Insights

EOR Cost Breakdown Vietnam 2026: Every Line Itemised

By Nguyễn Quốc Trung — Deputy General Director · Updated 2026-09-13

The EOR cost breakdown for one hire in Vietnam has four monthly-invoice lines — the gross salary; employer statutory contributions of 23.5% of the contribution base for a Vietnamese national or 22.5% for a foreign national, both capped; the EOR service fee, which for Nhan Kiet is a list price of 8% of gross with a floor of about USD 99 and a cap of about USD 199 per person, quoted lower for larger headcounts; and 8% VAT charged on all three together — plus a handful of periodic and one-off lines, chiefly the 13th-month salary, that fall outside an ordinary month.

This article takes that invoice apart line by line for a single hire: what each line is, who sets it, which cap governs it, whether it lands on the monthly invoice, and what share of the total it takes at two contrasting salaries. It stays at the level of one person. For the three fee models, the hidden costs to ask about and the legal route, see our EOR pricing guide for Vietnam; for the fully loaded annual total by seniority, see our total annual cost of a hire by role; and for what the wider market charges, see our Vietnam EOR price range by pricing model.

Prices are set in Vietnamese dong; the US dollar figures use an indicative rate of USD 1 = VND 26,250 and are rounded to whole dollars, with dong the authoritative currency. The two illustrative salaries used throughout, VND 30,000,000 and VND 90,000,000 a month, are round figures chosen to show how the composition shifts, not quotes for any individual. All figures apply to pay periods from 1 July 2026, when the contribution caps changed, and are current as of 13 September 2026.

Key facts: the EOR cost breakdown in Vietnam in 2026

• An all-in monthly EOR invoice for one hire is four lines — gross salary, employer contributions, the service fee and 8% VAT — and on the two illustrative salaries it runs about 42.7% over gross at VND 30,000,000 and about 29.0% at VND 90,000,000.
• Employer statutory contributions are 23.5% of the contribution base for a Vietnamese national — social insurance 17%, occupational-accident insurance 0.5%, health insurance 3%, unemployment insurance 1% and a 2% trade-union levy — and 22.5% for a foreign national, who pays no unemployment insurance.
• The social, health, occupational-accident and trade-union base is capped at VND 50,600,000 a month from 1 July 2026, twenty times the reference level of VND 2,530,000 under Decree 161/2026/ND-CP.
• The unemployment-insurance base is capped separately and higher, at VND 106,200,000 a month, twenty times the Region I minimum wage of VND 5,310,000 under Decree 293/2025/ND-CP.
• Nhan Kiet's service fee is a list price of 8% of monthly gross per person, with a floor of VND 2,600,000 (about USD 99) and a cap of VND 5,200,000 (about USD 199); larger headcounts are quoted a lower fee.
• VAT of 8% applies to the whole invoice — gross, contributions and fee together — until 31 December 2026, reverting to 10% from 2027 unless extended, under Resolution 204/2025/QH15 and Decree 174/2025/ND-CP.
• A 13th-month salary carries no employer statutory contributions, because bonuses are outside the contribution base under Decree 158/2025/ND-CP; it adds VND 34,776,000 once a year at a gross of VND 30,000,000 and VND 97,200,000 at VND 90,000,000.
• On one month's invoice the gross salary is about 70% to 78% of the total, employer contributions about 10% to 17%, the service fee about 4% to 7%, and VAT a constant 7.4%.
• A Nhan Kiet invoice carries no deposit and no onboarding, offboarding or currency-conversion fee, and the management platform is included.

What is included in an EOR cost breakdown in Vietnam?

An EOR cost breakdown in Vietnam has four lines on the monthly invoice and a short list of costs that fall outside it. The four monthly lines are the gross salary; employer statutory contributions of 23.5% of the contribution base for a Vietnamese national or 22.5% for a foreign national; the EOR service fee; and 8% VAT charged on all three together. The costs outside the monthly invoice are the 13th-month salary, any untaken annual leave paid out on exit, severance for foreign nationals, and one-off items such as work permits, equipment and recruitment. The total monthly cost is therefore gross salary plus contributions plus the service fee plus VAT, and the first-year cost is twelve of those invoices plus one 13th-month payment plus the one-off block.

