The website cubird.com published this excellent article announcing that the Vietnamese General Department of Taxation has ruled that from 2018, firms with chartered capital of more than VND15 billion (>EUR 600,000 / >USD 659,000) must issue electronic invoices and periodically send tax offices data on the issued invoices.

Aiming to have 90% of enterprises issuing e-invoices by 2020, the regulation will apply to enterprises in industrial parks, economic zones, export processing zones, high-tech zones, non-business public units having production or commercial activities as prescribed by law and newly established enterprises.

From early 2019, many other types of enterprise, including household companies with revenue of more than VND3 billion (>EUR 120,500 / >USD 132,000), will be forced to issue e-invoices and those with tax codes provided by tax authorities.

This is the roadmap proposed by the General Department of Taxation under the Ministry of Finance in a proposal for a decree replacing Decree No. 51/2010 /ND-CP and Decree No. 04/2014 /ND-CP on invoices for sales of goods and services.

Number of Vietnamese companies using e-invoicing

According to the Ministry of Finance, the number of companies using e-invoices has increased significantly over the past few years, rising from 30 enterprises in 2011 to 331 in 2015 and 656 in 2016. The number of electronic invoices issued has also increased sharply, from 9,014 in 2011 to more than 277 million in 2016. E-invoicing will benefit enterprises as it will save time and cost, and improve production efficiency, service quality and competitiveness.

3G mobile infrastructure necessary for e-invoicing mandate

The Ministry of Finance said that at present, information technology infrastructure can meet the needs for issuing electronic invoices.

In particular, data of the Ministry of Information and Communications shows that there were more than 43.9 million 3G subscriptions and 9.3 million broadband Internet subscriptions nationwide by January 2017. 3G is available in all of the nation’s 63 provinces and cities while 4G services are also being expanded.

99% adoption of electronic tax filing

Electronic tax filing and payment services have been adopted by 576,056 enterprises, accounting for 99% of the total in operation.

An electronic invoice containing data on sales of goods or services is issued, sent, received, stored and processed electronically. Electronic invoices must comply with the country’s legal regulations and be issued and processed by the computer systems of organizations which have been granted tax codes.