Work Permit Vietnam for Foreigners: Who Needs One and Who's Exempt (2026)

Exempt (married to a Vietnamese citizen and living here, a licensed lawyer, or a manager, executive, expert or technical worker under 90 days in a calendar year)? Your employer gives notice or files for a certificate. Otherwise you need a permit, filed 10 to 60 days before start.

Start with two questions. Does your situation match one of the exemption categories Vietnam’s Labor Code or Decree 219/2025/NĐ-CP sets out? And if it does, does that category still call for a confirmation of exemption certificate, or only advance notice from your employer? If no exemption applies, you need a work permit issued by the Vietnamese authorities to work in Vietnam.

Which case are you?

• If you are married to a Vietnamese citizen and live in Vietnam, or are a licensed foreign lawyer → no permit and no certificate. Your employer only has to notify the competent agency at least 3 working days before you start work.
• If you contributed at least VND 3 billion as an LLC owner or member, or as a joint-stock board chair or member → no permit and no certificate. The same 3-working-day notice applies.
• If you are a manager, executive, expert or technical worker working in Vietnam for under 90 days in total in a calendar year → exempt, with the same 3-working-day notice.
• If you are a manager, executive, expert or technical worker moved within a foreign company → exempt from the permit, but you need a certificate. The company needs a commercial presence in one of Vietnam’s 11 WTO-committed service sectors, and you must have been employed by it for at least 12 continuous months beforehand. Your employer files 10 to 60 days before you start. The agency decides within 5 working days of receiving the complete dossier.
• If no exemption fits your case → you need a work permit. Your employer files, not you, 10 to 60 days before your start date. The agency decides within 10 working days of receiving the complete dossier. The permit is valid for up to 2 years.
• If you start work before the permit or certificate exists → you face a VND 15,000,000 to 25,000,000 fine, plus possible deportation.

Still open: the Da Nang fee, and whether the advance notice goes in through the Public Administrative Service Center or straight to the Department of Home Affairs, on which form.

Who’s exempt from a Vietnam work permit

These categories are exempt from the work permit under the Labor Code itself.

• An LLC owner or capital-contributing member whose capital contribution is at least VND 3 billion.
• A joint-stock company’s board chairman or board member whose capital contribution is at least VND 3 billion.
• The head of a representative office or project of an international organisation or foreign NGO in Vietnam, or the person mainly responsible for its activities.
• Someone entering Vietnam for under 3 months to offer a service for sale.
• Someone entering Vietnam for under 3 months to fix a complex technical or technology incident that affects or threatens production or business and that experts already in Vietnam cannot resolve.
• A foreign lawyer licensed to practise in Vietnam under the Law on Lawyers.
• A case covered by an international treaty Vietnam has joined.
• A foreigner married to a Vietnamese citizen and living in Vietnam.
• Since 1 January 2026, high-quality digital-technology-industry workforce, as defined by the law on that industry.

The Labor Code leaves room for the Government to add more cases, and Decree 219/2025/NĐ-CP, in force since 7 August 2025, does, including:

• Someone entering Vietnam to give professional or technical consulting, or do other tasks, for an official-development-assistance (ODA) programme or project under agreements between competent Vietnamese and foreign authorities.
• A foreign journalist doing press work who is confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Someone sent by a competent foreign authority to teach or manage at an education institution proposed by a foreign diplomatic mission or intergovernmental organisation, or set up under a treaty.
• A foreign student or trainee currently studying, with an internship agreement or job offer letter from an employer in Vietnam, or an apprentice on a Vietnamese-flagged ship.
• A family member of foreign-mission staff, permitted to work under a treaty.
• Someone holding an official passport and working for a state or political organisation.
• The person responsible for setting up a company’s commercial presence in Vietnam.
• An unpaid treaty volunteer confirmed by a foreign mission or international organisation in Vietnam.
• Someone carrying out an international agreement signed by a Vietnamese central or provincial agency.
• A manager, executive, expert or technical worker who comes to work in Vietnam for under 90 days in total in a calendar year, 1 January to 31 December.
• An intra-corporate transferee of a foreign company with a commercial presence in one of Vietnam’s 11 WTO-committed service sectors, employed by it for at least 12 continuous months beforehand.
• Someone confirmed by the Ministry of Education and Training to teach, research or transfer an international curriculum.
• Someone confirmed by the Ministry of Education and Training to manage a school proposed by a foreign diplomatic mission or intergovernmental organisation.
• Someone confirmed by a ministry, ministerial-level agency or provincial People’s Committee to work in a priority field such as finance, science, technology, innovation or national digital transformation.

The 90-day exemption and the intra-corporate transfer exemption above apply only to managers, executives, experts and technical workers. An expert includes someone with a university degree or equivalent and at least 2 years of experience relevant to the job. A technical worker is someone trained for at least 1 year with at least 2 years of relevant experience, or someone with at least 3 years of relevant experience.

Getting a confirmation of exemption certificate

Falling into an exempt category doesn’t mean the paperwork disappears entirely. Some categories need only a notice from the employer, covered in the next section. For the exempt categories not on that notice list, the decree’s procedure is the confirmation of exemption certificate.

The certificate’s official Vietnamese name is “giấy xác nhận không thuộc diện cấp giấy phép lao động”. Your employer files the request at the Public Administrative Service Center where you’ll be working, at least 10 but no more than 60 days before your start date.

The agency then has 5 working days from receiving the complete dossier to issue the certificate. A refusal must be in writing, with reasons, within 3 working days of receiving the complete dossier. The certificate is valid for the same term as a matching work permit, up to a maximum of 2 years.

