EOR Vietnam for China+1 and pre-entity teams

Is an EOR the right tool for a China+1 move into Vietnam?

Yes — but for a narrow and genuine use case. A China+1 diversification almost always starts with people before plant: someone has to find and audit suppliers, inspect goods, talk to landlords and authorities, and run the project while the factory is being built. An employer of record (EOR) lets you put that small team on the ground in Vietnam, compliantly employed, in weeks rather than the months a new company takes — before your own entity exists. If you are new to the model, start with what an employer of record does in Vietnam.

What an EOR is not is a way to run a factory. A production workforce of dozens to thousands of operators belongs in your own foreign-invested enterprise, for reasons that have nothing to do with employment convenience: only your own entity can lease factory land in an industrial zone, import production machinery, run an export-processing operation and issue VAT invoices. So the honest shape of a China+1 EOR engagement is a pre-entity, white-collar beachhead team — a bridge, not a permanent operating model.

Why do China+1 teams hire through an EOR first?

Because the people are needed before the company can exist. Setting up a foreign-invested enterprise in Vietnam takes two approvals in sequence — an Investment Registration Certificate (IRC) and then an Enterprise Registration Certificate (ERC). Statutory processing is roughly 15 working days for the IRC and another three to five for the ERC, but with dossier preparation, post-licensing steps and a manufacturing project's conditional approvals, a realistic end-to-end timeline is about one to three months for a straightforward case, and longer for a factory.3 Your sourcing and inspection people cannot wait that long while suppliers are being qualified.

The obvious-looking shortcut — a representative office — does not solve it. A representative office is a liaison vehicle: it may conduct market research, promote the parent and act as a contact point, but it cannot carry on profit-generating activity, sign commercial contracts in its own name or issue VAT invoices, and it is not a lawful home for staff doing the parent's revenue-earning operational work.4 It can employ a handful of liaison staff, but the moment those people are really running your Vietnam operation, the structure no longer matches the activity. An EOR fills exactly this gap: a Vietnam-registered company employs your team as the legal employer and invoices you under a service agreement, so the team is properly on payroll from day one. See how an EOR compares with setting up your own entity for the full trade-off.

What roles actually fit an EOR in a China+1 entry?

The team that fits is the one that does white-collar, judgement-based work: finding and qualifying suppliers, inspecting output, and coordinating the move. These are ongoing employment relationships, so most reputable providers employ them directly through a Vietnam-registered entity on a standard labour contract and invoice you under a business-to-business service agreement. That direct-employment route is ordinary employment — it is not the licensed labour sub-leasing (labour-dispatch) route, so it is not bound by the sub-leasing route's limits.1 If you want the mechanics of the dispatch alternative, see labour outsourcing and dispatch in Vietnam.

Where will your China+1 team actually be based?

Usually next to the suppliers, which in the south now means Ho Chi Minh City. The 2025 administrative reform reorganised Vietnam's provincial map, and on 1 July 2025 Ho Chi Minh City absorbed the former Binh Duong and Ba Ria–Vung Tau provinces. The enlarged city — home to roughly 14 million people — now oversees around 66 industrial parks and export-processing zones across some 27,000 hectares, with a master plan for 105 zones by 2050.6 This is also why older “EOR Binh Duong” pages are out of date: Binh Duong is now part of Ho Chi Minh City.

That concentration matters because a sourcing or QA engineer based in the city can reach most southern supplier parks in a day. For the local picture — and because the EOR service and the flat fee are the same across Vietnam — see EOR in Ho Chi Minh City. If your suppliers cluster in central Vietnam instead, EOR in Da Nang covers that hub.

Location also sets the wage floor. The regional minimum wage runs from ₫3,700,000 a month in Region IV to ₫5,310,000 in Region I (Decree 293/2025/ND-CP, from 1 January 2026, current as of October 2026), and the main southern industrial areas around Ho Chi Minh City generally sit in the upper tiers (Regions I and II) — but the 2025 mergers redrew the boundaries, so confirm a specific ward against the decree's Appendix before you rely on a tier.9 For a white-collar beachhead salary that floor is academic; it matters for the production workforce your own entity will eventually employ. The full table and the hourly rates are on the Vietnam minimum wage page.

