Vietnamese labor law has recognized only two contract types since 2021 — indefinite-term and fixed-term up to a maximum of 36 months (Art. 20, Labor Code 45/2019/QH14). The regional minimum wage from January 1, 2026 ranges from VND 3.70 million (Region IV) to VND 5.31 million per month (Region I, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City; Decree 293/2025/NĐ-CP). Mandatory social, health, and unemployment insurance contributions add up to 32% of gross salary, of which the employer pays 21.5 percentage points. Work permits for foreign employees have been governed since August 7, 2025 by an entirely new decree (Decree 219/2025/NĐ-CP) and are capped at two years per grant.
Legal basis: what actually governs here
The foundation is the Labor Code (Bộ luật Lao động) No. 45/2019/QH14, passed on November 20, 2019 and in effect since January 1, 2021. It is fleshed out by several decrees, a number of which were completely replaced only in 2025:
- Minimum wage: Decree 293/2025/NĐ-CP dated November 10, 2025, in effect since January 1, 2026 — fully replaces the previous Decree 74/2024/NĐ-CP.
- Foreign workers / work permits: Decree 219/2025/NĐ-CP dated August 7, 2025, in effect the same day — fully replaces the previous Decrees 152/2020/NĐ-CP and 70/2023/NĐ-CP.
- Social insurance: Law on Social Insurance 41/2024/QH15 dated June 29, 2024, in effect since July 1, 2025 — fully replaces the previous Law on Social Insurance.
- Health insurance: Law amending and supplementing the Law on Health Insurance 51/2024/QH15 dated November 27, 2024, in effect since July 1, 2025, implemented by Decree 188/2025/NĐ-CP dated July 1, 2025.
- Unemployment insurance: Law on Employment 74/2025/QH15 dated June 16, 2025, in effect since January 1, 2026.
- State base salary (basis for the contribution ceiling): Decree 161/2026/NĐ-CP dated May 15, 2026, in effect since July 1, 2026.
Anyone relying on older sources for these topics (Decree 74/2024, 152/2020, or 70/2023) is working from law that has already been superseded.
Employment contracts: only two lawful types
Under Art. 20(1) of the Labor Code, only two contract types are permitted:
- Indefinite-term contract (hợp đồng lao động không xác định thời hạn): no end date agreed.
- Fixed-term contract (hợp đồng lao động xác định thời hạn): a maximum of 36 months from the effective date. A third category, "seasonal work," no longer exists under current law.
If a fixed-term contract expires and the employee keeps working, a staged rule applies (Art. 20(2)): a new contract must be signed within 30 days, during which the terms of the expired contract continue to apply; if no new contract is signed within those 30 days, the fixed-term contract automatically converts into an indefinite-term one. If a new fixed-term contract is signed instead, that is allowed only once — any further continuation of work after that must be on an indefinite-term contract (exceptions exist, e.g., for hired directors of state-capital enterprises).
Probation: maximum duration and pay
Probation periods (Art. 24–27) depend on the complexity of the role and may be agreed only once per position:
- Up to 180 days: enterprise-manager positions as defined under the Law on Enterprises or the Law on Management and Use of State Capital Invested in Production and Business at Enterprises.
- Up to 60 days: positions requiring a college degree or higher.
- Up to 30 days: positions requiring intermediate vocational qualifications or skilled-worker level.
- Up to 6 working days: all other jobs.
No probation period is allowed for contracts of less than one month (Art. 24(3)). Pay during probation must be at least 85% of the wage for the position (Art. 26). During probation, either party may terminate the arrangement without notice and without compensation (Art. 27(2)).
Working hours, overtime, and premiums
Regular working hours are capped at 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week; under a weekly schedule, up to 10 hours per day is allowed as long as the 48-hour weekly cap is respected (Art. 105). Night hours are legally defined as 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. (Art. 106).
Overtime requires the employee's consent and is capped (Art. 107):
- a maximum of 50% of regular daily working hours (or up to 12 hours/day under a weekly schedule),
- a maximum of 40 hours per month,
- a maximum of 200 hours per year — except in specific industries named by law (including textile, leather, footwear, and electronics export manufacturing; power, telecommunications, and water supply; urgent seasonal work), where up to 300 hours per year is allowed, subject to written notice to the relevant provincial labor authority.
Pay premiums are set out in Art. 98: at least 150% of the regular wage on ordinary working days, at least 200% on the weekly rest day, and at least 300% on public holidays and paid leave days (on top of the holiday pay already due). Night work carries a premium of at least 30%; overtime worked at night carries a further premium of at least 20% on top of that.
Annual leave and public holidays
Vietnam has eleven paid public holidays per year (Art. 112(1)): New Year's Day (1 day), Lunar New Year / Tết (5 days), Reunification Day on April 30 (1 day), International Labor Day on May 1 (1 day), National Day on September 2 (2 days), and Hùng Kings' Commemoration Day (1 day). Foreign employees additionally get one day for their own country's traditional new year and one day for their own country's national day (Art. 112(2)).
Statutory annual leave after a full year of employment is (Art. 113–114):
- 12 working days under normal working conditions,
- 14 working days for minors, workers with disabilities, and workers in heavy, hazardous, or dangerous jobs,
- 16 working days for workers in especially heavy, hazardous, or dangerous jobs,
plus one additional day of leave for every 5 full years of service with the same employer (Art. 114). Employees with less than 12 months of service accrue leave proportionally.
