Insights

Hire Developers in Vietnam: Salaries, Recruitment and EOR

By Nguyễn Quốc Trung — Deputy General Director · Updated 2026-10-12

You can hire software developers in Vietnam without a local company by having one licensed Vietnamese firm do two jobs: find the candidate, then employ that person for you through an Employer of Record (EOR) arrangement. Nhan Kiet does both under one contract, so you can start hiring Vietnamese staff without incorporating in Vietnam first. You choose the developer, set the salary and direct the technical work. Nhan Kiet becomes the legal employer and runs the contract, social insurance, personal income tax and payroll. When recruitment is combined with EOR, the recruitment fee falls from two months' gross salary to one month, payable only when the developer starts work.

This guide is written for companies in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Japan, South Korea, China, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia that want Vietnamese developers working for them full-time as a dedicated offshore team. It covers 2025 salary medians by role and seniority, how the combined fee works, the full first-year cost at three salary levels, time-zone overlap by country, and the legal points that decide whether the arrangement holds up in Vietnam.

Key facts at a glance

• Last updated: 11 October 2026.
• One company, two licences: Nhan Kiet holds an employment services licence (No. 22139/2023/45/SLĐTBXH-VLATLĐ) for recruitment and a labour sub-leasing licence (No. 15/2019/SHCM) for EOR, both issued in Ho Chi Minh City.
• Recruitment fee: two months' gross salary on its own, or one month's gross salary when the developer is then employed through Nhan Kiet's EOR for at least 12 months. It is invoiced on the developer's first working day, nothing is charged before that, and a free replacement is guaranteed if the hire leaves within 60 days.
• EOR fee: 8% of gross salary per person per month, with a floor of VND 2,600,000 and a cap of VND 5,200,000 (about USD 99 and USD 199 at VND 26,250 per US dollar). A refundable deposit of one month's gross salary per employee applies from 1 October 2026.
• Onboarding: typically 5–7 working days from the moment the service contract is agreed and the candidate's details are provided.
• Salary benchmark: the median monthly salary of a back-end developer in Vietnam is VND 37.8 million across all levels (ITviec, 2025–2026 report).

How does recruiting a developer and employing them through EOR work in Vietnam?

Recruitment plus EOR means one Vietnamese provider sources and screens the candidates, you interview and choose, and the same provider then signs the employment contract and becomes the developer's legal employer while the developer works only for you. There is no hand-over between a recruiter and a separate employer, so the offer you approve is the contract the developer signs.

Nhan Kiet does not promise a hiring deadline or a number of hires. Time to fill depends on the stack, seniority and salary you set; once the candidate accepts, onboarding through EOR typically takes 5–7 working days.

How much does a software developer earn in Vietnam in 2025?

A back-end developer in Vietnam earns a median of VND 37.8 million a month (about USD 1,440) across all experience levels, rising from VND 12.4 million in the first year to VND 54.9 million after more than eight years, according to ITviec's IT Salary and Recruitment Market Report 2025–2026, based on 1,839 respondents surveyed in 2025. The report does not say whether the figures are gross or net, so use them as a market benchmark and confirm the gross salary in each offer.

The table below reproduces ITviec's medians in millions of VND per month. A dash means the report does not publish a figure for that cell. USD figures are Nhan Kiet's reference conversion at about VND 26,250 per US dollar, rounded.

For senior back-end developers with 5–8 years' experience the median is VND 39.9 million a month (about USD 1,520), and after more than 8 years it is VND 54.9 million (about USD 2,091). Salary is only part of the cost of employing someone in Vietnam; the next sections add the statutory contributions, the fees and VAT.

How much does Nhan Kiet charge to recruit and employ a developer?

With Nhan Kiet, recruiting a developer costs two months' gross salary on its own, or one month's gross salary when the same developer is then employed through Nhan Kiet's EOR for at least 12 months; the EOR fee is 8% of gross salary a month, with a VND 2,600,000 floor and a VND 5,200,000 cap. The recruitment fee is payable once, when the developer starts work, and nothing is payable if no hire starts.

