Hiring Vietnamese staff: the four things the law makes you pay

Regional minimum wage, compulsory insurance, overtime multipliers and public holidays — the four obligations a foreign employer in Vietnam cannot avoid, with the 2026 numbers.

If you run a restaurant, a shop or a small office in Vietnam, almost everyone on your payroll is Vietnamese — and the pay rules differ from what you are used to at home. Getting them wrong surfaces later, either in a labour inspection or in an argument with a staff member.

This covers only the four obligations you cannot avoid, with numbers. No edge cases — just the items that cost real money every month.

1. Minimum wage depends on the region

Vietnam has no single national minimum wage. It is set by region. Region I — inner Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi — is the highest, at VND 5.31 million per month in 2026. Provinces further out are lower.

Note that this is a floor, not a going rate. Real salaries are usually higher; the minimum wage mostly matters as the base for insurance caps and as the legal lower limit. Check which region your premises fall into — districts within the same province can sit in different bands.

2. Compulsory insurance — the employer share is heavier than people expect

• Employee pays 10.5% — social insurance 8%, health insurance 1.5%, unemployment insurance 1%. Deducted from salary.
• Employer pays 21.5% — 17.5% + 3% + 1%. This sits on top of the salary and is a company cost.

So agreeing to pay someone VND 20 million actually costs the company about VND 24.3 million. Leaving that 21.5% out of the budget is the most common and most expensive mistake foreign owners make here.

Contributions are capped. Social and health insurance are charged on at most 20× the base salary; the base rose to VND 2.53 million on 1 July 2026, making the cap VND 50.6 million per month (it was 46.8 million in the first half). Unemployment insurance is capped at 20× the Region I minimum wage — VND 106.2 million.

3. Overtime — both the rate and the hours are set by law

Article 98(1) of the Labour Code sets minimum multipliers. Paying more is fine; paying less is not legal.

• Overtime on a normal working day — at least 150%
• Work on the weekly rest day — at least 200%
• Work on public holidays and paid leave days — at least 300%

Night work (22:00 to 06:00) adds at least 30%, and overtime that falls at night adds a further 20%. These sit in separate clauses, so they stack — they do not replace the multiplier above.

Hours are limited too. Article 107 caps overtime at 50% of normal daily hours (four hours on an eight-hour day), 40 hours per month, and 200 hours per year — 300 in certain industries. Hospitality businesses with a busy season breach the monthly cap most often.

4. Public holidays — plus two extra days for foreign staff

Vietnam has 11 paid public holidays a year: Lunar New Year (Tết) 5 days, National Day on 2 September 2 days, New Year's Day 1, Hung Kings' Commemoration 1, 30 April 1, and 1 May 1.

These are paid even when nobody works. If the whole business closes and no one clocks in, the day still counts as a full paid day. When a public holiday falls on the weekly rest day, staff take a substitute day off on the next working day.

One clause is particularly useful if you employ expatriates. Article 112(2) gives foreign employees working in Vietnam one additional day for their own country's traditional new year and one for its national day, on top of the 11 above.

Where this usually goes wrong

Forgetting the employer's 21.5%. Most common, largest amount.

Treating a public holiday as absence. Nobody clocked in, the timesheet is blank, and a spreadsheet counts zero days.

Not stacking the night premiums. Because they live in separate clauses, many payroll sheets apply 300% and stop there.

Not following mid-year changes. In 2026 alone the insurance cap changed on 1 July. A spreadsheet built in January goes quietly wrong in the second half of the year.

Keeping the evidence is what prevents arguments

More useful than the arithmetic is being able to show your work. When someone asks why this month is lower, pointing at which day they worked extra and which multiplier applied ends the conversation. Without that, you re-explain it every month.

Chấm Công Plus has staff clock in from their own phone with location attached; hours, overtime and holidays are derived from those records and itemised on the payslip. The employee screens are in Vietnamese; the manager screens can be switched to English, Chinese or Korean.

Labour and insurance rules change. For a specific case, check the original legislation or ask the labour authority that supervises you.

Thuê lao động Việt Nam: bốn khoản bắt buộc theo luật (Tiếng Việt)