What goods and services are exempted from value-added tax in Vietnam from July 1, 2025?

What goods and services are exempted from value-added tax in Vietnam from July 1, 2025?

Based on Article 5 of the Law on Value Added Tax 2024, the goods and services not subject to value-added tax are as follows:

- Products from plant cultivation, afforestation, livestock breeding, aquaculture, and fishing that have not been processed into other products or have only undergone simple initial processing, produced and sold by organizations or individuals and at the import stage.

- Breeding animal products as prescribed by the law on livestock and plant material propagation products as per the law on plant cultivation.

- Animal feed as per the law on livestock; aquafeed as per the law on aquaculture.

- Salt products produced from seawater, natural rock salt, refined salt, iodized salt with sodium chloride (NaCl) as the main component.

- State-owned public property housing sold to the current tenants.

- Irrigation, water drainage; ploughing, harrowing of land; dredging of in-field canals, ditches serving agricultural production; agricultural product harvesting services.

- Land use rights transfer.

- Life insurance, health insurance, student insurance, and other human-related insurance services; livestock insurance, crop insurance, other agricultural insurance services; insurance of ships, boats, equipment, and other necessary tools directly serving fishing activities; reinsurance; insurance of oil and gas works, equipment, and foreign-registered oil tankers rented by foreign oil and gas contractors or subcontractors to operate in Vietnam’s territorial waters, overlapping seas agreed upon by Vietnam and contiguous or opposite coastal states as being under a joint policies exploitation.

- The following financial, banking, securities, and commercial services:

+ Credit provision services as prescribed by the law on credit institutions and specific fees stated in Vietnam Government Loan Agreements with foreign lenders;

+ Loan provision services by taxpayers who are not credit institutions;

+ Securities trading, including securities brokerage, securities trading for own account, securities issuance underwriting, securities investment consulting, securities investment fund management, securities portfolio management as prescribed by the law on securities;

+ Capital transfer, including transferring part or the entire invested capital in another economic entity (regardless of whether a new legal entity is established or not), transferring securities, transferring the right to contribute capital and other forms of capital transfer as per the law, including selling an enterprise to another enterprise for production, business, with the purchasing enterprise inheriting all rights and obligations of the selling enterprise as per the law. Capital transfer referred to in this provision does not include investment project transfers, asset sales;

+ Selling debts, including selling accounts payable and receivable;

+ Foreign exchange trading;

+ Derivative products as prescribed by the law on credit institutions, securities law, and commercial law, including: interest rate swaps; forward contracts; futures contracts; call and put option contracts, and other derivatives;

+ Selling secured assets of the debt of an organization entirely state-owned established by the Government of Vietnam with the function of buying and selling debts to handle non-performing debts of Vietnamese credit institutions.

- The following medical and veterinary services:

+ Medical services include: medical examination, treatment, disease prevention services for humans, family planning services, health care, rehabilitation services for patients; services for caring for the elderly, disabled; patient transportation, rental services for hospital rooms, beds from medical facilities; testing, imaging; blood and blood products for patients.

Services for caring for the elderly, disabled, include caring services related to health, nutrition, and organizing cultural, sports, entertainment activities, physiotherapy, rehabilitation for the elderly, disabled.

In cases where a medical service package as prescribed by the Ministry of Health includes the use of specific drugs for treatment, the income from the drugs used in the medical service package is also subject to value-added tax exemption.

+ Veterinary services include: medical examination, treatment, and disease prevention services for livestock.

- Funeral services.

- Maintenance, repair, and construction activities funded by people's contributions, humanitarian aid (accounting for 50% or more of the total capital used for the project) for historical-cultural sites, scenic places, cultural and artistic works, public service works, infrastructure, and social policy housing.

- Teaching, vocational training activities as prescribed by the law on education, vocational education.

- Broadcasting publicized by state budget funding.

- Publishing, importing, and disseminating newspapers, magazines, bulletins, special editions, political books, textbooks, curricula, legal documents, scientific and technical books, books serving external information, books printed in ethnic minority scripts, and posters and banners for propaganda, including voice or image recording tapes or disks, electronic data; currency, money printing.

- Public passenger transport by bus, tram, inland waterway.

- Machinery, equipment, spares, materials that are not produced domestically that need to be imported for use in scientific research, technology development; machinery, equipment, spare parts, specialized transport vehicles, and materials not domestically produced that need importing for conducting oil and gas exploration and development; airplanes, helicopters, gliders, drilling rigs, ships not domestically produced needing to be imported to create fixed assets of enterprises or rented from abroad for production, business, and leasing.

- National defense and security products according to a list issued by the Minister of National Defense, Minister of Public Security; imported products, services serving defense, security industries according to a list issued by the Prime Minister of the Government of Vietnam.

- Imported goods in cases of humanitarian aid, non-refundable aid. Goods and services sold to foreign organizations, individuals, international organizations for humanitarian aid, non-refundable aid to Vietnam.

