Vietnam taxes residents’ foreign income whether or not it comes home

A Vietnamese tax resident owes personal income tax on income arising outside Vietnam as well as inside it, regardless of where it is paid or received, under the personal income tax law in force since 1 July 2026 and its implementing decree.

The tax attaches to each dividend, interest payment or sale, and to a year’s rent, with its own rate and moment. Read with the law’s list of taxable income, this indicates that moving one’s own money into Vietnam is not itself a taxable event.

The current text is Law 109/2025/QH15 as amended by Law 09/2026/QH16, in the consolidated version 112/VBHN-VPQH of 20 May 2026. This article covers a resident individual only; how Vietnamese tax residence is decided is explained in a separate article.

The texts tax the income; none of those read taxes the transfer

Article 2 of the law makes a resident a taxpayer on taxable income arising inside and outside Vietnam. Decree 253/2026/NĐ-CP, in force since the same day, adds in Article 6 that for a resident this holds “regardless of where the income is paid or received” (unofficial translation).

Each kind of income has its own taxable moment. A sale of capital is taxed when the transaction is completed, and a sale of real estate when the contract takes effect or the right is registered.

Dividends and interest are taxed when the payer pays or the taxpayer receives them. Where an individual receives income from capital invested abroad, in any form, Article 52 of the decree sets the moment as the time the individual receives it.

This means the decree keys on receipt by the individual, not on remittance into Vietnam; it does not say the income must be received in Vietnam.

Article 3 of the law lists taxable income by category, and none of the categories it lists is a transfer of a person’s own money into Vietnam. This indicates that income already declared, or capital that was the person’s own, does not become taxable by crossing the border, although no text read for this article says so in terms.

The exemption for “income from remittances” is narrower than its name. Article 25 of the decree confines it to money sent from abroad by relatives who are Vietnamese settled abroad, or Vietnamese working, on assignment or studying abroad, and by foreign-national relatives on State Bank of Vietnam conditions, proved by documents showing the source of the money and any paying organisation’s voucher.

A resident moving his or her own money home is therefore not what the exemption describes. Foreign bank accounts and transfers home will be covered in a forthcoming article; the evidence chain for cross-border capital transfers is set out in an earlier one.

Rates by type of income

No text read for this article says whether the securities rate covers shares listed abroad.

Rent is business income, taxed at 5% on annual revenue above a tax-free level that Law 09/2026/QH16 left to the Government, from 1 January 2026. Decree 141/2026/NĐ-CP raised that level from VND 500 million to VND 1 billion in Decree 68/2026/NĐ-CP, also from 1 January 2026; a lessor with several properties deducts it once across all leases.

Resolution 43/2026/QH16, in force since 24 August 2026, cuts by 30% the personal income tax payable for 2026 and 2027 on residents’ business income where annual revenue is not above VND 10 billion, and leaves the details to the Government. The resolution exists officially only as a signed scan, and it was read from the page images.

No detailing text was found up to 9 October 2026. Because rent is taxed under the business-income article, the cut appears to reach rental income; no text says so in terms.

Dividends and loan interest are taxed at 5% of each amount received. The law exempts interest on deposits “at credit institutions”, but Article 24 of the decree confines that exemption to institutions established and operating under Vietnam’s Law on Credit Institutions.

This means interest on a deposit with a bank abroad falls outside the exemption as worded. The decree’s list of capital-investment income does not name it, so its treatment at 5% is likewise inferred rather than stated.

A sale of capital is taxed at 20% of the price minus the purchase price and reasonable costs, or at 2% of the price where those cannot be established; costs incurred abroad need the original vouchers certified by a notary or independent auditor there and translated into Vietnamese.

Securities are taxed at 0.1% of the sale price; Circular 89/2026/TT-BTC gives a filing route for securities of an issuer abroad but does not settle which rate applies to them.

A sale of real estate is taxed at 2% of the contract price, and the rate provision does not refer to where the property is. This indicates that the rate is not limited to property in Vietnam.

The exemption for a person’s only home applies, in the law’s words, to a single home “in Vietnam”. This indicates that the sale of a home abroad does not fit it.

The filing deadlines found for property sales are tied to registering the change under Vietnamese land law. No rule was found for a sale abroad.

Foreign-currency income is converted into dong at the buying rate of the commercial bank where the individual holds a transaction account, when the income arises; without an account in Vietnam, at the State Bank’s central or cross rate at that time.

Declaring income paid from abroad

Where a foreign organisation not registered for tax in Vietnam pays the income, or a payer has not withheld the tax, the individual must declare and pay it (Decree 253, Article 67). The tax period is each occurrence for investment income and for sales of capital, securities and real estate, and the calendar year for rent.

A per-occurrence return, other than for a real-estate sale, is due no later than the tenth day counted from the day after the tax obligation arises, under Article 10 of Decree 252/2026/NĐ-CP, and self-assessed tax is due by the same day under the Tax Administration Law 108/2025/QH15.

