Being considered as an attractive environment for investing and a business opportunity with lots of advantages over neighboring countries, Vietnam is attracting not only the investors who go into business but also a large number of foreign employees with an intention of living, studying and working in here. Foreign employees working in Vietnam, come from 110 countries and territories, which are mostly from China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan,… Foreign employees working in Vietnam gather predominantly in big cities or provinces that have large projects with foreign contractors, such as: Ha Noi, Bac Giang, Long An, Ho Chi Minh city,…
- The provision about working visa, work permit, temporary residence card, permanent residence card
There are 4 main types of documents that the foreign employees need to have: visa, work permit, temporary residence card, permanent residence card.
a. Working visa
The Visa for foreigner working in Vietnam which is issued by the Vietnamese Government with labor purpose, is applied to person who fulfill the qualification of the work permit or the working conditions prescribed in the Labor code.
Duration: maximum of 2 years.
a. Work permit
Work permit is the document that allow the foreigner to work legally in Vietnam. Work permit has written down clearly the information of the employee, including full name, passport number, date of birth, nationality; name and address of the workplace. In addition, work permit is an important application for foreigner to ask for a two-year temporary residence card in Vietnam.
There are 11 groups of employees who are issued work permit:
- Performing employment contracts.
- Performing intra-company transfer program.
- Performing contracts or agreements on business, trade, finance, banking, insurance, science and technology, culture, sports, education, vocational training and health.
- Providing services under contracts.
- Offering services.
- Working for foreign non-governmental organizations or international organizations in Vietnam that have been issued with operating licenses in accordance with the Vietnam law.
- Working as volunteers.
- Taking charge of establishing the commercial presence.
- Working as managers, executives, experts, technical workers.
- Performing packages or projects in Vietnam.
- Accompanying members of foreign representative bodies in Vietnam who are authorized to work in Vietnam under an international treaty to which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a signatory as their relatives.
(Clause 1, Article 2 of Decree No. 152/2020/ND- CP of the Government dated December 30, 2020 Regulations on foreign workers working in Vietnam and recruiting and managing Vietnamese employees working in Vietnam), for foreign organizations and individuals in Vietnam)
The validity period of a work permit is not exceeding 2 years, in case of renewal, it can only be renewed for 1 time with the maximum duration of 2 years after meeting the conditions of renewal.
c) The temporary residence card
Temporary residence card means a document issued by the immigration management agency or a competent agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to a foreigner who is permitted to reside in Vietnam for a certain period of time. This card has the same validity as a visa.
Conditions eligible for grant of temporary residence cards:
- Passport of the foreigner must be valid for over 13 months. The validity of the temporary residence cards will be issued within a shorter time than the passport for 30 days, therefore, if the validity of the passport is only 13 months left, the temporary residence card only valid for maximum of 12 months. In this case, if the employee has the intention of renewal, he/she should carry out the process of changing passport before having temporary residence card.
- Foreigners must proceed with the temporary residence registration at the commune or ward police in accordance with the law.
The validity of temporary residence card is equal to the limit duration of visa. To be specific, the validity of temporary residence card will be prescribed below:
| No | Subject | Signal | Duration |
| 1 | Foreigners are the member of diplomatic missions, consular offices and representative offices of international organizations affiliated to the United Nations, representative offices of intergovernmental organizations and their spouses, under-18 children and housekeepers who live with them during their terms of office. | NG3 | Up to 5 years |
| 2 | Foreigners who come to work with departments, agencies and units under the Communist Party of Vietnam’s Central Committee; the National Assembly, the Government, the Central Committee of Vietnam Fatherland Front, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuracy, the State Audit of Vietnam, ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government-attached agencies, People’s Councils and People’s Committees of provinces and centrally run cities. | LV1 | Up to 5 years |
| 3 | Foreigners who come to work with socio-political organizations, social organizations and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry | LV2 | Up to 5 years |
| 4 | Foreign lawyers working in Vietnam | LS | Up to 5 years |
| 5 | Foreign investors in Vietnam and representatives of foreign organizations investing in Vietnam who contribute the capital of minimum 100 billion VND or investing in business lines benefitting from investment incentives, in administrative divisions benefitting from investment incentives decided by the Government | DT1 | Up to 10 years |
| 6 | Foreign investors in Vietnam and representatives of foreign organizations investing in Vietnam who contribute of 50 billion VND to less than 100 billion VND or investing in business lines benefitting from investment incentives treatment decided by the Government | DT2 | Up to 5 years |
