Corporate records, bilingual documents, apostille and consular legalisation, authority liaison and registered office support for foreign-invested companies in Vietnam.
Part of Viettonkin's Global Company Registration services
As of 31 December 2025, Vietnam had 45,416 valid foreign direct investment projects with total registered capital of about USD 529.6 billion, according to the Foreign Investment Agency. Each of those projects sits inside a company that files, reports and keeps records continuously, across the tax authority, the social insurance agency, the labour authority and the business registration authority. The administrative load is the part of a Vietnamese entity that never finishes.
Vietnam concentrates a lot of that load into documents. Bilingual versions are expected, certified copies and notarisation are routine, and since 11 September 2026 a foreign public document from most Apostille Convention states needs only an apostille, while documents from states that objected to Vietnam's accession, including Germany, Austria and Czechia, still go through consular legalisation.
The other characteristic is cadence. Investment monitoring and statistics reporting, value added tax and personal income tax declarations, monthly social insurance filings, semi annual labour reporting and the annual corporate income tax finalisation all run on their own schedules and through different authorities. Late or inconsistent filings attract administrative penalties in several channels at once, which is why we run them from a single calendar rather than per department.
The calendar below is the reason this service exists. Individually each item is small; together they are a part time job that belongs to somebody, and in most newly established entities that somebody is the finance lead or the general director.
Tax filings run monthly or quarterly depending on the company's position, with the annual corporate income tax finalisation after the financial year closes. Social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance contributions are filed and paid monthly, and they follow headcount changes, so every hire and departure has an administrative consequence. Labour reporting to the provincial labour authority runs twice a year, as does occupational health reporting where it applies.
Alongside the tax and labour calendar, a foreign-invested company reports on the investment project itself: monitoring reports and investment activity statistics, filed quarterly and annually to the authority that manages the project. These are the filings most often missed, because they are unfamiliar to investors whose home market has no equivalent, and because nothing obviously breaks when one is skipped.
Accounting records then have to be retained. The Accounting Law sets minimum retention periods by document category, with longer periods for records of particular significance, and the practical test is whether the company can produce a complete file on request rather than whether it believes it has one.
Every item below is something we either hold or prepare for a client entity. The list is deliberately concrete, because administrative scope written in general terms is where expectations diverge.
The legal records for the entity and any branch or representative office: charter, seals and internal regulations, meeting minutes and resolutions, the register of members or shareholders, licences and certificates, audit conclusions, accounting books, financial statements and official correspondence.
Vietnamese and English documents prepared as a matched pair, certified copies, notarisation through a competent notary office, and apostille or consular legalisation, depending on the country at the other end, for foreign documents used in Vietnam or Vietnamese documents used abroad.
Maintaining the registered address, searching for and managing a new business location, preparing and filing enterprise registration amendments, coordinating legal representative documentation, and receiving official documents at the registered address.
Contract drafting and review, payroll support, the employee documentation file, annual leave records, documentation for foreign workers, and social insurance enrolment with the monthly filings that follow.
Four requirements produce most of the rework we see on Vietnamese filings. The first two are about form, the second two about keeping the register true.
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| Requirement | What it involves | Practical note |
|---|---|---|
| Notarisation | Documents requiring notarisation are submitted to a competent notary office rather than certified internally. | Notarial practice was updated recently, so the safe assumption is to confirm the current requirement for the specific document rather than reuse a precedent from an older file. |
| Authentication of foreign documents | An apostille from the issuing state since 11 September 2026, or the full consular chain for states that objected to Vietnam's accession and for non parties. | Check the issuing country first: an apostille from Germany, Austria or Czechia is not accepted in place of legalisation, and a Vietnamese translation is still required. |
| Registered business address | A registered office is mandatory, and relocation has to be notified to the business registration authority. | Depending on the licence, a relocation can also require an amendment to the project documentation, so the sequence matters. |
| Resident legal representative | The company must have at least one legal representative residing in Vietnam. Where only one resident legal representative is in place, that person must authorise another resident in writing whenever they leave the country. | Without that written authorisation, banking, tax and administrative actions that need the legal representative stall until someone is properly authorised. |
Submissions go to several authorities, each with its own format and its own common rejection reasons. We work to an agreed procedure per obligation so the work is repeatable rather than improvised each cycle.