The table below is the master breakdown: every component, who sets it, its rate or amount, the cap that governs it, whether it lands on the monthly invoice, and whether it recurs. Each component then has its own section beneath, with the legal basis and, at first mention, the government source.

What does the gross salary line cover?

The gross salary line is the figure agreed in the employment contract, passed through to the invoice unchanged: an EOR does not mark it up. It is the base from which the employee's own insurance of 10.5% for a Vietnamese national and their personal income tax are withheld, so those deductions change what the employee takes home, not what you pay, on a gross-salary contract. The contractual salary must be at least the regional minimum wage set by Decree 293/2025/ND-CP, which is VND 5,310,000 a month in Region I from 1 January 2026.

Paid public holidays and annual leave are not separate lines, because for a monthly-salaried employee the pay for those days is already inside the gross salary. Employees receive 12 paid public holidays a year from 1 July 2026 and foreign employees 14 — the Labour Code 2019 (No. 45/2019/QH14) sets 11 and 13, and Resolution 28/2026/QH16 adds Vietnamese Culture Day on 24 November — with a statutory minimum of 12 days' paid annual leave. Those days become cash only as an untaken-leave payout on exit, or as an overtime premium when someone works on a holiday. What the employee actually takes home after deductions is a separate calculation, set out in our guide to the 2026 five-bracket personal income tax table.

What employer statutory contributions do you pay in Vietnam in 2026?

Employer statutory contributions in Vietnam are 23.5% of the contribution base for a Vietnamese national and 22.5% for a foreign national. The 23.5% is made up of five parts: social insurance 17%, occupational-accident and disease insurance 0.5%, health insurance 3%, unemployment insurance 1%, and a 2% trade-union levy. A foreign national pays 22.5%, because unemployment insurance does not apply. These rates are fixed by the Law on Social Insurance 2024 (No. 41/2024/QH15), the Law on Employment 2025 (No. 74/2025/QH15) and the Trade Union Law 2024 (No. 50/2024/QH15), so they are identical whichever provider employs the person.

Two different caps sit on two different bases, and they are what makes a senior hire proportionally cheaper. The social, health, occupational-accident and union base is capped at VND 50,600,000 a month under Decree 161/2026/ND-CP — twenty times the reference level of VND 2,530,000 from 1 July 2026. The unemployment-insurance base is capped separately and higher, at VND 106,200,000 a month, twenty times the Region I minimum wage. Bonuses, including the 13th-month salary, sit outside the contribution base under Decree 158/2025/ND-CP, so they attract none of these contributions. The table splits the five parts at the two illustrative salaries and shows where the cap bites.

At VND 30,000,000 the salary is below every cap, so contributions run at the full 23.5% and come to VND 7,050,000. At VND 90,000,000 the first four contributions are frozen on the capped base of VND 50,600,000 while only unemployment insurance still grows on the full salary, so the total is VND 12,285,000 — an effective 13.7% of gross rather than 23.5%.

What does the EOR service fee cover and how is it worked out?

The EOR service fee is the only line the provider sets, and for Nhan Kiet the list price is 8% of monthly gross per person, with a floor of VND 2,600,000 (about USD 99) and a cap of VND 5,200,000 (about USD 199). It covers the work of being the legal employer: running payroll, filing and paying the statutory contributions, administering leave and the labour contract, and giving the client access to the management platform at no separate charge. At a gross of VND 30,000,000, 8% would be VND 2,400,000, so the floor applies and the fee is VND 2,600,000; at VND 90,000,000, 8% would be VND 7,200,000, so the cap applies and the fee is VND 5,200,000. Between a gross of VND 32,500,000 and VND 65,000,000 the fee is a straight 8%.

