Vietnam minimum wage 2026 (by region)

What is Vietnam's minimum wage in 2026?

Vietnam's 2026 minimum wage is a four-region monthly floor set by Decree 293/2025/ND-CP and effective 1 January 2026: ₫5,310,000 in Region I, ₫4,730,000 in Region II, ₫4,140,000 in Region III and ₫3,700,000 in Region IV, with matching hourly floors from ₫25,500 down to ₫17,800.1

There is no single national minimum wage. The four regions reflect the cost of living where the employer operates, so Region I covers the most expensive urban areas and Region IV the least. The decree sets both a monthly and an hourly floor: the monthly figure applies to employees paid by the month and the hourly figure to those paid by the hour. The figures below are the statutory minimums.

How is the minimum-wage region decided in Vietnam?

The minimum-wage region is decided by where the employer operates, not where the employee lives or works remotely. If your employing entity's registered place of operation is in a Region I area, the Region I floor applies to that employee even if they work from a lower-cost province. The area-to-region mapping is listed in the Appendix to Decree 293/2025/ND-CP.1

For an employer of record arrangement, the relevant place of operation is that of the Vietnam-registered employing entity that holds the labour contract. That entity's location fixes both the contractual wage floor and the employer contribution floor described below, which is why the region matters for cost even when the worker is elsewhere in the country. When you hire through EOR Vietnam, that employing entity is ours, so we apply the regional floor for its registered location to every hire.

Vietnam redrew its administrative map in 2025, and that reshaped the Appendix. From 1 July 2025 the number of provincial-level units fell from 63 to 34 — 28 provinces and six centrally-governed cities (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, Hue, Da Nang and Can Tho) — the district level was abolished, and local government moved to a two-tier province-and-commune model under Resolution 202/2025/QH15.4 Because several cities were enlarged by merging in neighbouring provinces, a single city can now span more than one wage region, and the Appendix lists areas by their new ward and commune names. Confirm a location against the current Decree 293/2025/ND-CP Appendix, not an older district list.1

Which region are Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang?

Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City city centres fall in Region I, so the ₫5,310,000 monthly floor applies there. Central Da Nang is Region II at ₫4,730,000 — not Region I, which is a common mistake in older guides. The 2025 provincial mergers enlarged Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang so that each now spans more than one wage region; Hanoi was not merged but still runs from Region I in the centre to Region II in outlying wards. The floor is therefore not uniform across a whole city.14

Ho Chi Minh City absorbed the former Binh Duong and Ba Ria–Vung Tau provinces: its core stays Region I, parts of the former Ba Ria–Vung Tau area are Region II, and some outer communes are Region III. Da Nang merged with the former Quang Nam province and now runs from Region II in its central wards down to Region IV in remote former–Quang Nam communes — see hiring in Da Nang through an EOR. Hanoi's central wards are Region I, with outlying wards in Region II.14

Because ward and commune boundaries were redrawn in the 2025 mergers, a specific ward's or commune's region should be confirmed against the Decree 293/2025/ND-CP Appendix before you rely on it. The table below gives the city-centre position only.

What is the minimum wage used for?

Vietnam's regional minimum wage is the lawful floor for two things: the gross salary an employer may agree in a labour contract, and the salary on which compulsory insurance contributions are calculated. An employer cannot contract a gross wage below the applicable regional minimum, nor declare a contribution salary below it (Labour Code 2019, Article 91; Decree 293/2025/ND-CP).21

The minimum wage is a floor, not a benchmark for actual pay. Vietnam no longer mandates the old 7% premium above the minimum wage for trained or skilled workers; any such premium is now purely contractual, not a legal requirement.1 Because the figure also sets the floor for the contribution base, it feeds into the roughly 23.5% statutory on-cost an employer carries — see Vietnam payroll and employer costs for the full breakdown, social insurance in Vietnam for how that floor applies to each contribution, and the employer-cost calculator to run a figure for your salary and region. The regional minimum wage also sets the unemployment-insurance contribution ceiling, at 20 times the regional floor — ₫106,200,000 a month in Region I for 2026.1

The wage floor is one of several terms a compliant contract must respect, alongside contract type, probation and working hours. For those rules, see Vietnam employment contracts and labour law. In practice, salaries for skilled roles typically sit well above the minimum, so the floor mainly binds for entry-level pay. For sourced market pay ranges well above that floor, role by role, see the Vietnam salary guide.

Did Vietnam's minimum wage rise in 2026?

Yes. Decree 293/2025/ND-CP, issued 10 November 2025 and effective 1 January 2026, raised the regional minimum wage by about 7.2% across all four regions, superseding the rates set by Decree 74/2024/ND-CP that applied through 2025. The increase lifted every region's monthly and hourly floor and reset the contribution floor from the same date.3

The timing matters for anyone budgeting a 2026 hire: the new floors applied from 1 January 2026, so any guide still quoting the 2025 Region I figure, or treating Decree 74/2024 as current, is out of date. The figures on this page are the in-force 2026 values. Minimum-wage levels are reviewed roughly annually but revised only every year or two, so re-check before a new hire whose pay sits close to the floor.