Retiring in Vietnam
Vietnam: the tax picture for FIRE
Vietnam taxes employment and business income on a seven-band progressive scale — 5% on the first VND 60 million up to a 35% top rate above VND 960 million a year — after a personal deduction of VND 132 million. Investment income sits outside that scale entirely: securities sales are charged a flat 0.1% of sale proceeds (not of the gain), with no annual exemption, a mechanism retained by the new PIT Law taking effect 1 July 2026; dividends and interest carry a separate flat 5%, which Ember doesn't yet model. Our illustrative cost-of-living factor puts Vietnam at 0.38 against the UK's 1.0 — roughly 38% of UK costs — though that figure is low-confidence.
Ember does not yet model death transfers for Vietnam; the underlying data notes inheritance is instead charged at a flat 10% above a threshold, which isn't modelled. Know the limits: the Vietnam income pack is a low-confidence draft — dependant deductions and compulsory social-insurance contributions aren't modelled, and a pending reform may consolidate the seven bands into five.
Income tax (2026)medium confidence
Tax-free allowance: ₫186,000,000 (then bands apply to income above it).
| Band (above allowance) | Rate |
|---|---|
| ₫0 – ₫120,000,000 | 5% |
| ₫120,000,000 – ₫360,000,000 | 10% |
| ₫360,000,000 – ₫720,000,000 | 20% |
| ₫720,000,000 – ₫1,200,000,000 | 30% |
| above ₫1,200,000,000 | 35% |
What this model doesn’t capture (12)
- dependant deduction (VND 6.2m/month = VND 74.4m/year per registered dependant, raised from VND 4.4m/month) NOT modelled — only the personal deduction is encoded as the allowance; a taxpayer with dependants is over-taxed by this pack
- 5-band reform now IN FORCE: Law 109/2025/QH15 replaced the old 7-band scale with the current 5-band scale (5/10/20/30/35% at annualised 120/360/720/1,200m VND) applying from the WHOLE 2026 tax period under Điều 29.2 (not from 1 July, which is the Điều 29.1 date for the non-employment provisions) — wired 2026-07-15
- compulsory social/health/unemployment insurance employee contributions (deductible before PIT) not modelled
- flat schedular rates NOW modelled for dividends (5% of gross via dividendTax) and portfolio-drawdown securities transfers (0.1% of gross proceeds via schedularInvestment); still NOT modelled: real-estate transfer 2% of gross proceeds (property sales ride the CGT/sale path, which encodes VN securities 0.1% on GAIN — an understatement for RE); Điều 4.1 additionally exempts transfers of real estate between spouses, natural/adoptive parents and children, parents-in-law and children-in-law, both sets of grandparents and grandchildren, and full siblings, and Điều 4.2 exempts the transfer of an individual's sole house / residential land in Vietnam — neither exemption is modelled, so for a seller within either exemption the CGT/sale path charges where the statute charges nothing, inheritance 10% over threshold, and the 50% PIT reduction on securities/REIT fund dividends (ordinary company dividends stay 5%)
- interest income has NO engine category: individual bank/credit-institution deposit interest is PIT-EXEMPT (would need no charge) while non-bank interest is 5% flat — a retiree's interest currently rides whatever category it is entered under; enter bank interest as non-taxable, not as dividend
- personal deduction is treated as a flat allowance rather than as the statutory monthly deduction (VND 15.5m/month, raised from VND 11m/month by Law 109/2025/QH15) — annual figure assumes 12 full months of residence/eligibility
- no indexation modelled; deduction amounts are fixed nominal figures that the National Assembly periodically resets
- pension income exemption NOT modelled — Law 109/2025/QH15 Điều 4.9 exempts 'tiền lương hưu do Quỹ bảo hiểm xã hội chi trả; thu nhập do quỹ bảo hiểm hưu trí bổ sung, quỹ hưu trí tự nguyện chi trả' (the prior law's 'hàng tháng' qualifier is absent, so lump sums from those funds read as exempt too). Neither Điều 4 (22 khoản) nor Điều 5 contains an exemption for a pension paid by a FOREIGN entity to a VN tax resident; the previous basis for that treatment was Circular 111/2013/TT-BTC art. 3(k), which implements Luật 04/2007/QH12 — repealed by Điều 29.3 — and the Điều 4.22 implementing decree has not yet published. This pack routes ALL pension drawdown through the progressive 5–35% schedule, so a VN-resident drawing a Vietnamese Social-Insurance or supplementary/voluntary fund pension is over-taxed by this pack; the treatment of a foreign-paid pension is unresolved on the face of the Law and is to be re-checked when the decree publishes.
