Living in Vietnam
The paperwork side of moving to Vietnam
Residence cards, digital ID, driving licences, bank accounts, tax codes and health cover — what each procedure involves, what to bring, and which authority actually decides.
Guides
VNeID & digital ID
Since 1 July 2025 the Ministry of Public Security has issued Level 2 electronic identity accounts to foreigners residing in Vietnam, nationwide. The account lives in the VNeID app and is becoming the key that opens online public services, bank identity checks and rental registration. You apply in person at an immigration office — there is no fully remote route.
Temporary residence card
A temporary residence card replaces the visa-run cycle: it lets you stay and re-enter for the life of the card without applying for a new visa each time. It is filed by your sponsor, not by you, and the sponsor has to be registered with the immigration authority before any card application will be accepted. Getting the sponsor file right is most of the work.
Residence registration
Every foreigner staying overnight in Vietnam must be declared to the local police, and the legal duty sits with whoever runs the accommodation — the landlord, the building, the hotel — not with you. Hotels do it automatically. Private landlords frequently do not, and the gap only surfaces later, when a visa, card or licence application needs a clean residence record.
Driving licence
Driving licences in Vietnam are now issued by the Ministry of Public Security through the Traffic Police, not the transport ministry — so guidance written before 2025 sends you to the wrong authority. If you hold a valid national licence from home and a residence document with at least three months to run, you convert. If you do not, you sit the Vietnamese test.
Bank Account & Payments
A Vietnamese payment account is the hinge everything else turns on: salary, rent, utilities, e-wallets and eventually remitting money home. Foreigners can open one, but the account is tied to your identity papers and your permitted period of stay, and it only becomes fully usable after the bank has matched your ID document and captured your biometrics. This guide covers what banks actually ask for, how cards and e-wallets fit together, and what a bank needs to see before it will send money abroad for you.
Personal Tax Code & PIT
Vietnam taxes you according to whether you are a tax resident, and that status is decided by days present and by where you regularly live — not by your visa type or your job title. Get the residence test right, register a tax code, and the rest is mechanical: withholding during the year, family deductions if you qualify, an annual finalisation, and a clean exit file. Get it wrong and the bill surfaces years later, usually when you are trying to remit money home or close out an assignment.
Health Insurance & Healthcare
Most foreigners employed in Vietnam are inside the compulsory health insurance system whether they think about it or not — it is a payroll obligation, not an optional benefit. The state scheme covers you at the facility you registered with, at state tariffs; the international clinics most expatriates actually use sit outside it and are paid by private insurance or cash. The workable answer for a foreign employee is usually both, and the mistakes that hurt are administrative: no card issued, the wrong registered facility, or a private policy that quietly excludes the thing that happened.
SIM, Internet & Utilities
A mobile number registered in your own name is the key to everything else in Vietnam — banking OTPs, e-wallets, public service portals, delivery apps. A SIM registered to someone else works until the day it does not, and then it takes your bank access with it. The same principle runs through the rest of the household: the lease decides who signs the electricity contract, and who signs the electricity contract decides what you legitimately pay. This guide covers the SIM rules, the fixed internet and utility contracts, and the lease terms that quietly determine your monthly bills.
These procedures change, and practice differs between provinces. Every guide links to the authority that owns the process — check there before you travel to an office, and treat this as orientation rather than a substitute for the official instructions.
Moving a team, not just a person?
We handle work permits, residence cards, payroll and the employer side of relocation for foreign companies operating in Vietnam.
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