Employer of Record (EOR) in Vietnam: hire without an entity

An Employer of Record (EOR) is a model in which Nhan Kiet becomes the legal employer on paper, signing the employment contract directly with your Vietnamese staff, while your company keeps the decisions on people and work — how closely you direct the day-to-day depends on the contractual route. The key difference: an EOR is for companies that do NOT yet have a legal entity in Vietnam, whereas a PEO (Professional Employer Organization) is a co-employment model and requires you to already have a company in Vietnam. If you are not yet registered as a business in Vietnam, the EOR model is the right fit.

Yes, through an EOR. A foreign company with no legal entity in Vietnam cannot sign employment contracts on its own, cannot register employees for social insurance and cannot file personal income tax for Vietnamese employees. With our EOR service you sign a service agreement with Nhan Kiet, Nhan Kiet signs the employment contract with your staff and carries out every obligation in Vietnam. You do not need to set up a company, open a bank account or register as an employer.

The biggest risk is worker reclassification. When someone works full time, on your schedule and under your direction, the authorities may determine that this is an employment relationship rather than an independent service contract, leading to back-payment of social insurance and personal income tax with interest, plus penalties. On top of that, workers without a formal contract tend to be less committed, and you have no legal basis to protect your intellectual property or enforce confidentiality. An EOR puts the relationship on its true footing and makes it fully compliant.

Typically 5–7 working days from the moment both sides agree the service contract and you provide the candidate's details. Compared with setting up your own legal entity in Vietnam — usually 2–6 months for the investment registration certificate, business registration, company seal, bank account, tax registration and social insurance registration — an EOR is far faster and carries no ongoing cost of maintaining an entity.

Who directs the day-to-day work is set by the contractual route. Under labour outsourcing — the arrangement that matches EOR in the international sense — the employee works under your direct management, reports to your manager and follows your processes and tools. Vietnamese law limits this route to the job categories in Appendix II of Decree 145/2020/ND-CP and to a maximum of 12 months per employee (Article 53, Labour Code 2019). Under a service contract, you set the scope and the acceptance criteria, and Nhan Kiet assigns and supervises the staff and answers for the result — that route carries no time limit. We establish which route fits your case before signing, because the client is also penalised directly if the structure is wrong.

The service fee is 8% of gross salary per person per month, with a floor of VND 2,600,000 (about USD 99) and a cap of VND 5,200,000 (about USD 199) per person per month — no single headcount is charged above the cap, however high the pay. Your monthly invoice has three parts: gross salary as agreed with you, employer-side statutory contributions, and the service fee. No deposit, no onboarding fee, no offboarding fee, no entity set-up or maintenance cost, no currency conversion fee. Foreign nationals and work permits are quoted separately.

Yes, provided the engagement is structured through one of the two routes recognised in Vietnamese law: licensed labour outsourcing, or a service contract. Vietnam has no dedicated EOR statute — “employer of record” is an international commercial label, not a concept in Vietnamese law. Nhan Kiet holds labour sub-leasing licence No. 15/2019/SHCM issued by Ho Chi Minh City.

Under labour outsourcing the worker signs an employment contract with Nhan Kiet but works under your direct supervision — this is EOR in the international sense, and it requires a labour sub-leasing licence. Under a service contract you set the scope and acceptance criteria while Nhan Kiet assigns and supervises the staff and answers for the result. Labour outsourcing is capped at 12 months per worker; a service contract is not.

Labour outsourcing is capped at 12 months per worker under Article 53 of the Labour Code 2019. Whether the same worker may be re-engaged with the same client after 12 months is not settled by consistent guidance from the authorities, so work that needs to run longer is normally restructured onto a service contract.

Yes. In Vietnam, liability for disguised labour outsourcing is joint — it falls on both the provider and the client, with fines of up to VND 100 million for an organisation — Article 19(2) of Decree 283/2026/ND-CP, which replaces Decree 12/2022/ND-CP from 10 September 2026 — plus back-payment of wages and social contributions. This is why the contractual route is settled before signing.

Nhan Kiet's EOR service fee is 8% of gross salary per person per month, with a floor of VND 2,600,000 (about USD 99) and a cap of VND 5,200,000 (about USD 199) per person per month. There is no entity set-up cost and no separate onboarding fee. Prices are quoted in Vietnamese dong; US dollar figures are an indicative conversion.

