Work permit exemptions in Vietnam

Who is exempt from a work permit in Vietnam?

Fifteen categories of foreign worker are exempt from a Vietnam work permit under Decree 219/2025/ND-CP, the instrument in force since 7 August 2025 that replaced the older Decree 152/2020 regime.1 The list grew from 14 to 15 cases, the extra category being workers certified for priority sectors such as finance, science, technology, innovation and national digital transformation.3 Decree 219/2025 sets the full list out in a single article — Article 7 — implementing the Labour Code's own exemption provision (Article 154), so there is one consolidated list to work from rather than two.2

The categories that matter most to employers hiring into Vietnam are gathered below. This is the headline set, not the full statutory text — each case carries its own conditions, so treat it as a map and check the complete Article 7 list line by line for a borderline role. For the permit process itself, the eligibility categories and the dossier, see Vietnam work permits for foreign employees.

What is the 90-day work-permit exemption?

The 90-day exemption is the change employers notice first. A manager, executive director, expert or technical worker who is present in Vietnam for a total of fewer than 90 days in a calendar year does not need a work permit.1 The count is cumulative across the year (1 January to 31 December), not per trip, so several short visits are added together toward the 90-day ceiling.4

This replaced a much narrower old test — a stay of 30 days or less per entry, allowed up to three times a year — which made short advisory visits, audits and project reviews awkward to run lawfully. A single cumulative 90-day budget is both more generous and easier to track, which is why it is the exemption most used for visiting specialists and group staff who come and go. It does not help a continuous role: once a posting runs past the 90-day mark in a calendar year, the worker needs a full permit, which is valid for up to two years and issued within 10 working days of a complete dossier.1 A visiting examiner or short-course English trainer is a common fit for the 90-day rule, while an ongoing classroom role needs that full permit — see hiring English teachers in Vietnam.

Do you still have to notify the authority if a worker is exempt?

Usually yes — exemption removes the work permit, not every filing. Decree 219/2025 runs two tracks: for a defined set of exempt cases the employer files a short notification; for the remaining cases it still obtains a confirmation of exemption from the provincial labour authority. Either way, something has to reach the authority before the worker starts.78

The notification is the lighter track. Where it applies — short-stay under-90-day workers, owners and capital-contributing members, joint-stock board members, accredited foreign correspondents and a few others — the employer notifies the competent provincial labour authority at least three working days before the worker is expected to start, giving the worker's name, date of birth, nationality, passport number, the employer's name, the workplace and the working period.17 The other exempt categories keep the confirmation-of-exemption step, obtained before the start date and valid for up to two years.8 So "exempt" rarely means "nothing to file": it means a lighter filing, not none, and missing it leaves the worker's presence unreported even though the exemption itself holds.

What other exemptions are common?

Beyond the 90-day rule, four exemptions come up repeatedly in practice, each with a real condition attached. Owners and capital-contributing members of a limited-liability company, and chairpersons or board members of a joint-stock company, are exempt where the contributed capital is at least VND 3 billion — a threshold stated in the decree and worth confirming against the current text before relying on it.12 Intra-corporate transferees are exempt where the person moves within a foreign enterprise that operates in one of the service sectors Vietnam opened under its WTO commitments, provided they were employed by that enterprise for at least 12 months before the transfer.1

Two more are narrower but useful. A foreign lawyer who holds a certificate to practise law in Vietnam is exempt, and so is a foreigner who is married to a Vietnamese citizen and lives in Vietnam.1 Being exempt from the work permit does not automatically settle the person's immigration status: depending on the category they may still need a visa or a residence card to enter and stay, so pair the exemption with the right entry document — see Vietnam work visas and the Temporary Residence Card. Being exempt from the work permit does not by itself decide the person's social-insurance position — that is a separate test (broadly, a work permit or practising certificate plus a local contract of 12 months or more), so confirm it case by case: see social insurance for foreign employees.5

Exemption confirmation vs a full work permit

It helps to see the exemption route and the full-permit route side by side, because the paperwork, the lead time and the duration are genuinely different. The exempt route is lighter and faster, but it is tied to the ground that makes the worker exempt — most obviously the calendar-year clock on the 90-day rule — whereas a full permit gives a defined two-year footing.

How does EOR Vietnam handle exemptions and notifications?

As the legal employer, an employer of record decides and documents which route a foreign hire takes. EOR Vietnam's registered entity assesses whether the role qualifies for an exemption — most often the under-90-days rule or an intra-corporate transfer — and, where it does, files the three-working-day notification (or the confirmation-of-exemption step for the cases that still need it) with the right provincial authority, keeps a running count of the worker's days in Vietnam against the calendar-year ceiling, and flags when a stay is about to cross into full-permit territory. Where no exemption fits, it runs the full work-permit dossier end to end instead. Because a Vietnamese entity is what makes any of this filable, this is also part of why using an EOR is lawful in Vietnam without your own company.

On price, EOR Vietnam's service fee is a flat US$149 per employee per month for Vietnamese nationals, regardless of salary, role, location or headcount, with 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, and salary, statutory contributions and agreed employment payments are passed through at cost (as of October 2026). A foreign hire — including one you believe is exempt — is quoted separately, because the exemption notification, any confirmation step and the visa or residence-card work differ case by case. The all-in figures, with the statutory on-cost shown separately from the fee, are set out under what an EOR in Vietnam costs; the service as a whole is on the main EOR Vietnam page, and the wider library sits in the Vietnam employer guides.