The list price is per person; for larger headcounts the fee is quoted lower. Because the floor covers the fixed administrative work every headcount takes and the cap stops the percentage running up on senior salaries, the fee is the smallest of the four invoice lines at most salaries. How the three market fee models — a flat fee, a plain percentage, and a percentage with a floor and cap — differ, and which hidden costs to ask any provider about, are set out in our EOR pricing guide for Vietnam.

How is VAT applied to an EOR invoice in Vietnam?

VAT of 8% applies to the whole EOR invoice in Vietnam — gross salary, statutory contributions and service fee together — not to the service fee alone. The reason is structural: under a labour sub-leasing arrangement the provider is the legal employer, so the salary is its own wage cost and the entire contract value is service revenue, with no payment on behalf of the client to carve out. This is a common misunderstanding in Vietnam EOR pricing, and VAT quoted on the fee alone can understate the tax by several million dong a month per person.

The 8% is a reduced rate under Resolution 204/2025/QH15, implemented by Decree 174/2025/ND-CP, in force until 31 December 2026. Unless it is extended, the rate reverts to 10% from 1 January 2027, which is worth building into any budget that runs past this year. Because 8% VAT on a subtotal is always eight parts in a hundred and eight, VAT is a constant 7.4% of every invoice, whatever the salary.

What does one month's invoice look like, share by share?

One month's invoice is mostly the salary itself: at a gross of VND 30,000,000 the total is VND 42,822,000, of which the gross salary is 70.1%, employer contributions 16.5%, the service fee 6.1% and VAT 7.4%. At a gross of VND 90,000,000 the total is VND 116,083,800, of which the gross salary is 77.5%, employer contributions 10.6%, the service fee 4.5% and VAT 7.4%. The higher the salary, the larger the share the salary itself takes, because both the contributions and the fee stop growing while the salary does not. The two tables give the full split; shares are rounded to one decimal place and may not sum to exactly 100.

The point of the share view is that most of what you pay above the salary is not the provider's fee but the statutory layer that is identical whoever employs the person, plus VAT that falls on any labour sub-leasing invoice. At both salaries the fee is the smallest line, and a negotiation that looks only at the fee is arguing over 4% to 6% of the bill.

What does the same hire cost across a full year?

Across a full year the same hire costs twelve monthly invoices plus one 13th-month salary: about VND 548,640,000 (USD 20,901) at a gross of VND 30,000,000, and about VND 1,490,205,600 (USD 56,770) at VND 90,000,000. The 13th-month payment is the only line that changes the shape of the year, and it is cheaper than an ordinary month because it carries no employer statutory contributions — only the extra gross, any incremental service fee it triggers, and 8% VAT.

The 13th-month payment adds about 6.8% to the year's invoice at VND 30,000,000 and about 7.0% at VND 90,000,000 — less than the 8.3% a full extra ordinary invoice month would add, precisely because no contributions apply to it. The mechanics of the payment, and which bonuses and allowances stay outside the contribution base, are in our guide to the 13th-month salary and Tết bonus. For the fully loaded annual figure across six illustrative roles and a foreign-national example, see our total annual cost of a hire by role.

How does the cost breakdown change for a foreign national?

The cost breakdown for a foreign national has the same four monthly lines, but contributions run at 22.5% rather than 23.5% because there is no unemployment insurance, so the monthly invoice is slightly lower on the same salary — and one line moves off the invoice: a severance accrual of half a month's salary per year of service, which a Vietnamese employee does not attract because their unemployment insurance offsets it. On a gross of VND 90,000,000 the monthly invoice is VND 115,111,800 against VND 116,083,800 for a Vietnamese hire, but the severance accrual of VND 45,000,000 a year makes the foreign hire the more expensive of the two once the exit cost is counted.

The severance of half a month per year of service is calculated under Decree 145/2020/ND-CP (Article 8) and should be budgeted from the first day. A work permit is also required and is not an ordinary invoice line: it is issued to the named employer under Decree 219/2025/ND-CP. The full rules on foreign-worker insurance, severance and work permits are in our guide to work permits and social insurance for foreign staff.

