Insights

Local EOR Company vs Global EOR Platform in Vietnam (2026)

By Nguyễn Quốc Trung — Deputy General Director · Updated 2026-10-08

A local EOR company in Vietnam is a Vietnamese-registered firm that is itself the legal employer of your staff; a global EOR platform sells employment in many countries under one contract and, in Vietnam, employs through its own Vietnamese subsidiary or through a local partner. If you hire only in Vietnam, the local company is usually the closer option and, at Vietnamese salary levels, the lower-fee one; if one contract must cover several countries, the platform usually fits better.

This guide is published by Nhan Kiet, which is itself a local EOR company in Vietnam, so read it with that in mind: where a global platform is the better choice, we say so. The prices quoted are service fees only, read on each provider's own page on 8 October 2026 and listed at the end. For what the whole market charges, provider by provider, see EOR Providers in Vietnam: The 2026 Price Range by Model; to vet a single provider, use our due-diligence checklist for choosing an employer of record in Vietnam.

Key facts: local EOR company vs global EOR platform in Vietnam

• Two kinds of EOR provider serve Vietnam. A local EOR company is the Vietnamese employer named on the contract. A global EOR platform contracts with you abroad and employs in Vietnam through its own subsidiary or an in-country partner.
• The legal employer is always a Vietnam-registered company. The employment contract, the social insurance registration and the personal income tax filing carry that company's name and tax code, whichever model you buy.
• Service fees are built differently. Nhan Kiet charges 8% of gross salary with a floor of VND 2,600,000 and a cap of VND 5,200,000 (about USD 99 to 199) per employee per month; 16 global and regional platforms publish flat fees starting from USD 99 to USD 699 (checked 8 October 2026).
• Coverage is the main trade-off. A local company employs in Vietnam only; a global platform covers many countries under one agreement, from 90 to more than 185 on the pages listed below.
• Support sits in different places. A local company's operations team is in Vietnam and answers workers in Vietnamese; with a platform, ask who in Vietnam answers, and in which language.
• Nhan Kiet's EOR covers Vietnamese nationals only, in Vietnam only, and staff can start 5 to 7 working days after signing.
• Sector experience and local reach differ from provider to provider. Nhan Kiet publishes client names and headcounts in electronics, telecommunications and consumer goods manufacturing, names clients in warehousing, retail and banking, and has cooperation agreements with the public Employment Service Centres of seven provinces.

What is a local EOR company, and what is a global EOR platform?

A local EOR company is a company registered and operating in Vietnam that signs the employment contract with your staff in its own name, while a global EOR platform is an international provider that sells Employer of Record services in many countries through one agreement and one software platform. The difference is not one of quality; it is one of structure: who you sign with, who signs with the employee, and how many companies stand between the two.

Three structures are in use in Vietnam:

Vietnam has no law written for EOR as such. Whichever structure you buy, the arrangement has to sit inside one of two existing legal routes, labour sub-leasing or a service contract; our Employer of Record in Vietnam page sets out both.

Who is the legal employer in Vietnam under each model?

The legal employer is the Vietnam-registered company whose name and tax code appear on the employment contract, on the social insurance registration and on the personal income tax filing: with a local EOR company that is the company you contract with, and with a global platform it is the platform's Vietnamese subsidiary or its in-country partner. Vietnamese law requires the employer to be the signing party, so the role cannot be white-labelled.

This matters for three practical reasons. The legal employer is the party a labour inspector, the social insurance agency and the tax office deal with. It is the party that carries the liability for a wrongful termination. And it is the party whose licence has to match the legal route: if you direct the workers' daily work, the arrangement is labour sub-leasing under Articles 52 to 57 of the Labour Code 2019 and Decree 145/2020/ND-CP, which requires a licence and is limited to 20 job categories and 12 months per worker.

Ask any provider for three things in writing before you sign: the full name of the employing entity, its tax code, and, where the route is labour sub-leasing, its licence number. A company can be looked up by tax code on Vietnam's National Business Registration Portal. Nhan Kiet's own answers are Nhan Kiet Supplying Manpower Co., Ltd, tax code 0308022768, and labour sub-leasing licence No. 15/2019/SHCM.

Do global EOR platforms have their own legal entity in Vietnam?

Some do and some do not: several global EOR platforms have registered a Vietnamese subsidiary, while others serve Vietnam through an in-country partner, a local company that acts as the legal employer on their behalf. A platform's general statements about its entities may not say which arrangement applies to Vietnam, so ask which company employs there.

