Employer of Record (EOR) in Vietnam

EOR services and solutions in Vietnam

EOR services in Vietnam are a packaged employment solution: a Vietnam-registered company legally employs your staff and runs the labour contract, payroll in Vietnamese dong, statutory insurance, personal income tax and work permits, so you can hire without opening your own entity. EOR Vietnam delivers that as an EOR company focused on one market — the service is the same whether you hire one person or a small team, and you keep full day-to-day direction of the work.

Because every EOR solution rests on who the legal employer is, judge any EOR provider in Vietnam on its legal route, filings and pricing rather than its dashboard — the method is in how to choose an EOR provider in Vietnam. For why companies pick this model over an entity, see the benefits of using an EOR in Vietnam, or the plain-English guide to what an EOR is and how it works.

What does an employer of record in Vietnam handle?

An employer of record in Vietnam handles the full legal employment of your worker: the labour contract, monthly payroll in Vietnamese dong, statutory social, health and unemployment insurance, personal income tax withholding, mandatory benefits and leave, work permits for foreign hires, and compliant onboarding and offboarding. You direct the work; the EOR carries the employer obligations.

• A labour contract that meets the Labour Code 2019 and contract rules — only two contract types, with a 36-month cap on fixed terms.
• Monthly payroll and the ~23.5% employer on-cost — social insurance 17.5%, health insurance 3%, unemployment insurance 1% and a 2% trade-union fee.1
• Personal income tax withheld each month and declared quarterly to the tax authority.45
• Mandatory benefits and statutory leave, including the 12 paid public holidays that apply from 2026.8
• Work permits and residence for foreign employees, under Decree 219/2025/ND-CP.6
• Compliant offboarding and termination, with correct notice and severance.

How does an EOR in Vietnam work?

An EOR in Vietnam works in five steps: you scope the role and get a written quote, a client services agreement is signed, the Vietnam-registered entity employs and onboards the worker, payroll and compliance run monthly in Vietnamese dong, and the engagement is closed down lawfully when it ends. The EOR stays the legal employer throughout, so the employment liabilities sit with it.

How an EOR legally employs people in Vietnam

Vietnam has no dedicated "employer of record" law, so a compliant EOR rests on one of two legal bases. The first is licensed labour sub-leasing (labour dispatch), which needs a licence and a refundable ₫2 billion deposit and caps any one placement with a client at 12 months (Labour Code 2019, Arts. 52–57; Decree 145/2020/ND-CP).7 The second, used by most providers for ongoing roles, is direct employment: a licensed Vietnamese company employs the worker on a standard Labour Code contract and invoices you under a business-to-business service agreement, which is not bound by the 12-month cap. The route decides who bears liability — read the honest, sourced explanation of whether an EOR is legal in Vietnam, including grey areas such as permanent-establishment risk.

Who should use an EOR in Vietnam — and who shouldn't

An EOR in Vietnam suits companies that need to hire quickly, test the market, or employ a few people without the cost and delay of their own entity. It is less useful when you need a licensed local company for revenue-generating operations, when headcount grows past the break-even against an entity, or when the role falls outside what your provider's legal route allows.

• A good fit: startups, SMEs and small businesses making a first hire or a handful of hires, market entry, hiring software developers and remote tech talent, hiring foreign experts who need a work permit, and bridging the months while your own entity is set up.
• Less suitable: large permanent local teams past the break-even against your own entity, regulated activities needing a specific licence, and labour-dispatch placements outside the permitted occupations.

Where can you hire in Vietnam?

EOR Vietnam can employ staff nationwide. The minimum-wage region depends on where the employer operates, not where the employee lives (Decree 293/2025/ND-CP). Central Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City sit in Region I, where the monthly minimum wage is ₫5,310,000; central Da Nang is Region II at ₫4,730,000 — a point many guides get wrong.2 Because ward boundaries changed with the 2025 provincial mergers, confirm a specific district against the appendix to Decree 293/2025/ND-CP before relying on it.

See EOR in Ho Chi Minh City, EOR in Hanoi, or the full Vietnam minimum wage 2026 by region.

EOR Vietnam for overseas companies

A company based outside Vietnam needs no Vietnamese entity of its own to employ people here: the EOR's Vietnam-registered company is the legal employer and invoices you abroad under a business-to-business service agreement, so you can employ Vietnamese nationals or relocate foreign experts compliantly from overseas. Overseas employers hiring into Vietnam most often come from the United States, Korea and Japan, or run an Asia-Pacific base in Singapore and want staff on the ground before they commit to their own entity.

