Document management, translation and legalisation, registered office and entity support, and authority filings for foreign-invested companies in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia.
Part of Viettonkin's Global Company Registration services
ASEAN received 15 per cent of global foreign direct investment inflows in 2024 and has been the leading recipient among developing regions for four consecutive years. Every one of the companies behind those figures carries a second, quieter workload once it is licensed: corporate records to keep, bilingual and legalised documents to produce, a registered address that has to stay compliant, and a recurring calendar of filings to several different authorities. None of it is optional, and almost none of it works the same way in two markets.
The differences are sharper than most investors expect, and they are procedural rather than strategic, which is exactly why they get missed. The Hague Apostille Convention entered into force for Vietnam on 11 September 2026, except with the states that objected to its accession, which include Germany, Austria and Czechia, whose documents still need consular legalisation. Indonesia has accepted apostilled documents since 2022. Thailand deposited its instrument of accession on 30 June 2026, and the Convention enters into force for Thailand on 28 February 2027, so until that date documents still go through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the relevant embassy.
Registered address rules, seal practice, record retention and reporting cadence diverge just as much. Viettonkin runs this function as a managed service across the four areas it breaks into: document and records management, translation and legalisation, registered office and entity support, and contract and employment documentation. It is coordinated with our corporate secretarial, compliance and legal teams, so the administrative record and what the entity actually reports do not drift apart.
Administrative failures are rarely dramatic. They surface as a rejected dossier, an address that no longer matches the register, or a filing nobody owned, and they are usually discovered at the worst possible moment.
The work arrives from several directions at once. Tax and social insurance obligations run on their own cadence. Investment reporting runs on another. Corporate records have to be updated whenever the company changes something, and each change has a document trail that the authority expects in a particular form. Because no single one of these is difficult, they are often left with whoever has capacity, which is how a company ends up with a records file that nobody can reconstruct.
The most common cause of delay in our experience is not slow processing at the authority. It is an incomplete or inconsistent dossier: a document legalised the wrong way, a name or address that differs between two filings, a signature from a person whose authority is not evidenced. Each of those resets the clock, and the reset is usually blamed on the authority rather than on the submission.
The second pattern is drift. An entity moves office, changes its legal representative or adjusts its business lines, and the operational change happens before the registration record catches up. Nothing appears wrong until a bank, a buyer or an inspector compares the register with reality.
The service categories are the same in each market. The mechanics below are not, and they are the part a playbook written for one country gets wrong in the next.
Scroll the table horizontally on smaller screens.
| Dimension | Vietnam | Thailand | Indonesia |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foreign document authentication | Apostille in force since 11 September 2026. Documents from states that objected to Vietnam's accession, including Germany, Austria and Czechia, still require consular legalisation. | Apostille enters into force on 28 February 2027. Until then, legalisation through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the relevant embassy. | Apostille accepted since 2022, so a foreign public document generally needs only the apostille from its country of origin. |
| Registered address | A registered office is mandatory, and a relocation has to be notified to the business registration authority, sometimes with a licence amendment. | The address must be verifiable and backed by the right to use it. Houses can qualify; condominium units depend on the building's rules. | A commercial address is required for a foreign-owned company, and it has to be consistent with the registered business classification. |
| Company seal | A seal is customary and is used on statutory documents. | A seal is optional. Where a company registers one, it is used on share certificates. | A company stamp is customary for corporate documents rather than a registration requirement. |
| Core recurring report | Investment monitoring and statistics reporting, alongside tax and social insurance filings. | Annual accounts filed after the annual general meeting, alongside Revenue Department filings. | Quarterly investment activity reporting through the online licensing system, alongside tax filings. |
| Records and registry | Accounting records retained under the Accounting Law, with the enterprise record held by the business registration authority. | Accounting records retained under the Accounting Act, with the corporate record held by the Department of Business Development. | Corporate records held through the legal administration and online licensing platforms, with retention under company and tax rules. |
Each market page sets out the recurring obligations, the document requirements, where filings go and what our engagement covers there.
Corporate records, bilingual documents, apostille and consular legalisation, authority liaison and registered office support for foreign-invested companies in Vietnam.
Read the vietnam position
Registered address compliance, document legalisation through the apostille transition, Department of Business Development and Revenue Department filings, and corporate records management in Thailand.
Read the thailand position
Registered address compliance, apostille document handling, quarterly investment activity and beneficial ownership reporting, and corporate records management for foreign-owned companies in Indonesia.
Read the indonesia positionScoping an engagement starts by deciding which of these four areas we take on and which stay in house. Most clients start with the first two and add the others as the entity grows.
The corporate record for the entity and any branches or representative offices: charter and internal regulations, minutes and resolutions, registers of members or shareholders, licences and certificates, accounting books and financial statements. The point of the service is that the file is complete and current at any moment, not reconstructed when somebody asks for it.