Neither arrangement is wrong. A partner model simply adds one company to the chain: you contract with the platform, the platform contracts with the partner, and the partner employs your staff. What you should know is who that company is. Ask the same three questions as above, and ask what happens to your employees if the platform changes its partner. Nhan Kiet works on both sides of this line: it employs for clients directly, and it is the in-country partner in Vietnam for EOR and payroll providers that have no entity here.

How do a local EOR company and a global EOR platform compare, point by point?

They differ most on coverage, on how the fee is built and on where the support team sits, and least on the statutory cost of the hire, which Vietnamese law fixes identically for every provider. A local EOR company employs in Vietnam only, charges a fee tied to Vietnamese salaries and supports workers from inside the country; a global EOR platform covers many countries under one agreement, charges a flat US-dollar fee and supports through its platform.

The table sets Nhan Kiet, as a local EOR company, against what global platforms state on their own pages; treat the right-hand column as a list of things to confirm with the platform you are considering.

Two rows deserve a note. On software, a global platform is ahead if you need one dashboard for many countries or a direct integration with the HR system you already run. On data, holding employee records outside Vietnam is lawful but brings Vietnam's cross-border transfer rules into play; see Vietnam Cross-Border Data Transfer: EOR, PEO and Payroll.

How do the fees of the two models differ?

They are built differently: a local EOR company sets its fee in dong against Vietnamese salaries, while a global platform publishes one flat US-dollar fee as a worldwide starting rate, so the same fee is a very different share of a local salary and of a senior one. On the pages we read on 8 October 2026, Nhan Kiet's service fee is 8% of gross salary with a floor of VND 2,600,000 and a cap of VND 5,200,000 per employee per month, about USD 99 to 199, and the 16 global and regional platforms that publish a US-dollar fee start between USD 99 and USD 699.

The table groups those published starting fees and shows each as a share of two gross salaries. It compares the service-fee line only, converted at an indicative USD 1 = VND 26,250.

Two things follow from the published figures. Nhan Kiet's fee has a floor of VND 2,600,000, about USD 99, which is the level of the lowest published starting fee among the 16 platforms. And it has a cap of VND 5,200,000, about USD 199, at any salary: that is where the USD 199 group starts, roughly a third of the USD 599 fees and under 30% of the USD 699 fees. A flat fee does not move with salary and a percentage fee does, so compare the two at the salary you will actually pay.

These are fee lines, not the cost of a hire. Gross salary, employer statutory contributions and VAT sit on top of every provider's fee, so compare quotes as totals at your own salary. EOR Providers in Vietnam: The 2026 Price Range by Model lists each provider's published figure with its deposit terms.

When is a global EOR platform the better choice?

A global EOR platform is the better choice when Vietnam is one of several countries you hire in and you want one agreement, one invoice run and one dashboard for all of them. It is usually also the better choice when:

• you hire one or two people in each of many countries, so a single vendor matters more than the fee in any one of them;
• your HR or finance team needs the provider's software to integrate with systems you already run worldwide;
• your procurement rules require one master agreement under the law of your home jurisdiction;
• you want to employ a foreign national in Vietnam without an entity, in which case ask whether the platform's Vietnamese entity sponsors the work permit, because Nhan Kiet's EOR covers Vietnamese nationals only.

In each case, still ask which company employs your staff in Vietnam. If the answer is an in-country partner, you are buying a local EOR company's work through an intermediary, which is reasonable when the platform's coverage is what you need.

When is a local EOR company the better choice?

A local EOR company is the better choice when Vietnam is your only or main hiring country and you want to deal directly with the company that employs your people. It usually fits best when:

• the roles are paid at Vietnamese salary levels, where a flat dollar fee is a large share of pay: at VND 20,000,000 gross, published flat starting fees of USD 99 to 699 come to 13% to 92% of salary, while Nhan Kiet's fee is 13% and never rises above VND 5,200,000 at any salary;
• the team works shifts, overtime or several sites, such as a factory, a warehouse, a store network or a field team, where attendance has to feed payroll every month; for a team of about 20 factory or warehouse workers this is usually the deciding point;
• the people still have to be found: Nhan Kiet recruits as well as employs, from a database of 2 million candidates and through provincial Employment Service Centres;
• your vendor due diligence wants the employer itself: one company, one tax code and one licence, with documents you can check, rather than a chain of contracts;
• your head office works in Korean, Japanese or Chinese: Nhan Kiet's client teams work in those languages and in English, and support workers in Vietnamese.

For a situation-by-situation table that also covers when your own entity or a PEO is the right answer, see How to Choose an Employer of Record in Vietnam: A Due-Diligence Checklist.

What does day-to-day support look like under each model?

Day to day, a local EOR company's own staff in Vietnam handle the worker and the paperwork directly, while a global platform routes requests through its support system to whichever Vietnamese entity carries them out. The monthly cycle is the same in both: attendance closes, payroll is calculated, you confirm it, salaries are paid in dong, and insurance and tax are filed.