Which costs sit outside the monthly invoice?

Several real costs never appear on the monthly invoice and have to be budgeted separately: the 13th-month salary, which lands in one month rather than spread across twelve; any untaken annual leave paid out when someone leaves, under Article 113 of the Labour Code; severance for foreign nationals; and one-off items such as work permits, equipment and recruitment. The recurring monthly invoice is the run rate; these are what turn a run rate into a first-year total.

• The 13th-month salary is the largest of them. It is customary rather than legally required, carries no statutory contributions, and is covered in our guide to the 13th-month salary and Tết bonus.
• Untaken annual leave is paid out at the daily rate when the employment ends, so it appears only on exit.
• Severance applies to foreign nationals at half a month's salary per year of service; for Vietnamese employees it usually comes to nothing, because unemployment-insurance years are deducted.
• Work permits and visas for foreign nationals are one-off, renewable costs outside the payroll invoice.
• Equipment and recruitment are employer choices that vary with the role and how you source the person.
• Benefits such as private group health insurance are common voluntary add-ons; a cash meal allowance is free of personal income tax up to VND 1,200,000 a month under Decree 253/2026/ND-CP, and the tax treatment of the wider benefit list is set out in the 13th-month and benefits guide linked above.

Does a Nhan Kiet EOR invoice carry deposits, onboarding or currency fees?

A Nhan Kiet EOR invoice carries no deposit, no onboarding or offboarding fee and no currency-conversion fee, and the management platform is included. The only lines are the gross salary, the 23.5% or 22.5% employer contributions, any 13th-month or bonus accrual, the service fee within its floor and cap, and 8% VAT. A bonus paid through payroll is added to that month's gross and priced under the same floor and cap, so it does not create a separate charge.

This matters when you compare quotes, because the fee is only comparable if the boundaries are. A refundable deposit of one or two months' payroll is working capital you cannot use; an onboarding or offboarding fee per head can exceed the monthly fee on a short engagement; and a currency-conversion margin of a few per cent on a payroll invoice is often larger than the gap between two providers' headline fees. The full checklist of hidden costs to ask any provider about is in our EOR pricing guide for Vietnam.

Why do senior hires cost less per dollar of salary?

Senior hires cost less per dollar of salary because the two add-ons that are not the salary both stop growing while the salary keeps rising. Employer contributions freeze once the salary passes the VND 50,600,000 contribution base, and the service fee freezes at its VND 5,200,000 cap, so the all-in load falls from about 42.7% over gross at VND 30,000,000 to about 29.0% at VND 90,000,000, and the effective contribution rate drops from the full 23.5% to 13.7%. This is the opposite of the intuition many finance teams bring from other markets.

The share view shows the same thing from the other side: as the salary rises, the gross line takes a larger share of the invoice and the contribution and fee lines take smaller ones, while VAT holds constant. The mechanism, and the exact salary points where each cap and the fee ceiling take effect, are explained in our article on why senior hires cost less per dollar.

Is the service fee the only line that differs between providers?

The service fee is the only invoice line a provider sets: the statutory contributions and 8% VAT are identical whichever provider you use, so a provider competes on the fee alone, and it is the smaller part of the cost at most salaries. Published EOR service fees in Vietnam fall into three pricing models — a flat fee per employee, a percentage of salary or of total employment cost, and a percentage with a floor and a cap — and they only line up at one salary, so a headline fee means little without a salary attached. This article does not restate competitor prices; the market survey, provider by provider and read on 13 September 2026, is in our Vietnam EOR price range by pricing model.

Before comparing any two quotes, confirm which legal entity you are contracting with and that it holds the licence for the route it uses; our due-diligence checklist for choosing an EOR sets out how to test a provider.

How do you build your own cost breakdown?

To build your own cost breakdown, take one real salary and work the four monthly lines in order, then add the periodic and one-off lines. The checklist below is the whole method for one hire.

