Country deep dive
Vietnam's e-invoicing framework was established by Decree 123/2020/ND-CP in December 2020, piloted across six provinces and cities including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from November 2021, and became compulsory nationwide on 1 July 2022, when paper invoices ceased to have legal validity for VAT purposes. Decree 70/2025/ND-CP, effective June 2025, then expanded the mandate to large business households and foreign e-commerce suppliers.
The government issued Decree 123/2020/ND-CP, the primary legal framework establishing mandatory e-invoicing for Vietnam, together with implementation guidance that followed in Circular 78/2021/TT-BTC. This decree superseded 2018's Decree 119/2018/ND-CP, whose original mandate deadline had been postponed, and set the technical and legal foundation -- structured XML invoices, tax-authority verification, and a phased rollout -- for the nationwide mandate that followed in 2022.
The General Department of Taxation (GDT) launched a pilot implementation of Decree 123's e-invoicing framework across six provinces and cities, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, ahead of the nationwide mandate. Businesses in the pilot areas began transitioning off paper invoices and testing both of the mandate's two transmission models -- real-time clearance with a tax-authority code, and same-day reporting without one.
From this date, structured e-invoices became compulsory for all registered businesses, business households, and individual entrepreneurs under the declared tax method across all of Vietnam, covering domestic B2B, B2C retail, B2G, and export sales. Paper invoices ceased to be legally valid for VAT purposes. Two transmission models coexist: real-time clearance with a GDT-issued code obtained before or at the moment of issuance, or same-day reporting without a code, transmitted to the GDT no later than the day the invoice is delivered.
Decree 70/2025/ND-CP amended Decree 123, bringing business households and individual businesses with annual revenue of VND 1 billion (about USD 38,000) or more into scope for POS cash-register e-invoices connected in real time to the GDT, alongside consumer-facing sectors (shopping malls, supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, passenger transport, and personal services) regardless of revenue size. Foreign e-commerce and digital-service suppliers without a permanent Vietnamese establishment can now register to issue Vietnamese VAT invoices directly, and the decree standardized invoice-issuance timing rules across transaction types (goods, services, exports, utilities).
Invoices are authored as structured XML per General Department of Taxation (GDT) technical standards. A digital signature is required on every invoice except those issued from POS cash registers, which are waived the signature requirement but generate a unique QR/tax code instead.
Every invoice is XML regardless of which transmission model applies — the two models differ in when and how the GDT sees the data, not in the invoice's own format.
The foreign-supplier registration route is new with Decree 70/2025 — before it, a non-resident digital supplier had no direct path to issuing a compliant Vietnamese VAT invoice at all.
Ten years is a longer retention duty than most countries in this tracker require — plan archive infrastructure accordingly, whether kept in-house or with a certified provider (offshore storage is permitted under data-security conditions).
The mandate covers domestic B2B, B2C retail, B2G, and export sales for all registered businesses since July 2022, with business households and individual businesses above a VND 1 billion annual-revenue threshold brought into scope for POS e-invoicing since June 2025 — alongside consumer-facing sectors (retail, hospitality, transport, personal services) regardless of revenue. Imports are not subject to e-invoice issuance by the importer.
The consumer-facing-sector rule is a real exception to Vietnam's otherwise revenue-based threshold — a small restaurant or hair salon is in scope even well under VND 1 billion in annual revenue.
Vietnam's scope is genuinely broad — domestic and cross-border sales, retail and government contracts alike — with imports as the one explicit carve-out, since the duty sits with the seller, not the buyer.
When an invoice is issued under the coded model, it follows this sequence:
Nothing reaches the buyer until the GDT has issued the code — a genuine clearance model, the same shape as Jordan and Israel elsewhere in this tracker.
When an invoice is issued under the uncoded model, it instead follows this sequence:
This is the flow most similar to South Korea's post-issuance model elsewhere in this tracker — the invoice is valid on delivery, and reporting to the tax authority is a parallel duty due no later than the same day, not a precondition for validity.
Getting compliant means integrating an e-invoicing solution, working out which of the two transmission models applies to your invoices, and — for business households and consumer-facing sectors — checking whether the POS e-invoicing threshold applies to you.
Every registered business needs a system routing invoices to the GDT — direct API, in-house software, or a certified service provider — since paper invoices have had no legal validity since July 2022.
Work out whether your invoices need a GDT-issued code before delivery (real-time clearance) or same-day reporting without one, and configure your systems for the correct flow.
If your annual revenue meets or exceeds VND 1 billion, register a POS cash register connected to the GDT — and check the consumer-facing-sector rule too, which applies regardless of revenue.
Since June 2025, foreign e-commerce and digital-service suppliers without a Vietnamese establishment can register to issue Vietnamese VAT invoices directly rather than relying on a local intermediary.
Goods: at transfer of ownership or usage rights. Services: on completion. Exports: by the next working day after customs clearance. Utilities: by the 7th day of the following month.
Retention runs longer here than in most countries this tracker covers — keep the signed XML itself, not just a PDF rendering, whether stored in-house or with a certified provider.
Vietnam's penalty framework, restructured under Decree 310/2025/ND-CP from 16 January 2026, scales fines by the count of violating invoices found within an inspection period rather than a flat or percentage figure — a single late invoice draws a modest fine, but the same violation repeated across 100 or more invoices draws a fine tens of times larger.
Other countries in the same region, ordered by their next dated milestone. Each links to a full briefing.