Shall the 2025 Tet Holiday of Vietnam (from December 26) lasting 9 days? What is the date of the first day of Tet 2025?

Shall the 2025 Tet Holiday of Vietnam (from December 26) lasting 9 days? What is the date of the first day of Tet 2025?

Recently, the Office of the Government of Vietnam issued Official Dispatch 8726/VPCP-KGVX dated November 26, 2024 download, conveying the directive of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh concerning the Tet Holiday and several holiday periods in 2025.

The Prime Minister of the Government of Vietnam agreed with the proposal from the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs in the aforementioned documents regarding the Tet Holidays, National Day holidays, and the swap of working days for the holiday period of Victory Day on April 30 and International Labor Day on May 1, 2025.

The Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs shall notify administrative bodies, public service agencies, political organizations, socio-political organizations, businesses, and employees as prescribed.

To be specific, officials, public employees, and workers will have a 5-day Tet holiday, from Monday, January 27, 2025, to Friday, January 31, 2025 (from the 28th of the Lunar Year of the Dragon to the 3rd of the Lunar Year of the Snake).

However, since 2025 has 5 days of the Tet Holiday falling on weekdays, employees are entitled to an additional 2 weekends before and 2 days off after the Tet holiday.

Thus, the official 2025 Tet Holiday begins from January 25 to February 2, 2025 (from December 26 of the previous Lunar year to the 5th of January of the new Lunar year).

Additionally, according to the calendar, the First Day of the Tet 2025 falls on January 29, 2025, in the Gregorian calendar.

Shall the 2025 Tet Holiday of Vietnam (from December 26) lasting 9 days? What is the date of the first day of Tet 2025? (Image from the Internet)

Vietnam: Is the employer required to give a Tet bonus to employees in 2025?

Based on Article 104 of the Labor Code 2019, the bonus is regulated as follows:

Bonus

1. A bonus is a sum of money or assets given by the employer to the employee based on the production and business results and the level of task completion by the employee.

2. The reward policy shall be decided and publicly announced at the workplace by the employer after consulting with the employee's representative organization where applicable.

Thus, the company is not obligated to give a Tet 2025 bonus to employees.

The Tet bonus entirely depends on the company's business situation along with the employee's work productivity, which allows the company to decide whether to grant a Tet bonus.

Is the Tet 2025 bonus subject to personal income tax in Vietnam?

According to point e, clause 2, Article 2 of Circular 111/2013/TT-BTC regarding taxable income, it states:

Taxable Income

As stipulated in Article 3 of the Personal Income Tax Law and Article 3 of Decree 65/2013/ND-CP, taxable income includes:

...

2. Income from wages, salaries

Income from wages, salaries is income received by the employee from the employer, including:

...

e) Bonuses in monetary or non-monetary forms in any form, including stock bonuses, except for the following bonuses:

e.1) Bonuses accompanied by titles conferred by the State, including bonuses with emulative titles or forms of commendation as per legal regulations on emulation and commendation, specifically:

e.1.1) Bonuses accompanied by emulative titles such as National Emulation Fighter; Emulation Fighter at the ministerial, sector, central union, provincial, and municipal levels; Base-level Emulation Fighter, Advanced Laborers, and Outstanding Soldiers.

e.1.2) Bonuses accompanying forms of commendation.

e.1.3) Bonuses accompanying titles conferred by the State.

e.1.4) Bonuses awarded by Associations, organizations belonging to political organizations, socio-political organizations, social organizations, and socio-professional organizations at the central and local levels in accordance with their charters and the Emulation and Commendation Law.

e.1.5) Bonuses accompanying Ho Chi Minh Prize, State Prize.

e.1.6) Bonuses accompanying Commemorative Medals, Badges.

e.1.7) Bonuses accompanying Certificates of Merit, Certificates of Recognition.

The authority to issue commendation decisions, the level of bonuses accompanying emulative titles, and forms of commendation mentioned above must comply with the Emulation and Commendation Law.

e.2) Bonuses accompanying national and international awards recognized by the State of Vietnam.

e.3) Bonuses for technical innovation, inventions, discoveries recognized by competent State agencies.

e.4) Bonuses related to the detection, reporting of legal violations to competent State agencies.

...

The New Year 2025 bonus is taxable income under personal income tax rules.

However, employees are only required to pay tax after deductions, provided the total income still falls within the taxable income bracket for personal income tax.