Termination: notice periods, grounds, severance
Art. 34 lists 13 exhaustive grounds for contract termination. Unilateral termination by the employer is restricted to narrow, specifically named grounds (Art. 36(1)) — including persistent underperformance measured against an internal assessment policy, prolonged illness or injury (12 months for indefinite-term contracts, 6 months for fixed-term contracts of 12–36 months, more than half the term for shorter fixed-term contracts), force majeure requiring a reduction in workforce, unauthorized absence for 5 or more consecutive working days, reaching retirement age, or dishonest information provided at hiring. Unilateral termination outside these grounds is unlawful (Art. 39).
Notice periods are identical for both sides (Art. 35(1), Art. 36(2)):
- 45 days for indefinite-term contracts,
- 30 days for fixed-term contracts of 12 to 36 months,
- 3 working days for fixed-term contracts under 12 months.
Severance pay (trợ cấp thôi việc, Art. 46) is owed to employees with at least 12 months of continuous employment — except those already eligible for a pension or dismissed for unauthorized absence of 5 or more days. It amounts to half a month's salary per year of employment, calculated on the average salary of the last 6 months before termination, less any period already covered by unemployment insurance.
Minimum wage 2026: the four wage regions
Decree 293/2025/NĐ-CP sets the following monthly and hourly minimum wages effective January 1, 2026 (Art. 3):
| Region | Minimum wage/month | Minimum wage/hour |
|---|---|---|
| Region I (incl. Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City) | VND 5,310,000 | VND 25,500 |
| Region II | VND 4,730,000 | VND 22,700 |
| Region III | VND 4,140,000 | VND 20,000 |
| Region IV | VND 3,700,000 | VND 17,800 |
The precise regional classification is set out in the decree's appendix; employers with branches in multiple regions apply the minimum wage of the region where each branch operates (Art. 3(3)). These figures are floors for a full regular working month at the agreed labor norm — existing contractual terms that are more favorable to the employee remain unaffected (Art. 5(4)).
Social insurance: contribution rates for 2026
Mandatory insurance is made up of three separate laws, all newly enacted in 2024/2025:
| Insurance | Employee | Employer | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social insurance (retirement/death fund + illness/maternity fund) | 8.0% | 17.0% (3.0% + 14.0%) | Law on Social Insurance 41/2024/QH15, Art. 32–34 |
| Health insurance | 1.5% | 3.0% | Law on Health Insurance 51/2024/QH15; Decree 188/2025/NĐ-CP, Art. 6 |
| Unemployment insurance | up to 1.0% | up to 1.0% | Law on Employment 74/2025/QH15, Art. 33 |
| Total | 10.5% | 21.5%* | — |
* plus a 0.5% contribution to occupational accident and disease insurance, borne solely by the employer (under a separate occupational safety law) — in practice this brings the combined contribution rate to 32% of the salary used as the insurance base.
The contribution base is capped by reference to the "reference level" (mức tham chiếu): contributions apply to salary between one and at most 20 times this level (Law on Social Insurance 41/2024/QH15, Art. 31(1)). Until the reference level is set independently, it equals the state base salary (mức lương cơ sở) (Art. 55(13), transitional provisions). That base salary was set at VND 2,530,000/month effective July 1, 2026 by Decree 161/2026/NĐ-CP dated May 15, 2026 (Art. 3(2)), which puts the contribution ceiling at VND 50,600,000/month from that date.
Work permits for foreign employees
Since August 7, 2025, foreign employees have been governed by an entirely new decree, Decree 219/2025/NĐ-CP, which fully replaces the previous Decrees 152/2020/NĐ-CP and 70/2023/NĐ-CP. Key points:
- Validity: A work permit is issued for the term of the underlying arrangement (employment contract, secondment letter, service agreement, etc.), but no more than 2 years (Art. 21). It can be extended only once, also for a maximum of 2 further years (Art. 29) — after that, a fresh application is required.
- Procedure: The employer must file the application no earlier than 60 and no later than 10 days before the expected start date (Art. 22).
- Exemptions from the permit requirement (Art. 7, 15 categories), including:
- owners or capital-contributing members of a limited liability company with a capital contribution of at least VND 3 billion, or chairpersons/board members of a joint-stock company with a capital contribution of at least VND 3 billion (Art. 7(2)–(3));
- stays totaling under 90 days per calendar year for managers, executive directors, experts, or technical workers (Art. 7(13a));
- intra-corporate transfers into one of the 11 service sectors Vietnam has committed to under the WTO, provided the person was employed by the transferring foreign enterprise for at least 12 consecutive months beforehand (Art. 7(13b));
- accredited foreign press correspondents and unpaid volunteers under international agreements (Art. 7(5) and (11)).
The full list covers further categories (including students under internship agreements and family members of foreign diplomatic staff); Art. 7 of the decree should be checked for the specific case.
Conclusion
Vietnamese labor law has been substantially rewritten between 2024 and 2026 in almost every area covered here — minimum wage, social insurance, unemployment insurance, and the rules governing foreign employees have all been in their current form for only a few months. Foreign employers hiring in Vietnam should have contract drafting, payroll, and work-permit procedures checked against the legal bases named here before relying on older templates or summaries. For an assessment of a specific case: get in touch through the MaiVN Consulting website.