Employing a Vietnamese national costs the gross salary plus 21.5% of the contribution base in compulsory employer insurance — 23.5% once the 2% trade-union levy is included. For a foreign national the employer pays no unemployment insurance, so the figure is 22.5%. The contribution base is capped at VND 50,600,000 per month from 1 July 2026.

Yes. Vietnam's Law on Personal Data Protection No. 91/2025/QH15 took effect on 1 January 2026, together with Decree No. 356/2025/ND-CP, which replaced Decree 13/2023/ND-CP in full. Nhan Kiet keeps employee records on its own servers in Vietnam, signs a data processing agreement assigning controller and processor roles per data flow, prepares and files the statutory impact assessment records within 60 days of processing beginning, and notifies a personal data breach within 72 hours of detecting it.

Employee records are held on Nhan Kiet's own HR and payroll platform in Vietnam, not on a third-party global platform. Giving colleagues outside Vietnam access to that data is a cross-border transfer under Law No. 91/2025/QH15, so Nhan Kiet prepares a transfer impact assessment for your engagement rather than assuming an exemption applies. Vietnamese law does not require personal data to be stored inside the country — we keep it here because it keeps the chain of custody short and auditable.

It is deleted or destroyed. Since 1 January 2026 an employer must delete or destroy an employee's personal data when the employment contract ends, unless the law requires the record to be kept or the parties have agreed otherwise — for instance records still needed to settle social insurance, complete tax finalisation or resolve a pending dispute. Nhan Kiet works to a written retention schedule instead of holding records indefinitely.

No, and no Vietnamese provider can in the sense global EOR platforms use the word. Under Decree No. 219/2025/ND-CP, in force since 7 August 2025, a work permit is granted by the provincial People's Committee for a named employer that has its head office, branch, representative office or business location in the province where the foreign national will actually work (Article 4). That same named employer is the party that files the written justification of need for a foreign worker, which is now part of the work permit dossier itself (Article 18). So your Vietnamese entity is the employer on the permit. Nhan Kiet runs the procedure end to end — justification, application, renewal, visa and temporary residence card — but does not stand in as the employer on that permit.

Not as a separate step any more. Decree No. 70/2023/ND-CP, which required a public recruitment notice before the report on demand for foreign labour, was repealed on 7 August 2025 together with Decree No. 152/2020/ND-CP. Under Decree No. 219/2025/ND-CP the employer instead files a written report justifying the need to employ the foreign national as part of the work permit dossier, on Form 03. The Labour Code principle that foreign nationals fill positions Vietnamese workers cannot meet still stands — what changed is that it is now demonstrated inside the permit application rather than through a separate prior approval.

No. Hiring without your own entity works for Vietnamese employees. For a foreign national the work permit must name an employer with a presence in the province where the work is done, so you will need a company, branch or representative office in Vietnam, or an intra-company transfer or service-contract structure. Nhan Kiet advises on which route fits your case and takes over payroll, insurance, tax and the permit procedures once that entity exists.

Nhan Kiet charges no offboarding fee and no termination fee. What remains are the statutory amounts owed to the employee, passed through at cost: pay for untaken annual leave (Article 113), full settlement of wages and outstanding amounts within 14 working days (Article 48), severance allowance where it applies (Article 46), and closing the social insurance book. For a Vietnamese employee, severance allowance usually comes to nothing, because every year already covered by unemployment insurance — compulsory since 2009 — is deducted from the calculation. For a foreign national the opposite applies: foreign nationals are outside the unemployment insurance scheme, so there is nothing to deduct and the entire period of service is payable, at half a month's salary for each year worked. Budget for that from the start when you engage a foreign expert — it is the one termination cost that grows with every year of service.

Nhan Kiet does, because Nhan Kiet is the employer on the employment contract. You decide you no longer need the person and return them under the service agreement; the termination itself must rest on one of the grounds in Article 34 of the Labour Code 2019 and observe the notice the contract type requires — at least 45 days for an indefinite-term contract, 30 days for a 12 to 36 month contract, and 3 working days for a contract under 12 months. Nhan Kiet runs that process and carries the employer's liability for it.

Article 41 of the Labour Code 2019 applies. The employer must take the employee back, pay wages and insurance contributions for the days they were not allowed to work, and pay at least a further two months' salary. If the employee does not want to return, severance allowance is added. If the employer does not want to reinstate and the employee agrees, a further payment of at least two months' salary is negotiated. Nhan Kiet carries that liability as the employer on the contract, which is why we will not run a termination without a valid ground and correct notice, and why the service agreement states plainly who bears the cost if a termination is instructed without one.