• Start with the gross salary, passed through unchanged, and confirm it is at least the regional minimum wage.
• Add employer contributions: 22.5% of the salary up to VND 50,600,000 plus 1% up to VND 106,200,000 for a Vietnamese national, or 22.5% up to VND 50,600,000 with no unemployment insurance for a foreign national.
• Add the service fee: 8% of gross, but never below VND 2,600,000 and never above VND 5,200,000 per person as a list price.
• Add 8% VAT on the three lines together, and plan for 10% from 2027 unless the reduced rate is extended.
• That sum is the monthly invoice; multiply by twelve and add one 13th-month payment, which carries no contributions, to reach the annual figure.
• Add the one-off block: recruitment, equipment, any untaken-leave payout on exit, and for a foreign national a work permit and a half-month-per-year severance accrual.
• Express each line as a share of the invoice to see where the money goes, and repeat at a second salary far from the first to expose where the floor and the caps change the shape.
• Model a real salary, not a team average, because the floor and caps make an average misleading.

You do not have to do the arithmetic by hand. Our free Vietnam salary calculator applies both contribution caps and returns the employer cost at any salary, and our Employer of Record service in Vietnam page sets out the full service.

Sources and legal basis

• Law on Social Insurance 2024, No. 41/2024/QH15, in force from 1 July 2025: contribution base and the twenty-times-reference-level cap (Article 31).
• Decree 158/2025/ND-CP: what is inside and outside the contribution base, including bonuses (Article 7).
• Decree 161/2026/ND-CP: reference level VND 2,530,000 and the resulting contribution cap of VND 50,600,000 a month from 1 July 2026.
• Decree 293/2025/ND-CP: regional minimum wages from 1 January 2026 (Region I VND 5,310,000), which set the separate VND 106,200,000 unemployment-insurance cap.
• Law on Employment 2025, No. 74/2025/QH15: unemployment insurance, its separate cap, and its application to Vietnamese citizens only.
• Trade Union Law 2024, No. 50/2024/QH15: the 2% trade-union levy.
• Resolution 204/2025/QH15 and Decree 174/2025/ND-CP: 8% VAT until 31 December 2026.
• Labour Code 2019, No. 45/2019/QH14: public holidays (Article 112), paid annual leave (Article 113), bonuses (Article 104) and severance (Articles 46 and 47).
• Resolution 28/2026/QH16: Vietnamese Culture Day on 24 November as the twelfth paid public holiday from 1 July 2026, the fourteenth for foreign nationals.
• Decree 145/2020/ND-CP: severance calculation (Article 8) and labour sub-leasing.
• Decree 219/2025/ND-CP: work permits for foreign nationals.
• Decree 253/2026/ND-CP: personal income tax treatment of allowances and benefits, including the VND 1,200,000-a-month cash meal-allowance cap.
• Decree 283/2026/ND-CP: administrative penalties in the labour field, replacing Decree 12/2022/ND-CP from 10 September 2026.
• Salary figures are illustrative round numbers used to show the composition, not quotes for any individual.

Nhan Kiet has run payroll and employment in Vietnam since April 2009, manages more than 40,000 workers for over 500 client companies across 34 provinces, and holds labour sub-leasing licence No. 15/2019/SHCM. It publishes its EOR price — a list price of 8% of gross with a floor of VND 2,600,000 and a cap of VND 5,200,000, quoted lower for larger headcounts, with no deposit and no onboarding, offboarding or currency-conversion fee — rather than quoting on request, and staff can start within 5 to 7 working days. You can model any salary with our free Vietnam salary calculator, read the fee mechanics in our EOR pricing guide for Vietnam, see the annual cost per hire in our total annual cost of a hire by role, and compare the market in our Vietnam EOR price range by pricing model.

The figures and rules in this article reflect Vietnamese law in force as of September 2026 and are general information, not legal or tax advice for a specific case. Salary figures are illustrative round numbers, not quotes; contribution rates, caps, tax rules and the reduced VAT rate change, and the law can be amended, so confirm the treatment for your own situation before relying on it.

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