The difference shows in the events between pay runs. A new hire needs a tax code checked, a bank account verified and dependants registered. A worker falls ill and has to claim sick pay from the social insurance fund, or goes on maternity leave. Someone resigns and needs the social insurance record closed and final pay within 14 working days. Each of these is a conversation in Vietnamese, with a Vietnamese agency or a Vietnamese employee.

At Nhan Kiet those conversations are handled by more than 200 operations staff in ten locations, from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, in the same time zone as the worker. Workers use a mobile app for attendance, shift rosters, leave, requests, electronic payslips and their social insurance record; your managers approve timesheets and confirm payroll in a client portal; and head office receives a monthly report in English. With a global platform, ask three things: who in Vietnam answers a worker's question, in which language, and within what response time.

Which industries use an EOR company in Vietnam, and what changes by sector?

An EOR company in Vietnam can be the legal employer in any industry, from a two-person sales office to a factory shift of several hundred, because an employer's duties under the Labour Code are the same in every sector. What changes by sector is the legal route the roles fall under, how working time reaches payroll and how many people have to be recruited, and those are the three points to test with any provider, local or global.

The legal route follows the role, not the name of the industry. Labour sub-leasing is open only to the 20 job categories in Appendix II of Decree 145/2020/ND-CP. The list includes sales support, project support, reception, secretarial and administrative assistance, telephone marketing and customer care, driving, security, the cleaning of buildings and factories, the programming of production machinery systems, and the production and installation of television and telecommunications equipment. Roles outside the list, software engineering among them, are handled under a service contract, in which the provider manages the team and answers for the result, with no 12-month limit.

Working time is the second difference. A salaried office team needs little more than a leave record. Shift-based work needs attendance by shift, night-work pay of at least 30% extra and overtime multipliers from 150% to 390%, inside the overtime ceiling of 40 hours a month and 200 hours a year. Article 107 of the Labour Code 2019 raises the yearly ceiling to 300 hours in listed cases, among them the manufacture or processing for export of electronic products, garments and footwear, and the supply of telecommunications, provided the provincial labour authority is notified in writing. Overtime Pay in Vietnam 2026: Night & Holiday Rates sets out the calculation.

Volume is the third. Hiring three engineers is a search; staffing a production line or a peak season is a recruitment campaign counted in hundreds of people and in weeks.

The table shows what each sector asks of the legal employer, and what Nhan Kiet has published about its own work in that sector.

In the manufacturing and telecommunications programmes above, Nhan Kiet signs the employment contracts and is the legal employer of the workers it supplies. For warehousing, retail and banking it names clients but publishes neither a headcount nor the service each client uses, so ask for a reference in your own sector. A foreign company with no entity in Vietnam uses the same employer, payroll and insurance operation, whether for one hire or for several hundred.

This bears on the choice of model. For a few salaried professionals, a local EOR company and a global platform can both run the payroll, and the decision turns on coverage and fee. For shift-based, multi-site or high-volume teams, ask any provider for a Vietnam reference in your own sector and for a description of how attendance, night work and overtime reach payroll each month.

Why do local relationships matter for an EOR provider in Vietnam?

They matter because most of an employer of record's work in Vietnam is done locally: social insurance is handled by the agency that manages the employer, labour matters go to the provincial labour authority, minimum wages are set by region, and candidates are found through local networks. Local relationships do not change what the law requires, which is the same for every employer; what they add is familiarity with how each local office works, a known point of contact, and a shorter route to candidates.

Nhan Kiet publishes its local network with names and dates so that it can be checked:

• Public employment services. On 20 February 2025 Nhan Kiet signed cooperation agreements with the public Employment Service Centres of seven provinces: Ninh Thuan, Can Tho, Long An, Binh Duong, Ho Chi Minh City, Bac Ninh and Binh Phuoc (province names as at the signing date). These centres process unemployment-benefit claims and hold local labour supply-and-demand data.
• Recognition from public authorities. A Certificate of Merit from the Chairman of the Binh Duong Province People's Committee, in addition to those from the Ministry of Finance and Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance described further down.
• Large domestic enterprises. Cooperation agreements with Viettel Ho Chi Minh City and VNPT – VinaPhone Ho Chi Minh City.
• Business and professional community. Membership of the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Vietnam (KOCHAM); on 4 April 2026 Nhan Kiet co-hosted the HR & Data Compliance 2026 seminar with MobiFone and the Saigon HR Club.
• Presence on the ground. Ten office locations: Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Binh Phuoc, Ha Nam, Bac Ninh, Da Nang, Quang Ngai, Hai Phong and Hanoi. Recruitment draws on a database of 2 million candidates, more than 100 community channels and field recruiters at the industrial parks, as the manpower supply page describes.

