Vietnam lets individuals invest abroad but names no route for a home

Vietnam rebuilt its outward investment rules in 2026, and an individual of Vietnamese nationality may use them in their own name: the Investment Law took effect on 1 March, its implementing decree on 3 April and the State Bank’s foreign-exchange circular on 31 July.

The texts regulate business investment. None of those read for this article names the route for buying a home abroad to live in, or for paying into a citizenship- or residence-by-investment programme.

Who may invest abroad in their own name

The Investment Law 143/2025/QH15 counts any individual of Vietnamese nationality as a domestic investor. It defines outward investment as moving investment capital from Vietnam abroad, and using the profits from it, to carry on business investment there.

Decree 103/2026/NĐ-CP, which replaced the outward chapter of Decree 31/2021, admits a Vietnamese national as an outward investor except the people whom Article 17(2) of the Law on Enterprises bars from founding and managing companies. For individuals, they are:

• officials, civil servants and public employees, save for a carve-out under science, technology, innovation and digital-transformation law;
• officers, professional personnel, workers and public employees of the army and police, other than those appointed as authorised representatives of state capital or to manage a state enterprise;
• leaders and managers of wholly state-owned enterprises, other than authorised representatives of state capital elsewhere;
• minors, people whose civil capacity is limited or lost, and people with difficulty in cognition or controlling their behaviour;
• people being prosecuted, in custody, in prison or in compulsory rehabilitation or education, people barred by a court from certain posts or work, and cases under the Bankruptcy and Anti-Corruption Laws.

For an individual, a registration document replaces the investment decision a company would adopt, and the personal identification number serves as proof of legal status.

The forms in Circular 38/2026/TT-BTC have every investor set out the source of the capital, such as own funds or loans, and commit that it is lawful; an individual also commits not to belong to the barred groups.

Buying foreign securities or fund units is one of the Law’s forms of outward investment, but the Decree does not cover it and the Law leaves it to separate Government rules, which were not located.

Answering a Vietnamese national who had lived abroad for years and would use money already held there, the Ministry of Finance said in November 2025, under the 2020 law but on a definition the new Law repeats word for word, that the certificate duty arises only when capital is transferred from Vietnam.

The answer did not address how the money came to be abroad, or the foreign-exchange rules on accounts held there.

Banned sectors, and two closed to individuals

Investment abroad is banned in lines the Law bans at home or under treaties, in lines whose technology or products may not be exported, and in lines the host country bans. Five sectors are conditional and need a certificate whatever the project’s size: banking, insurance, securities, press and broadcasting, and real-estate business.

Banking, insurance and securities require the conditions of the sector law and written approval; press and broadcasting require an organisation licensed for them in Vietnam; real-estate business requires the investor to be an enterprise established under the Law on Enterprises.

An individual therefore cannot register real-estate business or press investment abroad in their own name. Whether an individual could meet the banking, insurance or securities conditions the texts do not say.

The 7 billion dong line and the account

The Ministry of Finance issues the outward investment registration certificate where the capital reaches VND 7 billion or the sector is conditional, within 15 working days of a valid file. From VND 1,600 billion the Prime Minister must approve first.

No National Assembly approval tier was found in the new Law. This indicates that the National Assembly step the 2020 law imposed from VND 20,000 billion is gone.

Below VND 7 billion, outside the conditional sectors, the investor declares the project on the National Investment Information System, receives an automatic file code and registers the foreign-exchange transaction instead. Either file carries a tax authority’s confirmation, dated within three months, that the investor’s taxes are paid.

The Decree writes documentary proof of financial capacity into the file for projects that go to the Prime Minister. The ordinary certificate file, by implication, contains none.

Below VND 7 billion, the State Bank’s form takes the individual’s identification number and the cash contribution, split into own and borrowed capital. In that no-certificate file the Circular asks for a bank-balance confirmation only from certain large enterprises, not from individuals.

For a small individual project, therefore, that declaration, backed by the investor’s answerability for the money’s lawfulness and the bank’s checks on each customer’s source of capital, is how funds are evidenced.

Under Circular 34/2026/TT-NHNN, in force since 31 July 2026, the investor then opens an investment capital account at one licensed bank, through which every payment out and every receipt back must pass. For an individual, registration is confirmed by the State Bank regional office where the individual has permanent residence: in seven working days for a project with a certificate, 30 without.

No capital may be sent in money before that confirmation, apart from project-formation costs capped at 5% of the capital and USD 300,000. An earlier article sets out how that evidence chain works.