Bilingual documents prepared to the standard the receiving authority expects, certified copies, notarisation through a competent notary office, and the correct authentication route for foreign documents. The route is the part that varies: apostille for Indonesia, apostille for Vietnam since 11 September 2026 except with objecting states, and consular legalisation in Thailand until 28 February 2027.
Maintaining the registered address, handling relocations and the filings they trigger, coordinating legal representative and authorised signatory documentation, and receiving official correspondence at the registered location so nothing is missed while management is abroad.
Drafting and reviewing contracts, and maintaining the employment file: contracts, leave and working time records, documentation for foreign staff, and the statutory filings that attach to employing people in each market.
Of everything on this page, document authentication is the item that most reliably derails a filing, because the requirement belongs to the receiving country and not to the country that issued the document.
An apostille is a single certificate issued by a competent authority in the country where the document was issued, and it is accepted by every other contracting party without further steps. Consular legalisation is a chain: the document is authenticated locally, then by the foreign ministry, then by the embassy or consulate of the country where it will be used. Both produce a valid document. Only one of them is a single step.
This is why the same corporate document set can be straightforward in Indonesia and slower in Thailand, which stays on consular legalisation until the Apostille Convention enters into force for it on 28 February 2027. Vietnam joined the apostille system on 11 September 2026, but not with the states that objected to its accession, such as Germany, Austria and Czechia. An investor who assumes an apostille will be accepted in Thailand before that date, or in Vietnam for a document from an objecting state, has a document that has to be reprocessed from the beginning.
We work backwards from the authority that will receive the document. That determines the route, the order of the steps, the translation and certification each step requires, and how long the document stays valid once authenticated. Where a document set will be used in more than one of the three markets, it is worth preparing them together rather than discovering the second route after the first is finished.
The cadence below is the service, rather than a project with an end date. Processing times belong to the authorities and we do not quote them as commitments.
We take stock of what exists: the corporate file, the licences, the current registered particulars and the filings already made. Gaps between the register and reality are identified here, which is the cheapest moment to fix them.
Bilingual documents, certified copies, notarisation and the correct legalisation or apostille route per document, prepared for the authority that will receive it.
Address maintenance and relocations, legal representative and signatory changes, and the registration amendments each one triggers, filed in the order the authority expects.
Investment, tax, social insurance and employment filings tracked against an agreed calendar, with a named owner for each item and an escalation route when something is missing.
Contract drafting and review, and the employment documentation and statutory records that have to be produced on request rather than assembled later.
Building this capacity in house for a single entity is rarely efficient, and the rules differ enough across the three markets that experience in one does not transfer cleanly to the next.
Authentication regimes, registration decrees and reporting formats change without much announcement. Thailand moving to apostille is a good example: nothing in the investor's own process changes until the date it does.
We would rather spend an extra day on the dossier than repeat a submission. Reviewing completeness before filing is the single highest return step in administrative work.
Records, translation, entity support and employment documentation under one coordinator rather than four vendors, which removes the handoff gaps where items get lost.
The administrative record feeds the compliance calendar and the corporate secretarial file, so what the company holds matches what it reports.
Knowing the submission format each authority expects, and the reasons dossiers commonly come back, is what reduces round trips. It is unglamorous and it is most of the value.
Since 2009, Viettonkin has supported 2,000+ businesses, including Fortune 500 and VNR500 companies. In the engagements below, administrative work formed part of a wider operational 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 study
A Singaporean company with operations across Southeast Asia and America needed its regional presence wound down. Viettonkin proposed the approach for the dissolution itself and for the payroll, accounting and tax work that has to be completed alongside it.
Read the case studyPractical answers on documents, authority liaison and day to day entity administration.
Four areas: the corporate and accounting records file, translation and document authentication, registered office and entity support including the filings that changes trigger, and contract and employment documentation. An engagement can take all four or start with the ones that are causing problems.
In Vietnam, yes, since the Convention entered into force for it on 11 September 2026, except for documents from states that objected to its accession, including Germany, Austria and Czechia, which still need consular legalisation. Thailand accepts apostilles once the Convention enters into force for it on 28 February 2027. Before that date, Thai documents for use abroad and foreign documents for use in Thailand still go through the consular chain.
We maintain the calendar, prepare the filings and submit them, with a named owner for each item. The legal obligation stays with the company and its legal representative, which is why the calendar and the evidence of each submission are visible to you rather than held only by us.
It usually complements. Accounting produces the numbers and the tax filings. Administrative services cover the records, the documents, the registered particulars and the authority liaison around them. Where your accountant already handles part of this, we scope around it rather than duplicate it.
Yes. Closing an entity is mostly administrative: authority notifications in the right sequence, payroll and tax finalisation, social insurance de-registration, document certification and the dissolution filing itself. It is quoted separately because the scope depends on what state the records are in.
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.