The reduced recruitment fee applies when the role stays on Nhan Kiet's EOR for 12 months; the payment steps, the 60-day replacement guarantee and what happens if the arrangement ends earlier are set out below. Recruitment fees are quoted excluding VAT. Teams of several developers are quoted lower as volume grows. The EOR deposit — one month's gross salary per employee, refundable — applies from 1 October 2026.

What is the full first-year cost of one developer?

The table below uses the same three gross salaries as Nhan Kiet's EOR price list. Each month you pay the gross salary, the employer's statutory contributions of 23.5%, the EOR fee, and 8% VAT on the whole invoice. All three salaries sit below the social insurance cap of VND 50,600,000 that applies from 1 July 2026.

How the VND 30,000,000 row is built: salary 30,000,000 + employer contributions 7,050,000 + EOR fee 2,600,000 (8% would be 2,400,000, so the floor applies) = 39,650,000, plus 8% VAT of 3,172,000 = 42,822,000 a month. Over 12 months that is 513,864,000, plus the one-off recruitment fee of 30,000,000. Recruiting the same developer without EOR would cost 60,000,000.

The 23.5% employer share is 21.5% compulsory insurance plus a 2% trade union fee. The 8% VAT rate applies until 31 December 2026 and returns to 10% from 1 January 2027 unless extended. A 13th-month salary is not required by Vietnamese law (Article 104 of the Labour Code 2019); if you pay one, it is added to that month's gross for the EOR fee and is not subject to social insurance. For other salary levels, try the Vietnam salary calculator or read the annual cost of a hire by role.

How and when do you pay the recruitment fee?

You pay nothing until the developer you chose starts work: Nhan Kiet invoices the recruitment fee on the developer's first working day, payable within 7 working days, and there is no retainer, no upfront search fee and no charge for shortlists or interviews before that day.

Example: you hire a back-end developer at VND 30,000,000 gross a month with EOR. On the first working day you receive one invoice for the recruitment fee of VND 30,000,000 plus VAT and the refundable deposit of VND 30,000,000. From then on you receive one EOR invoice a month of VND 42,822,000.

If you, or a company related to you, hire a candidate introduced by Nhan Kiet outside the service contract within 12 months of the introduction, the recruitment-only fee of two months' gross salary applies.

What happens if the developer leaves within the first 60 days?

If the developer resigns, fails probation or is dismissed for a disciplinary breach within 60 days of the first working day, Nhan Kiet recruits a replacement for the same role once, free of charge. Sixty days is the longest probation Vietnamese law allows for jobs that require a college-level qualification or higher, which covers developer roles (Article 25(2) of the Labour Code 2019).

During probation either side may end the contract without notice and without compensation (Article 27(2)), so a hire that does not work out can be closed quickly and cleanly. The guarantee applies to both recruitment options, with or without EOR.

What the guarantee covers

• The developer resigns within 60 days of the first working day
• The developer does not pass probation
• The labour contract is ended for a disciplinary breach

What you receive

• One replacement for the same role, with the same job description and salary range, and no new recruitment fee
• With recruitment + EOR, the replacement joins on the same EOR terms, and the 12 months for the reduced fee keep counting for the role from the first developer's start date
• If Nhan Kiet has not presented a replacement you accept within 60 days of your notice, or you decide not to refill the role, you choose between a refund of 50% of the recruitment fee or keeping 100% of it as credit for another role within 6 months

How to claim

• Email Nhan Kiet within 5 working days of the developer's last working day, or of your decision that probation was not passed
• The recruitment fee must have been paid by its due date

When the guarantee does not apply

• You end the contract for reasons that have nothing to do with the developer's performance or conduct, such as restructuring, budget cuts or a cancelled project
• The job description, salary, working hours or place of work changed materially from the signed offer
• The recruitment fee or the monthly EOR invoices are overdue

When does the guarantee end?