- Goods in transit through Vietnam’s territory; goods temporarily imported for re-export; goods temporarily exported for re-import; raw materials imported for production, processing goods for export according to a signed production, processing contract for export with foreign parties; goods and services borne purchased and sold between foreign territory and tax-free zones and among tax-free zones.

Imported goods from abroad by finance leasing companies are directly transported to tax-free zones for financial leasing to enterprises within the tax-free zones.

- Technology transfer as prescribed by the Law on Technology Transfer; intellectual property right transfer according to the Law on Intellectual Property; software products and software services according to the law.

- Gold in the form of bars, ingots not yet processed into jewelry, ornaments, or other products at import stage.

- Exported goods that are natural resources and minerals that have not been processed into other products, and exported goods that are natural resources and minerals processed into other products as per a list regulated by the Government of Vietnam aligned with the state’s orientation not to encourage the export or restrict the export of raw natural resources and minerals.

- Artificial products used to replace parts of a patient's body, including products that are body parts permanently implanted in humans; crutches, wheelchairs, and other specialized assistive devices for the disabled.

- Goods and services of households, individuals producing, doing business with annual revenues of 200 million VND or less; assets of organizations, individuals not doing business, not value-added taxpayers selling; national reserve goods sold by the national reserve agency; collected fees, charges as per the law on fees and charges.

- Imported goods in the following cases:

+ Gifts to state agencies, political organizations, sociopolitical organizations, sociopolitical-professional organizations, social organizations, social-professional associations, people's armed units in duty-free limits as prescribed by export and import tax laws;

+ Gifts within duty-free limits according to export and import tax laws regulations from foreign organizations, individuals to Vietnamese individuals; foreign organization’s, individual's belongings per diplomatic immunity standards and moveable assets within duty-free limits as prescribed by export and import tax laws;

+ Goods under duty-free baggage standards according to export and import tax laws;

+ Goods imported as support, sponsorship for disaster, epidemic, disease, war prevention, mitigation as prescribed by the Government of Vietnam;

+ Goods traded or exchanged over borders for production, consumption of border citizens as per the list of goods traded and exchanged by border citizens according to the law and in duty-free allowances as prescribed by export and import tax laws;

+ Artifacts, antiques, national treasures as prescribed by heritage law imported by competent state agencies.

What goods and services are exempted from value-added tax in Vietnam from July 1, 2025? (Image from the Internet)

What goods are entitled to a 0% tax rate in Vietnam under the Law on Value Added Tax 2024?

Pursuant to Clause 1, Article 9 of the Law on Value Added Tax 2024, the provisions on a 0% tax rate are as follows:

- Export goods include: goods exported from Vietnam sold to organizations or individuals abroad and consumed outside Vietnam; goods from the domestic market sold to organizations in tax-free zones and consumed in the tax-free zones directly serving export production activities; goods sold in isolated areas to individuals (foreigners or Vietnamese) who have completed exit procedures; goods sold in duty-free shops;

- Export services include: services provided directly to foreign organizations or individuals and consumed outside Vietnam; services provided directly to organizations in tax-free zones and consumed in tax-free zones directly serving export production activities;

- Other export goods and services include: international transportation; rental services of transportation vehicles used outside Vietnam’s territory; services of the aviation and maritime sectors provided directly or through agencies for international transportation; overseas construction, installation activities or in tax-free zones; digital information content products provided to the foreign side and has documentation, proof of being consumed outside Vietnam according to regulations from the Government of Vietnam; spare parts, supplies for repairing, maintaining vehicles, machinery, and equipment for foreign parties and consumed outside Vietnam; goods processed to continue exporting as per legal regulations; goods and services not subject to value-added tax when exported, except for cases where a 0% tax rate is not applied as provided in point d of this clause;

- Cases where a 0% tax rate is not applicable include: technology transfer, intellectual property right transfer abroad; reinsurance services abroad; credit provision services; capital transfer; derivative products; postal, telecommunications services; export products as specified in Clause 23, Article 5 of the Law on Value Added Tax 2024; imported tobacco, alcohol, beer subsequently exported; gasoline, oil purchased domestically and sold to businesses within tax-free zones; cars sold to organizations, individuals in tax-free zones.

When is the time for determining value-added tax in Vietnam under the Law on Value Added Tax 2024?

Pursuant to Article 8 of the Law on Value Added Tax 2024, the time for determining value-added tax is stipulated as follows:

- The time for determining value-added tax is provided as follows:

+ For goods, it is the time when the ownership or right to use the goods is transferred to the buyer or at the time of invoicing, regardless of whether the payment has been received or not;

+ For services, it is the time of completing the supply of services or the time of invoicing, regardless of whether the payment has been received or not.

- The time for determining value-added tax for the following goods and services is regulated by the Government of Vietnam:

+ Exported goods, imported goods;

+ Telecommunication services;

+ Insurance business services;

+ Electricity, water production supply activities;

+ Real estate business activities;

+ Construction, installation, and oil and gas exploration activities.