from a complete file — a missing translation or an unaccepted health certificate restarts it, so the 10-day minimum window leaves little room for correction.

Validity, replacement and extension

An exemption certificate is not open-ended:

• Validity follows the underlying document — the expected labour contract, the assignment letter, the service contract or the agreement — and is capped at 2 years (Art. 10, Art. 21(1)); for the ministry- or province-confirmed cases in Art. 7(14)–(15) it is the period that authority confirms, also capped at 2 years (Art. 21(2)).
• Extension: file at least 10 and no more than 45 days before expiry; decided within 5 working days; allowed once, for up to 2 years (Art. 15–17).
• Re-issue: if the certificate is lost or damaged, or the name, nationality, passport number, place of work or employer name (with the same identification number) changes; decided within 3 working days, valid only for the remaining term (Art. 11–14).
• Revocation: if the person works outside what the certificate states, the foreign employer ends the assignment, the employer ceases to operate, the rules are breached, or the person is criminally prosecuted. In the first three situations the employer must return the certificate to the issuing authority within 15 days, with a report (Art. 32–33).

Foreign documents: apostille or legalisation, then translation

Foreign-issued documents in the file must be consularly legalised unless a treaty, reciprocity or the law exempts them, and must then be translated into Vietnamese with a certified translation (Art. 5). Since 11 September 2026 the authentication step is usually a single apostille from the issuing country — Vietnam joined the Hague Apostille Convention and Decree 293/2026/NĐ-CP of 23 July 2026 gives an apostilled document the same standing as a consular-legalised one. Consular legalisation is still required for documents from Germany, Austria and Czechia, from Thailand until 28 February 2027, and from any country outside the Convention.

Certificates issued under the old Decree 152/2020 (as amended by Decree 70/2023) stay valid until they expire; re-issue and extension then follow Decree 219/2025 (Art. 34(1)).

What we do

We check which case and which track genuinely applies — notice, exemption certificate or full work permit — before any overseas document is ordered, prepare the notice or the certificate file, lodge it in the filing window and track it to the result. Costs depend mainly on how many foreign documents need apostille or legalisation and translation; we give you a fixed quote up front.