The guarantee ends at the end of day 60 after the first working day, or as soon as the free replacement has been used, whichever comes first; the replacement developer does not carry a second guarantee. After that:

• If the developer resigns later, there is no further free replacement, and with recruitment + EOR you are not charged anything extra for that resignation
• If you end the EOR service for the role yourself before 12 months, outside the guarantee, the one-month difference between the two recruitment fees falls due on the final invoice
• The EOR deposit is refunded when the service ends, after the final settlement

How does this compare with recruitment agency fees at home?

Recruiting through Nhan Kiet costs two months' gross salary on its own (about 16.7% of a 12-month salary) or one month's gross salary with EOR (about 8.3%), while agency fees are commonly quoted at 15–25% of annual salary in the United States, from about 15% up to around 30% in the United Kingdom, and 30–40% of theoretical annual income in Japan.

The percentages are applied to very different salaries, so the gap in absolute cost is larger than the gap in rates. Fees in each market also vary by role and seniority; the figures above are published guides, not quotes.

Which IT roles can you hire in Vietnam through Nhan Kiet?

Nhan Kiet takes recruitment briefs for software engineering, testing, data, infrastructure and delivery roles, and employs the hired person through EOR. Typical briefs include:

• Back-end developers: Java, .NET/C#, Node.js, Python, Go, PHP
• Front-end developers: React, Angular, Vue
• Full-stack developers and mobile developers: iOS (Swift), Android (Kotlin), Flutter, React Native
• QA and testing: manual testers, QA–QC, automation test engineers
• DevOps and cloud engineers: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
• Data and AI: data engineers, data analysts, BI developers, machine learning engineers
• Embedded and game developers
• Delivery roles: business analysts, project managers, scrum masters, tech leads, and bridge software engineers (BrSE) for Japanese clients

Each brief is assessed on its own; Nhan Kiet does not guarantee a number of candidates or a hiring date.

What changes when you hire from the US, UK, Japan, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia or Europe?

The main practical differences are working-hour overlap and, for US and Canadian teams, the night-work premium; the employment itself always follows Vietnamese law, wherever your company is based. Vietnam is on UTC+7 all year with no daylight saving, so the working-day overlap ranges from the whole day with Thailand and Indonesia, and almost the whole day with China, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and Korea, to one or two hours with the US East Coast. The table assumes a standard Vietnamese working day of 08:00–17:00.

United States and Canada

For American and Canadian teams the practical pattern is asynchronous work with a short daily call. Normal hours in Vietnam cannot exceed 8 hours a day and 48 hours a week (Article 105 of the Labour Code 2019), but the shift itself can be scheduled later, for example 13:00–22:00 with a break. Night work in Vietnam runs from 22:00 to 06:00 (Article 106), and every hour worked at night earns at least 30% extra (Article 98(2)); overtime at night adds a further 20%. A late shift that ends at 22:00 gives one to two hours with US Eastern mornings without triggering the night premium.

United Kingdom and Europe

A Vietnamese afternoon covers the British and continental morning, which suits a daily stand-up at 09:00 London or Berlin time. Contracts with Nhan Kiet are signed remotely in English or bilingual English–Vietnamese, and monthly reports to head office are in English.

Japan and South Korea

With only a two-hour difference, Japanese and Korean teams can work with Vietnamese developers through the normal business day. Nhan Kiet has Japanese-speaking staff for consultations and quotations, and the Japanese page explains the differences between an offshore development company and a dedicated EOR team.

China, Malaysia, Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia

Companies in China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines work within one hour of Vietnam, so the time zone is not the constraint. Two other points matter more. The employment is governed by Vietnamese law whichever country you hire from: probation, notice, social insurance and the 13th-month question all follow the Labour Code 2019, not your home rules. And Tết usually falls on the same days as the Lunar New Year holidays in China, Singapore and Malaysia, so plan releases around that week across the whole region.

Australia, New Zealand and Singapore

Australian, New Zealand and Singaporean companies share a large part of the working day with Vietnam. For all three, the usual decision is not time zones but structure: whether a Vietnamese entity is worth setting up yet, or whether recruitment plus EOR covers the first years.