Banks may lend. Under Circular 32/2026/TT-NHNN, in force since 18 August 2026, an eligible individual aged 18 or over may borrow once the certificate or confirmation is in hand, up to 70% of their outward capital in the project across all lenders.

Practice lagged the rules. In June 2026 a filer for two individuals with a HKD 10,000 Hong Kong project told the Government’s policy portal that each bank approached demanded a certificate the Decree does not require at that size; the State Bank replied that a new circular was coming. Whether banks now open accounts on the file code alone was not established.

Deadlines once the money has left

• Profits: home within 12 months of distribution, unless kept for reinvestment, with up to 12 more months on prior written notice to the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank.
• Exit: liquidation proceeds home within 12 months of the host-country tax finalisation; within 60 days of completing liquidation and bringing home any proceeds, the investor has the certificate terminated or, for a project without one, gives written notice that it has ended.
• Reports: notice within 60 days of host-country approval; six-monthly reports before the 20th of the following month and annual reports before 15 February; changes not needing an amended certificate updated online within a month.
• Lapse: a project terminates if it is not implemented 24 months after the certificate or confirmation.

Fines, and which base they use

Two decrees set the fines, and they count differently. Decree 122/2021/NĐ-CP on investment sanctions, amended by Decree 288/2026 only on business and cooperative registration, states amounts for organisations and halves them for individuals.

Decree 122’s official copies exist only as scanned pages, from which the figures here were read. Decree 340/2025/NĐ-CP on money and banking, in force since 9 February 2026, states amounts for individuals.

Decree 340 lists an unlawful investment transfer and an unlawful currency transfer separately, and only the second carries confiscation. No text was found saying which applies to investment money sent without registration. Undeclared cash carried across the border is fined under the customs rules instead.

A project below VND 7 billion has no certificate. This means Decree 122’s fine for investing without one does not reach it: a failure to register or transfer correctly falls under Decree 340, while reporting, updating and repatriation failures remain under Decree 122. A replacement for Decree 122 has so far appeared only as a June 2026 draft.

A home or a programme payment has no named route

The outward-investment definitions turn on business investment, and a home bought to live in is not business investment. This indicates that such a purchase falls outside them, although no official text says so in terms. Buying property abroad as a business is outward investment in a conditional sector reserved to enterprises.

When that condition appeared in a 2020 draft of the predecessor decree, the then Ministry of Planning and Investment was reported on the Government portal as saying that requiring a legal entity would avoid individuals investing in real estate in order to settle abroad without an investment or business aim. Decree 103 re-enacts the condition without restating a reason.

In January 2026 the Ministry of Finance’s draft of Decree 103, as reported on the same portal, proposed a certificate from VND 20 billion; the report also noted an opinion that the line should be lower, to stop investors using outward investment to buy homes, settle or obtain visas. The final Decree chose VND 7 billion, the lower of two options. No statement of why was found.

Payments to obtain citizenship or residence sit in a separate gap. Circular 20/2022/TT-NHNN, the State Bank’s rule on one-way transfers, which Circular 34/2026 did not repeal, places outside its scope transfers by resident citizens made “to be permitted to hold citizenship or to settle abroad”, which it calls outward investment transfers, without saying which rule then applies.

The Circular’s basis for transferring settlement costs also excludes the investment value such programmes require. The Investment Law’s outward investment, by contrast, is business investment, and no text reconciling the two was found.

One general basis remains. The Foreign Exchange Ordinance lets residents transfer foreign currency abroad for lawful needs, and Decree 70/2014/NĐ-CP lists one-way transfers for “other lawful needs”, leaving each bank to judge the real and reasonable need of each transfer.

This residual clause is therefore the only general basis found for money that is neither outward investment nor settlement, such as a personal home. It names no such purpose, and no text confirms a bank will accept it.

People settling abroad have their own one-way route, sized on assets formed in Vietnam, which is covered in a separate article.

What this article has not established

No official text or answer was found on a Vietnamese individual buying a home abroad for personal use, and no rule was found routing a citizenship or residence contribution, whether a donation, qualifying property, bonds or a fund subscription. The conclusions drawn above on these points are inferences from the texts, not findings.

The Government rules for individuals buying foreign securities or fund units were not located, and it was not established how banks have handled small individual projects since 31 July 2026.

The barred groups come from the Law on Enterprises as consolidated to mid-2025; later amendments were not checked. Criminal liability was not researched.