Hiring sales reps and country managers in Vietnam

Hiring commercial staff through an EOR, with no entity

A sales rep, business-development lead or country manager is often the first person a foreign company wants on the ground in Vietnam, and an employer of record (EOR), which employs the worker for you through a licensed Vietnamese entity, lets you do it in days rather than the one to three months a new company typically takes to register. The employing entity signs the labour contract and is the real, registered employer: it runs payroll, withholds personal income tax, pays compulsory social, health and unemployment insurance, and issues compliant payslips, while your team sets targets and directs the day-to-day work.6

On top of gross salary a Vietnamese employer carries about 23.5% in statutory employer contributions — 17.5% social insurance, 3% health insurance, 1% unemployment insurance and a 2% trade-union fee (as of October 2026).89 That on-cost is the same whether the person sells software or runs a territory. What changes between commercial roles is not the employment mechanics but how the person is paid, and how much authority they have to commit your overseas company to customers — which is what drives both the pay-structure questions and the tax risk below. For the general case, see the benefits of using an EOR in Vietnam, weigh it against setting up your own entity, and browse our Vietnam employer guides.

Roles hired this way include field and inside sales, account management, pre-sales, partnerships and channel management, and a country or regional lead.

How is commission and bonus pay handled?

Sales pay is usually part fixed, part variable, and Vietnamese law treats the two differently. The labour contract must state the salary, the form of payment and any allowances and supplements (Labour Code 2019, Art. 21), and a bonus or commission is the employer’s own reward policy under Art. 104 — it binds you only if it is written into the contract, a collective agreement or a published commission plan.6 So put the scheme in writing: an oral “you’ll get 2% of what you close” is hard to enforce and hard to defend if the rep later disputes it.

Two floors constrain how low the fixed part can go. The contractual wage cannot fall below the applicable regional minimum wage — ₫5,310,000 a month in Region I (the Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi city centres) as of 1 January 2026 under Decree 293/2025/ND-CP7 — so you cannot run a rep on pure commission with a token base. And during probation, pay must be at least 85% of the full job salary (Labour Code, Art. 26),6 measured on the fixed salary the commission sits on top of. The regional minimum wage and probation rules are set out in full on their own pages.

Does commission count towards social insurance?

Often not — but it depends on how the commission is built. Under the Social Insurance Law 41/2024/QH15 (in force 1 July 2025, Art. 31) the salary used for compulsory social-insurance contributions is the contractual salary, plus salary-based allowances, plus other additional amounts that are fixed and paid “regularly and stably” each pay period.8 A genuine sales commission that varies with results and cannot be set in advance generally falls outside that contribution base, like a performance bonus; a “commission” that is really a fixed, regular amount can be treated as part of it. Because the test is about substance, not the label, confirm the treatment of a specific plan with your payroll adviser — and note that pay above the ₫50,600,000 monthly social- and health-insurance ceiling is not charged those contributions in any case (as of October 2026).8 The full contribution mechanics are on social insurance in Vietnam.

How is commission taxed?

Commission is taxable employment income in the employee’s hands, taxed exactly like salary. For a tax resident it is taxed at the progressive 5%–35% rates after the ₫15,500,000 monthly personal deduction; for a non-resident, at a flat 20% on Vietnam-sourced pay (Personal Income Tax Law 109/2025/QH15).10 The employer withholds the tax from each payment and, from 1 July 2026, declares it quarterly, with an annual finalisation.10 See Vietnam personal income tax for the bands and deductions.

What is the dependent-agent PE risk for a sales role?

A permanent establishment is a taxable business presence in Vietnam. It can be a fixed place such as a branch, office or factory; the provision of services in Vietnam for 183 days or more in any twelve-month period; or a dependent agent — a person who acts for a foreign company.1 The dependent-agent limb is the one that matters for commercial hires. It can arise where a person in Vietnam habitually concludes contracts, or habitually negotiates or plays the principal role leading to the conclusion of contracts, that bind a foreign enterprise, and is not a genuinely independent agent.2 A sales rep who closes deals, or a country manager who commits the company to customers and partners, is precisely the fact pattern the rule describes.

The consequence is a tax one. Where a dependent-agent PE is found, Vietnam can tax the profits attributable to that agent, collected mainly through the Foreign Contractor Tax regime — which has a corporate-income-tax part and a VAT part4 — and a PE removes the usual double-tax-treaty shield on the corporate-income-tax part, so treaty relief on business profits is available only when there is no PE.2 Since 1 July 2026, Circular 95/2026/TT-BTC also applies a sharper substance test and widened what can count as a PE.3 This is a fact- and treaty-specific grey area, so take Vietnamese tax advice before placing a deal-making role; the dependent-agent PE mechanism is set out in full here.

