Conditions for becoming members or member cooperatives prescribed by Vietnam’s law

According to Article 13 of the Cooperative Law 2012 of Vietnam, conditions for becoming members or member cooperatives are specified as follows:

- Individuals, households and legal entities that wish to become members of a cooperative must meet the following conditions:

+ Individuals are Vietnamese citizens or foreigners lawfully residing in Vietnam, are 18 years or older, have full civil act capacity; households have a lawful representative as prescribed by law; an agency or organization is a Vietnamese legal entity.

+ For a job creation cooperative, its members are individuals only;

+ Having needs for cooperation with other members and for using products and services of the cooperative;

+ Filing an application for voluntarily joining the cooperative and agreeing with its charter;

+ Contributing capital as prescribed in Clause 1, Article 17 of this Law and the cooperative’s charter;

+ Other conditions as prescribed by the cooperative’s charter.

- A cooperative wishing to become a member of a union of cooperatives must meet the following conditions:

+ Having needs for cooperation with other member cooperatives and for using products and services of the union of cooperatives;

+ Filing an application for voluntarily joining and agreeing with the charter of the union of cooperatives;

+ Contributing capital as prescribed in Clause 2, Article 17 of this Law and the charter of the union of cooperatives;

+ Other conditions as prescribed by the charter of the union of cooperatives.

Individuals, households or legal entities can be members of more than one cooperative; cooperatives can be members of more than one union of cooperatives unless otherwise prescribed by the charters of cooperatives or unions of cooperatives.

Notwithstanding the requirements of Clause 1 Article 13 of the Cooperative Law 2012, if individuals who are foreigners wish to participate in cooperatives in Vietnam, they must meet the following requirements:

- They are legally residing in Vietnam, aged 18 or over, and have full civil capacity in accordance with Vietnamese laws.

- If they wish to participate in employment-generating cooperatives, they must fully meet Vietnamese laws on foreign workers.

- With respect to cooperatives operating in business sectors or industries subject to limits on capital ownership rates imposed upon foreigners, in order to be eligible to participate in cooperatives, they must comply with regulations enshrined in laws related to these sectors or industries.

- Foreign individuals must meet other requirements prescribed by cooperatives’ statutes.

This is the content specified in Article 4 of Decree No. 193/2013/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government.

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