Filings to the tax authority, the social insurance agency, the labour authority and the authority managing the investment project, tracked against the calendar with a named owner and an escalation point for anything outstanding.
A complete dossier prepared for changes to the company name, charter capital, legal representative, business lines, members or registered shareholders and head office. Changes have to be registered or notified within the period the Law on Enterprises sets, so the dossier is prepared before the change takes effect rather than after.
Documents routed to a competent notary office, and the apostille or consular route coordinated for anything crossing a border, depending on the issuing country, including the translations each step needs.
Where something is urgent, the levers available are early dossier review, correct sequencing and close follow up inside the authority's own procedure. Processing time itself belongs to the authority, and anyone promising to compress it is describing something else.
None of the five below is exotic. They are the recurring ones, and each is preventable at the preparation stage.
A missing supporting document, or information that differs between two filings, is the most common cause of delay we see, more common than slow processing. The submission is returned and the clock effectively restarts.
Vietnam has accepted apostilles since 11 September 2026, but not from states that objected to its accession, including Germany, Austria and Czechia. A document from one of those states, or one submitted without its Vietnamese translation, has to go back through the correct route from the start.
The company moves, operations continue, and the registered particulars quietly become untrue. It surfaces during a transaction, a licence renewal or an inspection, when correcting it is no longer routine.
Investment monitoring reports and statistics filings are the usual casualties, because they are unfamiliar and nothing visibly breaks when one is skipped. Penalties accumulate across channels rather than arriving as one bill.
Leaving Vietnam without authorising another resident in writing leaves the entity unable to complete banking, tax and administrative actions that require the legal representative.
Scope is agreed in writing before onboarding, including the parts that stay with your team.
Records management, bilingual document and certified copy preparation, notarisation, apostille and consular legalisation coordination, registered address and business location support, enterprise registration amendment filings, authority liaison, contract drafting and review, payroll support and employment documentation.
Dissolution and administrative wind down, because the work depends on the state of the records and on how many authorities are involved.
The legal obligations themselves, and the decisions. We prepare, file and evidence; approval and signature stay with your legal representative.
Compliance services for the obligation calendar, corporate secretarial for the statutory record, and legal services where a document needs an opinion rather than administration.
Since 2009, Viettonkin has supported 2,000+ businesses, including Fortune 500 and VNR500 companies. The engagements below took place in Vietnam, where the administrative and documentation work formed part of a wider mandate.
A Canadian corporation established a legal entity in Vietnam for an aircraft components production line. The engagement extended to factory rental, recruitment and accounting and tax procedures, with Viettonkin acting as legal representative and handling contract drafting and review.
Read the case study
Two investors from China set up a joint venture company and factory in Vietnam. Under a retainership, Viettonkin advised on the legal process, compliance issues in construction and manufacturing and charter capital procedures, and supported adjustments to the Investment Registration Certificate and Business Registration Certificate.
Read the case studyPractical answers on documents, authority liaison and day to day entity administration.
Yes, since the Apostille Convention entered into force for Vietnam on 11 September 2026, for public documents from contracting states that did not object to its accession. Documents from objecting states, including Germany, Austria and Czechia, and from non parties still need legalisation through the issuing country's foreign ministry and the Vietnamese embassy or consulate. A Vietnamese translation is still required either way.
The investment monitoring and investment activity statistics reports. They are unfamiliar to most investors, nothing visibly breaks when one is skipped, and the penalties surface later alongside tax and labour exposure rather than on their own.
Where the company has only one legal representative residing in Vietnam, a written authorisation to another person residing in Vietnam is required each time that representative leaves the country, not only for long trips. Without one, anything requiring the legal representative, including banking and several tax and administrative actions, cannot be completed until the authorisation is in place.
Both. We maintain a complete working file and prepare documents from it, and you hold the originals. The test we work to is whether a complete, current record can be produced on request without a reconstruction exercise.
Yes, and it is worth telling us before the move rather than after. A relocation is notified to the business registration authority, and depending on the licence it can also require an amendment to the project documentation, so the filings are prepared in sequence.
Regulatory points checked on 16 September 2026; market statistics checked on 11 September 2026. Requirements depend on the entity, the activity and the date of filing.
Tell us which entities you run and where the administrative work currently sits. We will map the recurring obligations, the documents each one needs and the parts of it we can take on.