Country managers and foreign hires

A country or regional manager is usually the most exposed hire of all. The role exists to represent the company and move deals forward, so it is the one most likely to hold — in practice if not on paper — the authority to commit your company to customers, which is the dependent-agent trigger above. Nor is there an easy way to “park” the role in a lighter vehicle: a representative office is a liaison-only presence that may do market research, promotion and liaison, but may not generate revenue, sign commercial contracts in its own name or issue invoices, and it cannot lawfully employ staff who perform the parent’s revenue-earning work in Vietnam (Commercial Law 36/2005; Decree 07/2016).5 Worse, the 2026 treaty circular can treat even a representative office as a permanent establishment where it negotiates or concludes commercial contracts rather than doing genuine liaison work.3

Many country managers are foreign nationals, and a foreign hire needs a work permit, which the EOR sponsors. Under Decree 219/2025/ND-CP (in force 7 August 2025) a senior commercial lead is normally permitted in the “manager” or “executive director” category; the permit lasts up to two years, tied to the labour-contract term (Art. 21), and is issued within 10 working days of a complete application.11 A foreign manager on a 12-month-plus contract also joins social and health insurance but is exempt from unemployment insurance, so the employer on-cost is about 22.5% once the 2% trade-union fee is added.89 Because the permit, visa and residence-card handling differs case to case, a foreign hire is quoted separately rather than at the flat fee. Eligibility and the dossier are on work permits for foreign employees in Vietnam.

Senior commercial pay in Vietnam can be substantial: Navigos Group’s Talent Guide 2026 reports general-management monthly pay spanning roughly ₫100–500 million (about US$3,800–19,200), with the very top C-suite figures higher still — a third-party market observation, not our own data (reported February 2026).12 An EOR keeps the employment lawful and a licensed Vietnamese company in the employer’s seat, but it does not change the tax analysis of what the manager actually does — compare the trade-offs on EOR versus setting up an entity.

Protecting customers and data when a rep leaves

A salesperson carries your customer relationships and pipeline, so two questions come up on exit: can you stop them competing, and who may hold the customer data they built up?

Non-compete. Treat post-employment non-competes as fact-specific, not automatic. No Vietnamese statute directly makes them enforceable, and they sit in tension with the constitutional right to work, but a 2023 case precedent (No. 69/2023/AL, effective 1 November 2023) confirmed that commercial arbitration can hear non-compete and non-disclosure disputes as independent civil agreements. A clause reasonable in scope and duration (commonly 12 to 24 months) stands a far better chance than one barring a whole industry.13 A confidentiality and trade-secret agreement is on firmer ground — the Labour Code expressly allows one, with defined scope, duration and compensation for breach (Art. 21.2).6 The full enforceability picture is on non-compete agreements in Vietnam.

Customer data. A rep’s CRM records, contact lists and prospect data are personal data under the Personal Data Protection Law 91/2025/QH15 and its implementing Decree 356/2025/ND-CP, both in force since 1 January 2026. Processing needs clear notice and consent, and sending customer or employee data to an overseas CRM, parent or client can require a cross-border-transfer impact assessment filed with the authorities — though an exemption can apply to transfers made to manage staff across a group.14 How this applies to employee and customer data in an EOR set-up is on the PDPL and HR data in Vietnam.

How do you structure a sales role to reduce PE risk?

The line the authorities draw is between an in-country person who supports the sale and one who commits the company. Keeping the role firmly on the support side is what separates a lower-risk arrangement from one that creates a permanent establishment. Practical measures, all to confirm with a Vietnamese tax adviser for your facts:

• Keep contracting authority offshore. The overseas company negotiates the final terms and signs; the in-country person builds the relationship, demonstrates the product and relays requirements.
• Price to a fixed, head-office-approved list. Removing discretion to agree bespoke terms reduces the apparent authority that looks like agency.
• Document the limits in writing. The scope and delegation limit in the role description and the EOR contract should match what happens day to day — substance governs, not labels.
• Check the treaty, early. Relief on business profits depends on there being no PE and on the treaty being claimed properly — and there is no treaty in force between Vietnam and the United States, so US companies fall back on domestic rules.2

None of this rules out a PE finding; it is risk reduction, and the facts are assessed as a whole. US-headquartered hirers should read how the missing US–Vietnam treaty changes the picture before placing a commercial role here.

How EOR Vietnam employs your commercial hires

Through the EOR Vietnam service we employ your sales, business-development and country-manager hires through a Vietnam-registered entity and handle the contract, payroll, the roughly 23.5% statutory employer contributions, PIT withholding, onboarding and offboarding, and — for foreign hires — work-permit and residence-card sponsorship.89 Our fee is a flat US$149 per employee per month for Vietnamese nationals, the same regardless of salary, seniority, role, location in Vietnam or headcount (as of October 2026); it is not a percentage of payroll, so a high-commission earner costs the same to administer as any other employee. Foreign nationals who need a Vietnamese work permit — many country managers — are quoted separately, because the permit, visa and residence handling differs case to case. A refundable deposit equal to two months of the employee’s employment cost (gross salary plus the employer contributions) is held for the engagement and returned at the end, less any unpaid amounts. There are no setup, onboarding, offboarding, contract or payslip fees and no hidden fees; salary, the statutory contributions and any statutory or agreed employment payments are passed through at cost. See what an EOR actually costs in Vietnam.

The honest caveat matters most here: employing the person through our entity keeps the employment lawful and a licensed Vietnamese company in the employer’s seat, but it does not, on its own, rule out your company being treated as having a permanent establishment in Vietnam. That still depends on what the person does and on the applicable treaty.2 We will tell you where a role looks exposed and recommend you take Vietnamese tax advice rather than claim a risk away — and if your own entity would serve you better, we will say so. You can request a costed EOR Vietnam quote whenever you are ready.