Vietnam’s police now issue criminal record No. 2, and each destination sets how long it is valid

Since 1 July 2026, judicial record certificate No. 2, the criminal record check that US, Canadian and Australian authorities name for applicants from Vietnam, has been issued by the police rather than justice departments, and an online request returns an electronic certificate.

How recent it must be is decided at the other end: no validity period was found in the Vietnamese texts searched, while the United States counts two years from issue and Portugal’s investment residence route three months.

Police, not justice departments, since 1 July

Law 107/2025/QH15, passed on 5 December 2025, amended the 2009 Law on Judicial Records with effect from 1 July 2026. Under the 2009 text, certificates came from the National Judicial Records Centre and provincial Departments of Justice.

The amended law hands the task to the Ministry of Public Security’s Department of Professional Records and to provincial police, substitutes those bodies for the old ones in the remaining articles, and places the judicial-records database centrally at the ministry.

Decree 216/2026/NĐ-CP and the ministry’s Circular 101/2026/TT-BCA, both in force from the same day, replace the 2010 implementing decree and a 2011 Ministry of Justice circular on forms.

What No. 2 shows

Certificate No. 2, under Article 43 of the law, records every conviction, including expunged ones, with the date of expungement, as well as the names of the person’s parents and spouse. Certificate No. 1, under Article 42, enters an expunged conviction, once the expungement has been entered in the record, as “no criminal record”.

For a foreigner never convicted, the 2026 form for No. 2 reads “no criminal record during the period of residence in Vietnam”.

Until 30 June, No. 2 went to bodies conducting proceedings and, on request, to the individual. Since 1 July both certificates are issued to individuals: Vietnamese citizens and foreigners who have lived in Vietnam, from the age of 16, a floor the 2009 text did not set.

Bodies conducting proceedings now use a person’s judicial-record information through a data connection to the judicial-records database and do not ask the person for a certificate.

The amended law also adds Article 7(4): agencies, organisations and individuals may not require a person to provide certificate No. 2. No exception is written into that sentence, whereas certificate No. 1 may be required where a law, a resolution of the National Assembly or its Standing Committee, an ordinance, or a Government decree or resolution so provides.

The text does not say whether the bar reaches foreign authorities. The US, Canadian and Australian pages read for this article all name No. 2 as the document to supply.

Online by default, electronic as a result

Under the amended law an individual requests the certificate online, through the national identity app VNeID or the National Public Service Portal; foreigners and people without an electronic identity may apply in person or by post.

In an answer published on 24 July 2026, the Ministry of Public Security said a citizen with a level-2 electronic identity account may not file in person or by post: those channels are for people without level 2, for a person acting under the citizen’s authorisation, or for a parent, spouse, child or guardian making the request.

An online request is answered with an electronic certificate and an in-person or postal request with a paper one, and the law gives the two the same legal value.

Article 46 of the 2009 law barred a person from requesting No. 2 through a proxy; Law 107 repeals it, and the new clause allowing written authorisation is not limited to No. 1. This indicates that a proxy may now request No. 2.

The authorisation must be notarised or certified, while a parent, spouse, child or guardian may make the request without one. The statutory time is now five working days from a valid request, extendable to no more than 15 days where conviction or new-offence information must be verified; the 2009 text allowed up to 10 days, or 15 in listed cases.

The standard fee is VND 200,000 per request, or VND 100,000 for students aged 16 and over and certain other groups, and asking for No. 1 and No. 2 together means two files and two fees.

From 15 August 2026 to 28 February 2027 the fee is waived for citizens with level-2 identity who file online after integrating their judicial-record information and five basic items in VNeID.

The US Mission asks for paper

The United States asks every immigrant visa applicant aged 16 or over for an original or certified police certificate from the country of nationality, if he or she lived there for at least six months at any time, and from the country of current residence after six months there.

The US Mission’s list of required documents, updated in August 2026, asks for the “Original Vietnam’s Justice Record Check #2 with wet signature and stamp” and states that electronic versions “are not accepted”; its appointment package of the same month places the interviews at the Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City.