Tax treatment is where the home country matters. Vietnam has signed double-taxation-avoidance agreements (DTAs) with more than 80 countries and territories, mostly modelled on the OECD convention; these treaties decide which country can tax a given type of income and provide relief from being taxed twice.10 Most of the countries overseas employers hire from sit inside that network. The United States is the notable exception: the two countries signed an income-tax treaty on 7 July 2015 and Vietnam ratified it, but the US Senate never did, so there is still no operative US–Vietnam tax treaty as of October 2026.11 The detail is on Vietnam's double-tax treaties and how relief is claimed.

Using an EOR does not, by itself, rule out the foreign client being treated as having a taxable permanent establishment in Vietnam — that depends on what the worker actually does and on the relevant treaty, so keep contract-signing authority with the overseas company and take local tax advice. Country-specific guidance: EOR Vietnam for US companies, for Korean companies and for Japanese companies.

EOR, your own entity, or a contractor: which model?

An EOR, your own entity, and an independent contractor are three ways to get work done in Vietnam, with different trade-offs in speed, cost, control and risk. An EOR is fastest and needs no entity; a contractor is cheap but carries misclassification risk; your own entity wins at scale and for full local operations. The matrix below is general guidance, not legal advice.

Read the detailed comparisons: EOR vs setting up your own entity, EOR vs an independent contractor, and EOR vs PEO.

EOR or PEO in Vietnam?

A PEO (professional employer organisation) is a United States model in which a provider and its client act as co-employers of the same staff. That co-employment model has no clean basis in Vietnamese law, so a “PEO Vietnam” offer is usually an EOR that employs the worker for you, or payroll and HR outsourcing bolted onto an entity you already own. If you do not have your own Vietnamese entity, what you need is almost always an EOR. See what a PEO really means in Vietnam, how to weigh a top PEO in Vietnam, and the head-to-head on EOR versus PEO.

What changed for employers in Vietnam in 2026

Several rules affecting the cost and compliance of employing people in Vietnam changed in 2025 and 2026. The table shows the in-force position as of October 2026; older pre-July values should not be used.

What a quote includes and how pricing works

EOR Vietnam charges a flat service fee of US$149 per employee per month — the same fee for every Vietnamese-national employee, whatever the salary, seniority, role, location in Vietnam or headcount. It is a fixed fee, not a percentage of payroll, and there is no setup, onboarding, offboarding, contract or payslip fee, and no hidden fee. Pricing is stated as of October 2026.

On top of the fee you pay only the actual employment costs, passed through at cost: the employee's gross salary; the statutory employer on-cost (about 23.5% for a Vietnamese employee — social insurance 17.5%, health insurance 3%, unemployment insurance 1% and the 2% trade-union fee)1; and any statutory or agreed employment payments, such as severance where it is due, an agreed 13th-month bonus or contractual allowances. Social and health insurance are capped at a salary of ₫50,600,000 a month, so the on-cost does not rise without limit.3

A security deposit equal to two months of the employee's employment cost — gross salary plus statutory employer contributions — is held for the duration of the engagement and returned at the end, less any unpaid amounts. Foreign nationals who need a Vietnamese work permit are quoted separately on request, because work-permit, visa and temporary-residence handling make each case different. A written EOR Vietnam quote names the employing entity and the legal structure, itemises the statutory on-cost and states the fee, so your total monthly outlay is clear before you commit.

For context, third-party comparisons reported Vietnam EOR platform fees of roughly US$350–599 per employee per month in late 2026, on top of gross salary and the statutory on-cost.9 Those are other providers' reported platform fees, not ours — confirm current pricing on each provider's own page. To model your own numbers, use the EOR cost calculator and worked examples, and see how to choose an EOR provider.

Related guides

Every guide below is sourced and dated. Browse the full library of Vietnam employer guides for payroll, tax, leave and compliance in depth.

How we stand behind every figure

Every figure on this site names the instrument it comes from and links a primary or authoritative source, with an "as of October 2026" date. EOR Vietnam provides EOR services in Vietnam as an anonymous specialist brand: we publish no invented client counts, logos or awards, and we would rather show you the law than a badge. Where legal points are genuinely unsettled, we say so. Last reviewed 3 October 2026.