Vietnam Tightens Exit Bans for Tax Debtors

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam's government has enacted new regulations to strengthen temporary exit bans for tax debtors. The decree establishes specific thresholds for imposing these bans based on the amount and duration of overdue tax liabilities, while also detailing notification procedures and conditions for lifting restrictions. Under the new rules, individuals engaged in business and heads of household businesses will face a temporary exit ban if they are under tax enforcement measures and owe at least VND50 million (US$2,000) in overdue taxes for more than 120 days. Legal representatives of enterprises, cooperatives, and cooperative unions will be subject to the same restriction if their entities owe VND500 million (US$20,000) or more in overdue taxes beyond the 120-day deadline. The decree also targets businesses that have ceased operating at their registered addresses. Business owners, household business operators, and legal representatives of such entities will be temporarily barred from leaving the country if they fail to settle overdue tax obligations within 30 days after receiving a tax enforcement notice. Furthermore, Vietnamese citizens emigrating overseas, overseas Vietnamese, and foreign nationals departing Vietnam with outstanding tax debts will also be subject to temporary exit suspension measures. To ensure transparency, tax authorities are required to notify taxpayers at least 30 days before requesting an exit ban. Notices will be sent through taxpayers' electronic tax accounts, registered phone numbers, and email addresses, with legal representatives also receiving notifications at their registered residential addresses. These notices will be published on the tax sector's official online portal. If electronic notification cannot be delivered, tax authorities will publish the notice on their official website. Should the tax debt remain unpaid after 30 days, the tax authority will submit an official request to the immigration authority to impose a temporary exit ban. The Ministry of Finance stated that tax authorities have collaborated with local administrations to verify whether businesses and legal representatives are operating at their registered addresses as part of tax debt enforcement efforts. The legal basis for this measure is provided under the Law on Tax Administration No. 38/2019/QH14, as amended by Law No. 56/2024/QH15. The government first issued Decree No. 49/2025/ND-CP in February 2025, establishing thresholds for applying temporary exit suspension measures to different taxpayer categories. However, authorities noted that no minimum debt threshold applies to entities that have abandoned their registered business addresses. According to the Ministry of Finance, these taxpayers pose a particularly high compliance risk as they are often associated with other violations, including failure to submit tax declarations, failure to provide accounting records, illegal invoice transactions, tax evasion, tax appropriation, and abandoning business premises without notifying authorities. Tax authorities have so far issued temporary exit suspension notices to approximately 105,000 legal representatives of businesses and household business owners linked to nearly VND61 trillion (US$2.35 billion) in outstanding tax liabilities. Among them, around 65,000 legal representatives and household business owners whose businesses were no longer operating at their registered addresses accounted for over VND6.9 trillion (US$266 million) in unpaid taxes. The measure has already contributed to tax debt recovery. To date, tax authorities have collected over VND4 trillion (US$154 million) in overdue taxes from more than 13,000 taxpayers. Notably, about 7,100 taxpayers whose businesses had ceased operations at their registered addresses voluntarily contacted tax authorities, paid nearly VND100 billion (US$3.86 million) in outstanding tax obligations, and subsequently had their temporary exit bans lifted.