The Ministry of Public Security addressed the mismatch in guidance the Government’s policy portal published on 11 October 2026. It said it would temporarily issue up to two additional paper certificates, free of charge, to a citizen who already holds an electronic one and shows both that the paper copy is for a procedure with a foreign diplomatic mission and that the mission’s procedure requires paper.

The paper copy is printed, signed and stamped with the same content and issue time as the electronic certificate, within eight working hours of the request being completed. The guidance gives no end date. In July the ministry had pointed citizens who need paper to the proxy and family routes, which yield a paper certificate.

The paper copy shows the electronic certificate’s issue time, not the day it was printed. A destination that counts from the date of issue, as the United States and Australia do, therefore counts from the electronic date.

Official pages that still describe the old rules

Several official pages still described the pre-July rules when read on 12 October 2026:

• The Ministry of Public Security’s public-service record for the procedure gives 10 days, says No. 2 cannot be requested through a proxy except by a minor through a parent, and cites only the 2009 law.
• The US Mission’s immigrant visa FAQ, last modified on 11 April 2025, says the request is made at a Department of Justice office, takes about 10 working days and must be made in person, without a proxy.
• The Vietnam page of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), dated 9 April 2024, sends applicants to Department of Justice offices and the National Center for Judicial Records.
• The Australian Department of Home Affairs’ Vietnam card, undated, names the provincial police records offices, but says third persons and agents cannot apply and gives 10 to 15 working days.

Since 1 July the law names the police as issuer, allows written authorisation, which the repeal of Article 46 and the wording of the new clause indicate now covers No. 2, and sets five working days, or up to 15 days where verification is needed.

How recent it must be is set by the destination

No validity period for the certificate was found in the 2009 law, the 2025 amendment, Decree 216 or Circular 101.

The US manual adds that a consular officer may ask for updated certificates where there is concern about a more recent record, and Australia may ask for a new one from an applicant who has returned to the country after the previous certificate expired.

For a country other than that of current residence, Canada asks for a certificate issued after the applicant’s last stay there of six consecutive months since the age of 18, and it accepts only colour scans of the original, rejecting certified true copies.

Dominica’s Citizenship by Investment Unit asks each applicant aged 16 and over for a police record from the countries of birth, citizenship and residence, and from any country lived in for more than six months in the past ten years.

The investment routes behind these files are covered in separate articles, among them the US EB-5 programme, Canada’s provincial entrepreneur streams and Australia’s National Innovation visa.

Apostille or consular certification

Since Decree 293/2026/NĐ-CP, issued on 23 July 2026, took effect on 11 September 2026, a Vietnamese public document bound for a state with which the Apostille Convention applies takes an apostille from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the decree lists judicial record certificates among the documents concerned.

For states outside the Convention, and for a state with which it does not apply because of an objection by either side under Article 12, consular certification under Decree 111/2011/NĐ-CP, as amended by Decree 196/2025/NĐ-CP, remains the route. The Convention’s entry into force for Vietnam and the objections were covered in an earlier article.

In July, before apostilles began, the Ministry of Public Security said the foreign ministry’s Consular Department was responsible for both paper and electronic certificates; it called the step legalisation.

None of the US, Canadian or Australian pages read for this article requires an apostille or consular certification on the Vietnamese certificate, or waives one. Portugal’s Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) asks for consular certification, with an apostille as the alternative its FAQ names, and Dominica for documents not in English to be translated, notarised and legalised.

What this article has not established

No validity period was found in the Vietnamese texts searched, and sector rules requiring a certificate issued within a set number of months for procedures inside Vietnam were not surveyed.

It was not established whether the Article 7(4) bar reaches foreign authorities or the applicants who present the certificate to them.

Nor was it established whether the apostille office accepts electronic certificates, or provincial foreign-affairs offices receive apostille files, or whether the US, Canada or Australia require an apostille or consular certification.

Canada’s pages do not say whether a scan of an electronic certificate counts as a scan of the original. The paper-copy arrangement has no stated end date, and actual processing times since 1 July were not found.

The State Department’s country page for Vietnam returned an access error, and the National Public Service Portal’s record of the procedure could not be opened.

No consolidated text of the amended law was found; the 2009 text was read with the 2025 amendment, and no later amendment appeared in the listings checked.

Greece and Malta were not researched, and Dominica’s page was last modified in October 2024.