Circular 89 sets the routes for investment income and sales; Decree 68 and Circular 18/2026/TT-BTC set the rental route:

• dividends and interest paid by a foreign organisation not registered for tax in Vietnam: the tax office managing the place where the individual resides, on form 04/NNG-TNCN;
• a sale of capital in an organisation abroad, or of securities of an issuer abroad: the same office, on form 04/CNV-TNCN; for a sale of capital, with copies of the sale contract, the records of the capital’s value and the cost vouchers;
• rent: form 01/BĐS, filed with the tax office where the property is located, either twice a year (by 31 July of the tax year and by 31 January of the following year) or once (by 31 January of the following year).

The rental return goes to the tax office where the property is located. This indicates that the rental rules assume a property in Vietnam; no rule was found for a property abroad.

Circular 89’s official copy is a scan, and every Circular 89 provision cited in this article was read from its page images. Exempt remittances need no return (Decree 252, Article 11).

A filed return may be supplemented within five years of its deadline in the cases the Tax Administration Law lists, the first being before an inspection or audit is announced.

Credit for foreign tax: the only route found is a treaty

Article 6 of Decree 253 allows personal income tax paid abroad to be deducted from the tax payable in Vietnam for countries with which Vietnam has signed a double taxation agreement, “in accordance with the Agreement”. In the texts read for this article, no credit is provided for tax paid in a country without such an agreement; that is an absence, not an express exclusion.

Under Article 34 of Circular 89, the file for a direct credit comprises:

• form 02/HTQT;
• a copy of the foreign tax return, certified by the taxpayer;
• a copy of the foreign tax-payment voucher, certified by the taxpayer;
• a copy of the foreign tax authority’s confirmation of the tax paid.

It goes in with the annual finalisation return or, for income not subject to finalisation, with the tax return. Foreign-language documents must be translated into Vietnamese, and the taxpayer signs and seals the translation and answers for its content.

Article 97 makes consular legalisation of documents issued by foreign authorities mandatory only in the cases in Articles 44, 56 and 76 to 80; Article 34, the credit file, is not on that list. Whether the credit is capped at the Vietnamese tax on the same income depends on the treaty concerned, and the treaties were not read for this article.

Penalties, interest and how far back

The Tax Administration Law sets the scale, and the fines for under-declaring and for evasion are the same for individuals and organisations:

• under-declaring: a fine of 20% of the tax under-declared;
• evasion: 1 to 3 times the tax evaded; evasion includes not filing a tax registration or a return, or filing a return more than 90 days late, leading to a tax shortfall;
• late payment: interest of 0.03% a day on the tax paid late.

Under Decree 125/2020/NĐ-CP (2024 consolidated text), which stays in force until replaced, the evasion fine is 1.5 times the tax where there is no aggravating or mitigating circumstance.

The limitation period for fines is five years for evasion short of criminal liability and for under-declaration. Once it has passed, no fine can be imposed, but the tax and late-payment interest remain payable for 10 years back from the date the violation is discovered, and for a taxpayer who never registered, for the whole period.

Under Decree 310/2025/NĐ-CP, in force since 16 January 2026, not filing a registration or a return is a continuing violation, whose limitation runs from the day an official discovers it.

What the tax office can learn from abroad

The US Treasury lists Vietnam’s agreement implementing the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) as a Model 1 agreement, “In Force (7-7-2016)”. Under the agreement, Vietnam obtains information on all US reportable accounts and exchanges it with the United States every year.

No matching US obligation to report Vietnamese residents’ US accounts to Vietnam was found in the text. What FATCA means for US permanent residents is covered in a separate article.

Vietnam’s own law points wider. The Tax Administration Law tasks the tax authority with collecting information to the standard of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes.

Decree 252 lists automatic exchange of the “standard for reporting financial account information of persons not tax-resident in Vietnam” under treaties to which Vietnam is party, and provides that taxpayers and the agencies, organisations and individuals concerned may not refuse a lawful request from the tax authority for exchange information on the ground of bank secrecy, unless a treaty provides otherwise.

This indicates that the standard governs what Vietnam reports on non-residents. The decree does not state that Vietnam receives data on its own residents’ accounts abroad, or from when.

What this article has not established

Because the site of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) refused automated access, three points could not be checked: whether Vietnam has committed to the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard, since when it has been a Global Forum member, and which multilateral convention Decree 252 refers to.

Vietnam’s double taxation agreements were not read, so the credit cap in, for example, the agreements with Australia and Singapore is not stated here.

The rate for shares listed abroad, the treatment of rent from and sales of property abroad (the VND 1 billion level, Resolution 43’s cut, the deadline and the valuation), the classification of foreign deposit interest and the Government’s detailing of Resolution 43 all remain open.

Whether Decree 70/2014/NĐ-CP, which requires residents’ foreign-currency current receipts abroad to be brought into an account in Vietnam unless the State Bank permits otherwise, reaches an individual’s investment income was not established.

How Singapore, Dubai, Thailand and Malaysia tax a resident’s foreign income will be compared in a forthcoming article.