Doing Business in Vietnam

Compare an operating company, joint venture, acquisition, representative presence or distributor-led model against the same workflow. Identify who takes the order, signs, imports, stores stock, invoices and receives payment. Formation cost alone does not capture channel dependence, partner incentives or the cost of changing route later.

Prepare: an activity map, ownership preferences and a route comparison reviewed by the legal, tax and bank teams.

The guide separates foreign-investor access, conditional-business requirements and operating permissions. Describe each revenue stream rather than using a broad industry label: software development, a digital platform, wholesale, retail and logistics are different activities. Registration, premises, product requirements and the first transaction should form one dependency plan.

Prepare: a licence matrix with the entity, authority, required evidence, owner and renewal obligations. Test a representative sale through delivery, invoicing, collection and accounting.

Build the location shortlist around the business model. Investigate Hanoi and the northern corridor for institutional and corporate customers and northern industrial links; Ho Chi Minh City and the southern corridor for commercial channels and southern logistics; Da Nang and central Vietnam for selected services, tourism and regional delivery. These are starting hypotheses, not a ranking.

Compare: customer access, recruitment, utilities, permitted property use, logistics and resilience. Check the current address and administrative jurisdiction against the property documents.

Equity, shareholder funding, customer receipts, share-purchase payments and profit transfers need a coherent account and document route. Ask the servicing bank to review representative flows before fixing a transfer date. Connect contracts and invoice treatment to the ledger, tax evidence and monthly cash forecast; distinguish profitability from the cash needed during launch and collection.

Prepare: ultimate-owner evidence, authorised signatories, payment limits, maker/checker roles, a slower-launch cash case and a recurring finance calendar.

Budget the complete employment arrangement, not salary alone: contracts, payroll, insurance, attendance, manager procedures and applicable local requirements. For foreign staff, keep the role, employing entity, work location, immigration, payroll and assignment dates in one register. Follow employee and customer information into group HR, CRM, cloud and outsourced payroll systems.

Prepare: a staffing-readiness checklist and a data inventory recording purpose, recipients, storage, retention and access. Review the applicable work and data routes with qualified specialists.

A quoted factory price is not a delivered margin. Combine freight, insurance, duty, import-tax timing, brokerage, storage, inland transport, testing and returns. Obtain production and input evidence behind origin claims; do not assume a trade preference from assembly location alone. Coordinate commercial, legal, banking, staffing and system work through one weekly review.

Before launch: rehearse a sale, an exception such as a return, and a payment. Keep unresolved conditions, their owners and the next capital commitment together; the guide’s 100-day plan is a management horizon, not a statutory timing promise.