Vietnam issues new Transfer Pricing Decree effective from 01 July 2026

The new Decree carries forward the related party rules related to financing transactions (i.e. lending or guarantee in any form) introduced by Decree 20, including exclusions for certain lending or guarantee arrangements involving credit institutions.

It also adds an exclusion for certain wholly state-owned debt trading and debt resolution entities.

The revenue threshold for the transfer pricing documentation exemption has increased from VND 200 billion to VND 500 billion for taxpayers that do not generate revenue or incur expenses from the exploitation or use of intangible assets. The simple-function requirement has been removed while the minimum profitability thresholds remain unchanged (i.e. an operating margin of 5% or higher (for distribution entities), 10% or higher (for manufacturing entities) or 15% or higher (for processing entities)).

The new Decree replaces the previous VND 18 trillion threshold for Vietnamese ultimate parent entities with a EUR 750 million global consolidated revenue threshold. It also provides more detailed rules on notification, surrogate filing, XML submission format, and filing deadlines.

Taxpayers having CbC Report filing by an Ultimate Parent Entity or Surrogate Parent Entity outside Vietnam are required to notify the Department of Taxation of the filing entity by the end of the Ultimate Parent Entity’s fiscal year via a new form named 01/TB-BCLN. The notification is generally required only once upon the initial reporting obligation and must be updated within 90 days of any subsequent changes. The notification is also applied where a Vietnamese entity is designated as the Surrogate Parent Entity.

The new Decree introduces an explicit order of priority for transfer pricing data sources, giving priority to public and official sources, followed by commercial databases and tax management databases. It also retains the existing hierarchy of comparables, prioritising internal comparables, domestic comparables, and then regional comparables.

For the first time, the new Decree allows tax authorities to publish industry profit indicators by sector, geographical area or taxpayer group to support taxpayers in their transfer pricing compliance and the determination of arm’s length pricing.

Compared with Decree 132, the new Decree places greater emphasis on risk-based administration, pre-audit consultation, inter-agency data sharing, voluntary compliance support and more structured use of tax authority data.