Can a foreign company direct a developer employed through EOR in Vietnam?

A foreign company can direct a Vietnamese developer employed through EOR: under Nhan Kiet's service-contract model you direct the professional and technical work, while Nhan Kiet arranges working time and labour supervision as the legal employer. That division is what keeps a service contract from being treated as disguised labour sub-leasing.

Vietnamese law offers two routes. Labour sub-leasing, where the client manages the worker day to day, is limited to the 20 jobs listed in Appendix II of Decree 145/2020/ND-CP and to 12 months per worker (Article 53 of the Labour Code 2019). Under a service contract under the Commercial Law, the client directs what is built, in what order and how it is accepted, and Nhan Kiet organises working hours, attendance and discipline. Getting this wrong exposes both sides: since 10 September 2026, Decree 283/2026/ND-CP penalises each party directly for disguised sub-leasing. The EOR Vietnam page sets out both routes in detail.

On intellectual property, Nhan Kiet signs confidentiality and IP-assignment terms with the developer to your requirements. Employee records are kept on Nhan Kiet's own HR and payroll platform hosted in Vietnam, and transfers of personal data abroad follow the Personal Data Protection Law (Law 91/2025/QH15), covered in our guide to cross-border data transfer for EOR and payroll.

Why recruit and employ through one company instead of an agency plus an EOR?

Using one licensed company for both steps removes the hand-over between recruiter and employer: the offer, the employment contract, payroll and the monthly invoice all come from the same Vietnamese entity, and the recruitment fee is halved when you keep the developer on that EOR.

When you later set up your own company in Vietnam, Nhan Kiet charges no conversion, buy-out or release fee. The contract with Nhan Kiet ends by mutual agreement under Article 34(3) of the Labour Code 2019, your entity signs a new contract, and the social insurance record continues without a gap. Statutory seniority restarts with the new employer; Nhan Kiet hands over the full service history so you can recognise prior service in the new contract.

You also see your developers in Nhan Kiet's management platform at no extra cost: attendance, payslips, leave, overtime and each signed employment contract. Because Nhan Kiet is the employer of record, these are the same records that are produced in a labour inspection.

Can Nhan Kiet hire foreign developers who are not Vietnamese?

Nhan Kiet's EOR covers Vietnamese employees only, so a foreign developer needs a different structure. A work permit for a foreign national names an employer with a presence in the province where the work is done, so the employer must be your own Vietnamese company, branch or representative office. For that case Nhan Kiet provides PEO support for work permits, temporary residence cards and payroll; see PEO costs in Vietnam.

Do I pay anything if Nhan Kiet does not find the right developer?

Nothing is payable for recruitment unless a developer you have chosen starts work: the recruitment fee is charged only at that point, and the EOR fee starts with the first payroll month. Nhan Kiet does not charge a retainer or an upfront search fee for developer recruitment, and if the developer you hired leaves within 60 days, the free replacement guarantee applies.

Sources

• ITviec, Vietnam IT Salary and Recruitment Market Report 2025–2026 — median salaries by position and years of experience, 1,839 respondents, surveyed 27 May–31 July and 21 October–11 November 2025.
• AIHR, Recruitment fees — contingency fees of 15% to 25% of the new hire's annual salary.
• REC (Recruitment and Employment Confederation), What should you be spending on recruitment? — agency rates from about 15% up to about 30% of yearly salary (article of 5 September 2014).
• Recruit Co., Ltd., 人材紹介会社に支払う手数料の相場は？ — 30%–40% of theoretical annual income (26 April 2023).
• Labour Code 2019 (No. 45/2019/QH14) — Articles 34, 53, 98, 104, 105 and 106.

Send us the role, stack, seniority and salary range, and Nhan Kiet will reply within 24 hours with a recruitment-plus-EOR quote and a draft English service contract. Contact Mr. Trung Nguyen, Deputy General Director, at [email protected] or on WhatsApp +84 908 636 108, or use the form on the EOR Vietnam page.

← All articles