No compensation is due, because expiry of a fixed-term contract is a lawful ground for termination under Article 34(1) of the Labour Code 2019. The statutory settlement still applies: pay for untaken annual leave, final pay within 14 working days, severance allowance for any period not covered by unemployment insurance, and closing the social insurance book. One thing to watch: if the employee keeps working more than 30 days past the expiry date without a new contract signed, the contract converts to an indefinite-term contract under Article 20.

Your people move across and Nhan Kiet charges nothing for it — no conversion fee, no buy-out fee, no release fee. Mechanically the employment contract with Nhan Kiet ends, normally by mutual agreement under Article 34(3) of the Labour Code 2019, and your new entity signs a fresh contract, with the social insurance transfer timed so nobody has a gap in cover. The only money involved is the statutory settlement that any termination triggers — untaken annual leave, final pay, severance allowance where it applies — passed through at cost. For foreign nationals, budget for a new work permit in your entity's name as well: a permit does not carry over to a different employer.

Statutory seniority restarts, because a new employer and a new employment contract begin — that affects annual-leave accrual and any future severance calculation. The social insurance record itself is continuous and follows the individual, so pension and benefit entitlements are unaffected as long as the transfer is timed without a gap. Clients who care about this normally recognise prior service contractually in the new employment contract, and Nhan Kiet hands over the complete service history so that is straightforward to do.

Nhan Kiet pays the employee, and you reimburse Nhan Kiet. As the employer named on the employment contract, Nhan Kiet is the party legally answerable to the employee and to the labour authority, so the employee is paid in full and on time whatever the commercial position between us. The service agreement then allocates that cost: where a termination was carried out on your instruction and the ground or the notice period you provided did not hold, you reimburse Nhan Kiet for the amounts paid out under Article 41 of the Labour Code 2019. That allocation is an agreement between two businesses and settles who ultimately bears the cost; it does not, and under Vietnamese law cannot, move the legal liability away from Nhan Kiet. It is also why we assess the ground before acting: declining a weak instruction costs both sides far less than funding an award.

Yes. From 1 July 2026 the monthly salary used as the contribution base for social and health insurance is capped at VND 50,600,000 under Decree 161/2026/ND-CP — twenty times the reference level of VND 2,530,000. Salary above that ceiling attracts no further contribution, so the employer's 21.5% applies only up to the cap and the share of total pay spent on contributions falls as salary rises.

Personal income tax follows a five-bracket progressive schedule under Law No. 109/2025/QH15, applied from the 2026 tax period. Tax is charged on income after a personal deduction of VND 15.5 million a month and VND 6.2 million a month for each registered dependant, under Resolution No. 110/2025/UBTVQH15. Compulsory insurance contributions are deducted before tax, and the overtime premium — the amount paid above the normal hourly rate — is exempt. Nhan Kiet withholds, files and performs the annual finalisation for each employee.

Labour outsourcing is limited to the 20 job categories listed in Appendix II of Decree 145/2020/ND-CP — interpreter/translator, secretary/administrative assistant, receptionist, sales support, project support, production-line system programming, driving, security, industrial cleaning and others. Article 53 of the Labour Code 2019 permits it in only three situations: a sudden, time-bound spike in labour demand; temporary cover for someone on maternity, work-accident, occupational-disease or civic-duty leave; or a genuine need for high-level technical skill. Work outside those categories runs under a service contract instead — no category limit and no 12-month limit.

Nhan Kiet gives every client an account on its management platform, included with the EOR service at no extra charge. Workers clock in and out online; from abroad the client can see each person's attendance, each pay period's payslip, their employment records, leave requests, overtime hours, and the employment contract signed with each worker. Because Nhan Kiet is the legal employer named on the contract, the data on the platform is the record produced when the authorities inspect.

No. The platform comes with the EOR service and nothing is billed separately for software — the fee remains 8% of gross salary per person per month, with a floor of VND 2,600,000 and a cap of VND 5,200,000. Each screen corresponds to a legal obligation: electronic employment contracts under Article 14(1) of the Labour Code 2019; the labour management book kept electronically under Article 12(1) of the Labour Code 2019 and Article 3(2) of Decree 145/2020/ND-CP; pay statements under Article 95(3); and annual leave under Articles 113 and 114.