A global platform can have local reach too, through its Vietnamese subsidiary or its in-country partner. The question is the one that runs through this guide: which company in Vietnam does the work, and what can it show for its record with the local agencies and its recruiting reach in the provinces where your people will work?

Can you move staff from a global platform to a local EOR company, or to your own entity, later?

Yes. Vietnam has no mechanism for assigning an employment contract from one EOR provider to another; instead the contract with the current legal employer ends, normally by mutual agreement under Article 34(3) of the Labour Code 2019, and the new employer signs a fresh contract, timed so that social insurance cover has no gap.

In practice the move has four steps:

• Check the notice period and any exit charge in your service agreement with the current provider.
• Agree the end date with the employee and with the current legal employer.
• The outgoing employer settles wages, untaken annual leave under Article 113 and any other amounts within 14 working days under Article 48, and completes its part of the social insurance record.
• The incoming employer signs the new employment contract and registers the employee for social insurance.

Entitlements such as annual-leave seniority and severance allowance are calculated per employer, so agree in writing how accrued leave and length of service will be treated in the new contract.

The same mechanism applies when you leave an EOR for your own Vietnamese entity. Nhan Kiet charges no onboarding fee for staff who arrive this way, and no conversion, buy-out or release fee when they later move to your entity.

Where does Nhan Kiet sit among EOR companies in Vietnam?

Nhan Kiet is a local EOR company: Nhan Kiet Supplying Manpower Co., Ltd, tax code 0308022768, founded in April 2009 in Ho Chi Minh City, is itself the legal employer of the staff it places, and holds labour sub-leasing licence No. 15/2019/SHCM and employment services licence No. 22139/2023/45/SLĐTBXH-VLATLĐ. It employs more than 40,000 workers across 34 provinces for over 500 client companies, and is certified to ISO 9001:2015, ISO 45001, ISO 14001 and ISO/IEC 27001:2022.

Three things set it apart from a platform model. It publishes a fee tied to Vietnamese salaries: 8% of gross with a floor of VND 2,600,000 and a cap of VND 5,200,000 per employee per month, no set-up, onboarding, offboarding or currency-conversion fee, and a refundable deposit of one month's gross salary per employee. It recruits as well as employs, including volume hiring for factories and multi-site operations. And it has been commended in the two fields an employer of record works in every month, tax and social insurance: it holds Certificates of Merit from the Ministry of Finance (2018) and from Ho Chi Minh City Social Insurance.

Outside its own pages, People Managing People ranks Nhan Kiet sixth of ten in its guide to employer of record services in Vietnam (updated 1 October 2026), as "Best for multi-site workforce compliance"; that publisher states that commissions help fund its reviews. Nhan Kiet is also a member of the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Vietnam (KOCHAM).

Its limits are equally specific. Nhan Kiet employs in Vietnam only, so it cannot be your single provider for several countries. And its EOR covers Vietnamese nationals only; a client that has its own Vietnamese entity can bring in foreign experts under the separate PEO service.

To compare a real number, send the role, work location, gross salary and start date through the Employer of Record in Vietnam page; a written quote comes back within 24 hours.

Sources (checked 8 October 2026)

Every fee above was read on the provider's own page on 8 October 2026, and a dated copy of each page is kept on file. Provider names are used only to identify the source of each published figure; these are third-party prices quoted for comparison, not assessments of any provider, and each provider's terms govern. Prices change, so confirm the current figure with the provider before relying on it. US dollar equivalents of Vietnamese dong use an indicative rate of USD 1 = VND 26,250. If you represent a provider listed here and a figure is out of date, contact us through our EOR Vietnam page and we will correct it.

• Native Teams pricing
• RemoFirst pricing
• Payoneer Workforce Management, EOR in Vietnam
• Remote People, Employer of Record
• Gloroots, Employer of Record Vietnam
• Rivermate pricing
• Pebl, Employer of Record pricing
• Playroll, Employer of Record pricing
• Multiplier pricing
• AYP Group pricing
• Borderless AI pricing
• Deel pricing
• Globalization Partners pricing
• Atlas pricing
• Remote pricing
• Oyster pricing
• Labour Code 2019, No. 45/2019/QH14
• Decree 145/2020/ND-CP on labour sub-leasing

This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice for a specific case. Contribution rates, caps and tax rules can be amended, so check the treatment for your own situation before relying on it.

See also: EOR services in Vietnam · EOR Providers in Vietnam: The 2026 Price Range by Model · How to Choose an Employer of Record in Vietnam: A Due-Diligence Checklist

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