Foreign direct investmentĐầu tư nước ngoài

Historical trajectory

Vietnam first opened to foreign capital under the 1987 Law on Foreign Investment, itself a product of the Đổi Mới (renovation) policy adopted at the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party in December 1986. Inflows remained modest through the early 1990s before accelerating after the United States lifted its trade embargo in 1994 and full diplomatic relations were restored in 1995.

A second step-change followed Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organization in January 2007, which brought commitments on market access across goods, services and intellectual property. The 2008–09 global financial crisis caused a temporary dip in registered capital, but disbursed FDI proved more resilient, a pattern repeated during the 2020–21 pandemic period.

From roughly the mid-2010s, Vietnam became a significant beneficiary of manufacturers relocating or diversifying supply chains away from China, a trend accelerated by the US–China trade tensions that intensified from 2018 onward. Electronics, in particular, rose to dominate both FDI stock and export earnings during this period.

Leading source economies

Cumulative registered FDI stock places South Korea consistently at or near the top of the ranking, largely because of Samsung's enormous manufacturing footprint. Samsung Electronics began producing mobile phones in Bắc Ninh from 2009 and later expanded into Thái Nguyên; the two complexes together have at times accounted for a significant share of Vietnam's total exports.

Singapore ranks high in registered capital, in part because many investment vehicles are structured through Singapore holding companies regardless of the ultimate beneficial owner's nationality. Japan is the third major pillar, with a long presence in automotive manufacturing, consumer electronics and retail. Japanese investors have been notably active in the industrial estates of Bình Dương and Đồng Nai.

Other significant sources include Taiwan (textiles, electronics components), China (manufacturing across a range of sectors, with volumes rising sharply after 2018), the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands (both used as holding structures), and the United States (technology, consumer goods, energy). The ranking by disbursed capital and by number of projects can differ substantially from the ranking by registered capital.

Sectors and geographic concentration

Manufacturing and processing has absorbed the largest share of FDI since the early 2000s and its dominance has grown rather than diminished. Within manufacturing, electronics and electrical equipment dominate, followed by textiles and garments, footwear, furniture and automotive components.

Real estate is the second-largest sector by registered capital, with significant investment in integrated urban developments, industrial parks, office towers and resort projects along the coast.

Geographically, investment clusters around two main axes. In the north, Hà Nội and the surrounding provinces — particularly Bắc Ninh, Thái Nguyên, Hưng Yên and Hải Phòng — form a dense industrial corridor. In the south, Hồ Chí Minh City anchors a cluster extending into Bình Dương, Đồng Nai and Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu. Central Vietnam, including Đà Nẵng and its neighbours, attracts a smaller but growing share, particularly in tourism-related real estate and light manufacturing.

As of the 2025 provincial consolidation, some of these previously separate provincial units have been merged, though the industrial estates and their foreign investors remain in place.

Incentive and regulatory framework

The principal legislation is the Law on Investment, most recently revised in 2020 (effective 2021), and the Law on Enterprises of the same year. Together they govern entry modes, licensing, land use rights, profit repatriation and dispute resolution. An Investment Registration Certificate (IRC) is the standard entry document for foreign-invested enterprises, issued by the provincial-level Department of Planning and Investment or, for projects in industrial zones, by the relevant Industrial Zone Authority.

Incentives are structured around preferred sectors (high technology, software, education, healthcare, infrastructure) and preferred locations (economically disadvantaged areas and designated economic zones). Benefits typically take the form of reduced corporate income tax rates, tax holidays of varying length, import duty exemptions on capital goods and raw materials, and accelerated depreciation. Vietnam also operates a network of Export Processing Zones (EPZs), Industrial Zones (IZs), Economic Zones (EZs) and High-Tech Parks, each with its own administrative arrangements.

Vietnam has signed a substantial number of bilateral investment treaties and is party to several free trade agreements with investment chapters, including the EU–Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA), though ratification status varies by counterpart. The ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement also applies.

Global minimum tax and recent policy shifts

From 1 January 2024, Vietnam introduced a domestic top-up tax aligned with the OECD/G20 Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) rules, commonly called Pillar Two or the global minimum tax. The measure applies a minimum effective corporate income tax rate of 15 per cent to large multinational groups meeting the revenue threshold (EUR 750 million in consolidated revenue).

This change directly affects major investors who had previously benefited from sub-15 per cent preferential rates — most notably in the electronics sector. The government introduced a separate Investment Support Fund to offer cash grants for research and development, workforce training and infrastructure as an alternative mechanism to retain investors whose incentive packages are affected. The design and adequacy of this fund was still being debated and refined into 2025, making it an area of active change that investors are monitoring closely.

Constraints and investor concerns

Surveys conducted by business associations — including the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), the European Chamber of Commerce (EuroCham) and the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) — consistently identify a set of recurring obstacles.

• Legal uncertainty and inconsistent enforcement: regulations are amended frequently, and interpretation can differ between ministries, between provinces and between individual officials.
• Land access: securing land use rights, particularly outside established industrial zones, remains time-consuming and procedurally complex.
• Infrastructure gaps: logistics costs are elevated relative to competitors; port capacity at northern gateways has at times constrained export throughput.
• Skilled labour shortages: at the technician and middle-management level, competition for qualified workers is intense in manufacturing clusters.
• Intellectual property protection: enforcement is improving but remains a concern for technology and branded goods sectors.
• Anti-corruption compliance: informal payments are cited in investor surveys, and the government's ongoing anti-corruption campaign (sometimes called the đốt lò, or "blazing furnace", campaign) has led to administrative caution among officials that can slow approvals.

These concerns are noted widely in published surveys and are contested by the government, which points to improving rankings on the World Bank's business environment indicators and rising disbursed FDI as evidence of progress.

Industrial zones and special economic areas

Vietnam operates several hundred gazetted Industrial Zones and Export Processing Zones nationwide, managed by zone authorities under provincial government supervision. Conditions within zones — infrastructure quality, customs processing speed, utility reliability — vary considerably.

Three Special Economic Zones were proposed under draft legislation that attracted substantial controversy when tabled in 2018: Vân Đồn (in what was then Quảng Ninh), Bắc Vân Phong (in what was then Khánh Hoà) and Phú Quốc (in what was then Kiên Giang). Public protests over proposed 99-year land leases led to the withdrawal of that draft; revised legislation has been under discussion since but had not been passed as of mid-2025.

Hòa Lạc High-Tech Park, west of Hà Nội, and Saigon Hi-Tech Park (SHTP) in Hồ Chí Minh City are the two principal designated high-technology zones and offer specific incentives for qualifying technology businesses. Đà Nẵng IT Park serves a similar function at a smaller scale in central Vietnam.