Overtime caps that bite in electronics and textiles

This is a limit worth understanding even before you have a factory, because it shapes how your future entity will staff production. Overtime in Vietnam needs the employee's agreement and is capped at 40 hours a month and 200 hours a year in general — rising to 300 hours a year only in specified sectors, which include textiles, garments and footwear, electronics, and agro-forestry-aquaculture processing.12 Those are precisely the China+1 sectors, so the higher annual ceiling is often relevant — but it is a ceiling for a production workforce, which your own entity will employ, not the EOR beachhead team.

Using that 300-hour ceiling is conditional: it needs the employee's written consent, premium pay and advance written notice to the provincial labour authority (Decree 145/2020, Arts. 61–62).2 Shift and night work carry their own premiums — overtime is paid at a minimum of 150% of the normal hourly wage on a working day, 200% on a weekly rest day and 300% on a public holiday, while night work (22:00–06:00) adds at least 30% over the day wage, with a further 20% on overtime worked at night.1 These are the economics of a double- or triple-shift plant, so they belong in your entity's production model rather than the EOR engagement.

When should a China+1 manufacturer switch from an EOR to its own entity?

The trigger is activity, not headcount alone. Move your team off the EOR and into your own foreign-invested entity when any of these become true: you are about to lease factory land or sign a lease in an industrial zone; you need to import production machinery or run an export-processing operation; you will book revenue or issue VAT invoices in Vietnam; or you are about to hire a production workforce at scale. Each of these is something only your own entity can do lawfully. Running a production floor also brings occupational safety and health duties — safety training, risk controls and mandatory periodic health checks — onto that entity as the employer; the obligations and their schedule are set out in occupational safety and health in Vietnam.

There is also a tax reason to plan the handover deliberately. Using an EOR does not by itself remove the risk that a foreign company is treated as having a taxable presence — a permanent establishment — in Vietnam; that depends on the facts and the relevant tax treaty. If your beachhead lead is, in substance, concluding contracts or directing a Vietnam operation for the parent, take specific tax advice early — see permanent-establishment risk in Vietnam. A clean sequence is: EOR for the beachhead team, incorporate the entity in parallel, then transfer the employees across once the ERC is issued. The full comparison, including cost cross-over, is on EOR versus your own entity; the broader case for the model is in the benefits of an EOR in Vietnam, and the wider employer rules sit in our Vietnam employer guides.

How EOR Vietnam supports a China+1 entry team

As your employer of record, EOR Vietnam employs your beachhead team through a Vietnam-registered employing entity and handles the labour contract, payroll, the roughly 23.5% statutory employer contributions (21.5% social, health and unemployment insurance plus the 2% trade-union fee), personal income tax withholding, onboarding and offboarding, and — for a foreign country lead — the work-permit and residence-card dossier.78 You direct the day-to-day work; we are the legal employer that keeps the filings correct while your own entity is being licensed.

Our service fee is a flat US$149 per employee per month for Vietnamese nationals — the same fee regardless of salary, seniority, role, city or headcount, as of October 2026. It is not a percentage of payroll. A foreign hire who needs a Vietnamese work permit (often the relocating country lead) is quoted separately, because the permit, visa and residence-card handling differs case by case. There are no setup, onboarding, offboarding, contract or payslip fees, and no hidden fees. A security deposit equal to two months of the employee's employment cost — gross salary plus the statutory employer contributions — is held for the engagement and returned at the end, less any unpaid amounts. Everything else is passed through at cost: gross salary, the statutory contributions, and any statutory or agreed employment payments. A full breakdown of the fee plus on-costs is on what an EOR costs in Vietnam.