| 7 | Foreign investors in Vietnam and representatives of foreign organizations investing in Vietnam who contribute the capital of 3 billion VND to less than 50 billion VND | DT3 | Up to 3 years |
| 8 | The foreigners are heads of representative offices or projects of international organizations and foreign non-governmental organizations in Vietnam | NN1 | Up to 3 years |
| 9 | Foreigners are heads of representative offices or branches of foreign investors, representative offices of other foreign economic, cultural, professional organizations in Vietnam | NN2 | Up to 3 years |
| 10 | Foreigners who come to practice as probationers or study in Vietnam | DH | Up to 5 years |
| 11 | Permanent correspondents and journalists in
Vietnam |
PV1 | Up to 2 years |
| 12 | Foreigners working in Vietnam and certified of eligibility for work permit exemption, unless otherwise specified by the international agreements to which Vietnam is a signatory | L01 | Up to 2 years |
| 13 | Foreigners working in Vietnam that are required to have work permit | LB2 | Up to 2 years |
| 14 | Foreigners who are parents, spouses, under-18 children of foreigners holding LV1, LV2, LS, DT1, DT2, DT3, NN1, NN2, DH, PV1, LD1, LD2 symbols or foreigners who are parents, spouses or children of Vietnamese citizens | Up to 3 years |
Notes regarding the validity of temporary residence card:
- The validity mentioned above is the maximum duration of each type of temporary residence card. However, the duration of the temporary residence card also depends on other factors relating to the types of visas, the documents that the foreigner is issued with, and the validity of the passport. The issued temporary residence card is valid for at least 30 days shorter than the remaining validity of passport.
- Foreigners whose temporary residence cards have expired will be considered to renew their cards.
- Ute permanent residence card
d) The permanent residence card
Permanent residence card means a document issued by an immigration management agency to a foreigner who is permitted to reside indefinitely in Vietnam. This card has the same validity as a visa.
As the permanent residence card does not stipulate the limited term, the conditions for granting it are prescribed strictly and procedurally. Therefore, the process will be more complicated and time-wasted than other types of documents.
– There are 4 cases of taking permanent residence card into consideration:
- Foreigners who have made meritorious services and contributions to the national construction and defense of Vietnam and awarded medals or state honorary titles by the Vietnamese Government.
- Foreigners who are scientists or exerts temporarily residing in Vietnam.
- Foreigners guaranteed by their parents, spouses or children who are Vietnamese citizen permanently residing in Vietnam.
- Stateless persons who have been temporarily residing Vietnam since 2000 or earlier.
– There are 2 conditions for permanent residence:
- Having lawful places of habitation and stable incomes to ensure their livelihood in Vietnam.
- Foreigners are scientists or experts temporarily residing in Vietnam that must be requested by ministers, heads of ministerial level agencies or heads of government attached agencies that perform the state management in their professional fields.
Foreigners guaranteed by their parents, spouses or children who are Vietnamese citizen permanently residing in Vietnam that must have been temporarily residing in Vietnam for at least 3 consecutive years.
– Common difficulties:
Firstly, the duration to get permission for the certificate might be quite long.
For instance, the total time to accomplish the document and also the work permit according to the law ranges from 25 – 30 days. However, in fact, the duration to be carried out might be lengthened (by many reasons) to 45 – 60 days.
Secondly, to apply for those permissions listed above, many different documents have to be prepared that include a large amount of writing to be paid and waited for in order to be issued.
Thirdly, for documents that have papers that require consular legalization, it will take a lot of time as the procedure for consular legalization is not common.
Fourthly, the validity of permission is not long. Taking the valid term of work permit as an example, not exceed 2 years has turned out to be an obstacle in signing contracts between enterprises and foreign employees.
– Notes for entering labor contract:
Firstly, the foreign employees should pay attention to the term of the labor contract and several types of contracts. According to the stipulation of Labor Code 2019, the term of employment contract for foreigner working in Vietnam does not exceed the validity of work permit, specifically 2 years.
Secondly, foreign employees should notice about the signing and negotiation of the clauses relating to the rights and duties of each party, in order to guarantee the right and legal benefit of them while executing.
Thirdly, foreign employee should notice about the clauses concerning the dispute settlement, the choices of dispute settlement body and compensation.
- Personal income tax for foreign employees
Personal income tax (Personal income tax) is an amount that the earners must draw a part of their salary, or other sources of revenue, into the state budget after tax deduction. Like other Vietnamese citizens, when foreign employees join the labor market and earn taxable incomes, they have to perform the tax obligations in Vietnam.
The calculation of personal income tax for foreigners is determined by certain types of people as an individual resident or a non-resident individual. In particular, for each type of people, there will be a different tax calculation method.