- selfEmployment: no regime module — self-employed social contributions / business-income surcharges for this jurisdiction are not modelled
- open-ended fund certificates: Law 109/2025/QH15 Điều 5.4 exempts from PIT the transfer of chứng chỉ quỹ mở established under the securities law and held 02 years or more from the date of purchase, with no time limit on the exemption. schedularInvestment applies the Điều 13.2 flat 0.1% of gross transfer price to every drawdown item, and the engine carries no instrument-type or holding-period input, so a holder of qualifying long-held open-ended fund units is charged 0.1% of proceeds where the statute charges nothing. Điều 5.5's 50% PIT reduction on lợi tức distributed to individual investors by securities and real-estate investment funds is also unmodelled and applies only 'trong thời hạn do Chính phủ quy định', which the implementing decree has not yet fixed.
- residential rental regime NOT modelled: Law 109/2025/QH15 Điều 7.1 charges no personal income tax on annual business revenue of VND 500 million or less, and Điều 7.4 taxes an individual letting real estate (other than a lưu trú/accommodation business) at 5% of the revenue exceeding that threshold, expressly outside the Điều 7.2 net-profit method and outside the Điều 10 giảm trừ gia cảnh. This pack has no VN rental primitive, so rental income is pooled into the progressive 5–35% schedule and draws on the VND 186m personal deduction: rent below VND 500m/yr is charged here where the statute charges nothing, and rent above it is charged on a pooled progressive basis rather than 5% of the excess revenue. The existing residentRentalFlat module carries no revenue threshold, so encoding this regime requires a threshold primitive.
- Điều 11 deductions NOT modelled: charitable, humanitarian and study-promotion contributions (Điều 11.1) and the taxpayer's and dependants' medical and education-training spending (Điều 11.2) are deducted from tiền lương, tiền công before the progressive scale, as are compulsory professional-liability insurance premiums and supplementary/voluntary pension and life-insurance contributions (Điều 8.2). Only the Điều 10.1(a) personal deduction is encoded here, so a taxpayer claiming any of these is over-taxed by this pack. The Điều 11.2 and Điều 8.2 ceilings are set 'theo mức do Chính phủ quy định' and the implementing decree has not yet published, so no figure can be encoded.
Capital gainsmedium confidence
Capital gains are taxed at a flat 0.1%.
Securities taxed 0.1% of SALE PROCEEDS (not gain) — retained by the new PIT Law 109/2025/QH15 (eff. 1 Jul 2026). Encoded as rate-on-gain, which understates the true proceeds-based tax, though it is negligible either way. Real estate 2% of proceeds; LLC capital transfers 20% on gain — not modelled.
Inheritance & estate taxmedium confidence
Tax is charged on each recipient, scaled by their relationship to the deceased.
Not a standalone inheritance tax: inheritances/gifts above VND 20,000,000 per occurrence are a PIT income category taxed on the RECIPIENT at a flat 10% (Law 109/2025/QH15, threshold effective 1 Jul 2026). The tax is asset-class-keyed in law, not relationship-keyed — all FIVE relationship classes (including the C2 `parent` class, i.e. the heir is the deceased's mother or father) are encoded identically, and the real-estate-to-close-family 0% exemption is a gap, not a class rule.
Cost of living
38%
of a UK baseline (100%) — a rough, illustrative comparison, not a forecast.
UK private pension
Under the UK treaty, a UK-sourced private pension paid to a resident here is generally taxed only where you live (not by the UK).
Common questions
How are capital gains taxed in Vietnam?
Securities sales are taxed at a flat 0.1% of the sale proceeds — not of the gain — with no annual exemption, a mechanism retained by the new PIT Law 109/2025/QH15, effective 1 July 2026. Ember encodes this as 0.1% of the gain, which slightly understates the proceeds-based charge, though at this rate the difference is negligible. Real-estate transfers (2% of proceeds) and LLC capital transfers (20% on gain) are not modelled, and confidence in this data is low.
What income tax would I pay as a resident of Vietnam?
Employment and business income is taxed on a seven-band progressive scale from 5% to 35%, with the top rate applying above VND 960 million a year, after a personal deduction of VND 132 million. Dividends and interest sit outside this scale at a flat 5% (not yet modelled by Ember), and securities transfers at 0.1% of proceeds. Treat the modelling as a low-confidence draft: dependant deductions (VND 52.8 million a year each) and compulsory social-insurance contributions aren't included, so taxpayers with dependants will be over-taxed by the model, and a pending reform may consolidate the schedule to five bands.
Is Vietnam cheaper to live in than the UK?
Our cost-of-living factor puts Vietnam at 0.38 relative to the UK's 1.0 — roughly 38% of UK costs — which can materially shrink the pot a FIRE plan needs. Treat the 0.38 as an illustrative, low-confidence modelling input rather than a budget.
What does Vietnam do to your FIRE date?
The free calculator compares your number across every covered country; the full planner models your actual accounts, pensions, residency moves and these exact tax rules — with the maths behind every figure shown.