Employer of record (EOR) in Hanoi

Hiring in Hanoi at a glance

Hanoi is Vietnam's capital and the seat of national government, with a population of around 8.7 million across roughly 3,360 square kilometres. In Vietnam's 2025 administrative reorganisation, which consolidated the country into 34 provincial-level units from 1 July 2025, Hanoi was one of the localities left unchanged — it kept its boundaries rather than absorbing neighbouring provinces — but its internal map was redrawn, with the old district tier abolished and its wards and communes consolidated.8 The capital's economy concentrates public administration and regulated industries such as banking and insurance, state-owned enterprises and the headquarters of many domestic groups, alongside an established IT and engineering base. Its central wards sit in minimum-wage Region I; a few outlying wards fall into Region II.

Can you hire employees in Hanoi through an EOR?

Yes — you can employ staff in Hanoi through an employer of record without opening your own Vietnamese entity. A Vietnam-registered company signs the labour contract and becomes the legal employer, running compliant payroll, statutory insurance and personal income tax, while you keep day-to-day direction of the work. Hanoi's city centre is minimum-wage Region I.

In practice, most EOR services in Vietnam work this way: a Vietnam-registered company directly employs the worker on an ordinary labour contract and invoices you under a business-to-business service agreement. The hire therefore rests on ordinary employment law rather than any EOR-specific statute.5 No Vietnamese law uses the term "employer of record", so the legal route a provider uses matters — see what an EOR is and how it works and how an EOR is structured legally in Vietnam. For the capital, the hire is simply a normal Hanoi-based employment done by a local entity on your behalf.

How much does it cost to employ someone in Hanoi?

Hiring in central Hanoi means Region I minimum wage — ₫5,310,000 a month in 2026 — and statutory employer contributions of about 23.5% on top of gross salary. Outlying wards and communes can be Region II at ₫4,730,000. Most professional salaries sit well above the floor, so for skilled roles the 23.5% on-cost, not the minimum wage, is what drives cost. For sourced market pay ranges by role, see the Vietnam salary benchmarks.

The capital is not uniformly Region I: central wards fall in Region I under Decree 293/2025/ND-CP, while outlying wards sit in Region II.1 Because ward boundaries were redrawn in the 2025 reorganisation, check a specific district against the decree's appendix before you set a contract wage. The region follows the employing entity's registered place of operation — see Vietnam minimum wage by region for the full table and the city breakdown.

On top of gross salary the employer carries about 23.5% in statutory on-costs — 17.5% social insurance, 3% health and 1% unemployment insurance2 and a 2% trade-union fee3 — with the social- and health-insurance base capped at ₫50,600,000 a month, so above that salary the effective percentage falls.2 Our service fee sits on top of both: a flat US$149 per employee per month, the same for every Vietnamese-national employee whatever the salary, seniority, role or headcount — a fixed fee, not a percentage of payroll. There is no setup, onboarding, offboarding, contract or payslip fee, and no hidden fee. Separately, we hold a refundable security deposit equal to two months of the employee's employment cost — gross salary plus the statutory employer contributions — returned at the end of the engagement less any unpaid amounts. Foreign nationals who need a Vietnamese work permit are quoted separately; the US$149 flat fee covers Vietnamese nationals only. Pricing is as of October 2026. The table below shows two illustrative Hanoi hires.

What is the Hanoi talent market like?

Hanoi is the country's second-largest base for software developers after Ho Chi Minh City. On TopDev's Vietnam IT Market Report 2024–2025, Ho Chi Minh City holds the largest share of Vietnam's developers, with Hanoi the largest pool after it and Da Nang a smaller share.7 We give this as a sourced, third-party estimate rather than attaching invented growth figures to it. That engineering depth, fed by the capital's long-standing technical universities, sits alongside its public-administration, banking and enterprise base and makes Hanoi the natural base for EOR hiring across northern Vietnam.

Hanoi also borders northern Vietnam's electronics-manufacturing corridor in the neighbouring provinces, which pulls in supply-chain and technical roles. That mix makes the capital strong for finance, administrative and back-office functions, software engineering, and roles that benefit from proximity to ministries and regulators. For engineers specifically, see hiring developers in Vietnam through an EOR, which covers the senior-expert work-permit route. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City share the same Region I floor, so the choice between them is usually about talent character, not cost.

Local admin for a Hanoi hire

For a Hanoi hire, the employing entity registers the labour contract locally, pays wages in Vietnamese dong, issues a payslip each pay period, remits social, health and unemployment insurance monthly to the city social-security office, and declares withheld personal income tax to the tax authority. These are the employer's day-to-day compliance duties, and the EOR carries them for you.

Wages must be paid in full, on time and in dong, and each employee must get an itemised payslip each pay period (Labour Code 2019, Articles 94–97, with the payslip requirement in Article 95).5 Compulsory insurance is declared and paid monthly to the provincial social-security office.2 From 1 July 2026, withheld personal income tax is declared quarterly by all employers, with an annual finalisation, under Decree 252/2026/ND-CP.6 For a foreign hire, work-permit dossiers now go to the provincial People's Committee under Decree 219/2025/ND-CP; see Vietnam work permits for foreign employees for the categories, timeline and documents.4

How an EOR hires in Hanoi for you

Employing someone in Hanoi through an EOR takes three steps: you scope the role, the entity employs and onboards the person, and payroll runs each month while you manage the work. The legal employer stays the Vietnam-registered entity throughout, so the compliance sits with it.