Exemptions that need a notice instead

A smaller group skips the certificate; for these, the employer gives advance notice instead. This group covers:

• being married to a Vietnamese citizen
• a licensed foreign lawyer
• entering for under 3 months to offer a service for sale or fix a technical incident
• anyone who contributed at least VND 3 billion as an LLC owner or capital-contributing member, or as a joint-stock company board chair or member
• a confirmed foreign journalist
• a family member of foreign-mission staff
• someone setting up a commercial presence
• a manager, executive, expert or technical worker working under 90 days total in a calendar year

These workers do not go through the certificate procedure. Instead, your employer only has to notify the competent agency for the place where you will work at least 3 working days before you start work. If the employer misses that notice, or sends it late or incomplete, the employer is fined 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 VND, or double that if the employer is a company.

What the employer files for a work permit

If you don’t qualify for any exemption, the dossier includes your employer’s own written report. That report explains why the employer needs a foreign worker, and requests the permit, on the decree’s official form.

It also includes a health certificate from a qualified medical facility, a passport that is still valid and two colour photos. A foreign health certificate is accepted where Vietnam and the issuing country or territory recognise each other’s certificates, and it must be no more than 12 months old.

Another document is a judicial record, or a certification that you’re not serving a criminal sentence, don’t have an unspent conviction, and aren’t under criminal investigation. It must be issued no more than 6 months before filing.

The dossier also lists documents proving that you are a manager, executive, expert or technical worker, as set out in Article 19 of the decree. Foreign-issued papers must be consularly legalised unless a treaty, reciprocity or the law exempts them, and the legalised papers must be translated into Vietnamese, with the translation certified.

Your employer files the complete dossier at the Public Administrative Service Center, at least 10 but no more than 60 days before you start work. It can be filed in person, by public postal service, or through a hired service provider or authorised representative.

From there, the competent agency has 10 working days from receiving the complete dossier to consider the request and issue the permit. A refusal must be in writing, with reasons, within 3 working days. If your start date is fixed, file closer to 60 days before your start date, because the 10 working days run only from receipt of a complete dossier.

Which Da Nang agency decides your case

Provincial-level People’s Committees hold the authority to grant, re-grant, renew and revoke work permits and confirmation certificates. That covers foreign workers whose employer has a head office, branch, representative office or business location in the province where they are expected to work. Each People’s Committee can delegate that authority to a competent agency, as the law provides.

Da Nang has done exactly that: a city decision effective 7 November 2025 delegates that authority to the Department of Home Affairs (Sở Nội vụ). That doesn’t change where the dossier is filed: your employer submits the dossier at the Public Administrative Service Center, and the department is the agency that decides.

The map below shows where the department sits; your employer files the dossier at the Public Administrative Service Center in the area where you will work.

Validity and renewal

A work permit is valid for the term of one of the documents the decree lists, capped at 2 years. The list includes, among others, the intended labor contract, a document from the foreign party that sends you to work in Vietnam, and a service contract.

A permit based on a short contract is valid for that shorter term, not a default 2 years. To renew, your employer files at the Public Administrative Service Center at least 10 but no more than 45 days before the permit expires.

The agency then has 10 working days from receiving the complete dossier to consider the request and renew the permit. If it won’t, it must reply in writing with its reasons. A permit can only be renewed once, for up to 2 more years.

The decree in force today

The procedure runs on Decree 219/2025/NĐ-CP, in force since 7 August 2025. Its rules replace the foreign-worker provisions of the old Decree 152/2020/NĐ-CP, as amended by Decree 70/2023/NĐ-CP, and those provisions stopped applying the same day. Fines for breaking the rules are set in a separate decree: Decree 283/2026/NĐ-CP, in force since 10 September 2026, which replaces the fine schedule under the older Decree 12/2022/NĐ-CP.

What happens if you work without a permit

The fines fall on both sides. A foreign worker who works without a permit or exemption certificate, or keeps using one that has expired, is fined 15,000,000 to 25,000,000 VND. Deportation is also an additional penalty for this violation.

Decree 283/2026/NĐ-CP states its fines as the rate for an individual; an organisation, such as a company employer, is fined double. Every employer fine below therefore doubles for a company.

An employer that alters or falsifies dossier documents, or uses forged ones, is fined 40,000,000 to 60,000,000 VND where the act is not prosecuted as a crime. The decree also lists deportation of the foreign worker as an additional penalty for this violation, but does not list it for the headcount-scaled violation below.

An employer that uses a foreign worker without a permit or confirmation certificate, or with an expired one, is fined on a scale by the number of workers:

• 30,000,000 to 45,000,000 VND for 1 to 10 workers
• 45,000,000 to 60,000,000 VND for 11 to 20 workers
• 60,000,000 to 75,000,000 VND for 21 or more workers

After the work permit: your visa and residency

People staying in Vietnam under an LĐ1 or LĐ2 work visa are on the law’s list for a temporary residence card. See temporary residence card in Vietnam for how long each visa tier lasts and what that application needs. For the wider 2026 fee schedule across visas, TRCs and extensions, see Vietnam immigration fees in 2026.

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Not confirmed: What Da Nang charges to issue, re-issue or renew a work permit. Where and on which form the employer sends the advance notice. Which procedure applies to the digital-technology workforce exemption added on 1 January 2026.

General information checked against the sources listed above, not legal advice for your situation. Rules and office practice change; confirm with the immigration office or a licensed adviser before you act. See how guides are checked.

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