A signed PDF emailed to a new hire is not an electronic labour contract in Vietnam. Since 1 July 2026 the country has run a national platform that issues an identification code for each valid contract, and a document that never passed through it sits outside that system. This guide covers what the instrument is under Decree 337/2025/ND-CP, what Circular 08/2026/TT-BNV added, and what HR and finance have to change. For the service context, see terra.
Updated October 2026. Circular 08/2026/TT-BNV was issued on 15 May 2026 and the platform began operating on 1 July 2026.
Quick reference: the rules at a glance
| Item | Position from 1 July 2026 |
|---|---|
| Governing decree | Decree 337/2025/ND-CP on electronic labour contracts |
| Implementing circular | Circular 08/2026/TT-BNV, issued 15 May 2026 by the Ministry of Home Affairs |
| National platform | Operating from 1 July 2026 |
| Contract identification code | One letter plus twelve digits, generated automatically |
| Code stability | Assigned once, unchanged through amendment, suspension or termination |
| Retention period | Ten years from termination of the last contract in a consecutive series |
What the instrument is under Decree 337/2025
An electronic labour contract in Vietnam is a labour contract concluded in electronic form that is registered on the national platform and carries the identification code the platform issues. Decree 337/2025/ND-CP sets the framework. Circular 08/2026/TT-BNV sets the mechanics: how codes are assigned, how platform accounts are approved, locked and unlocked, and how contract data is connected and managed.
The distinction that matters for employers is between an electronically signed document and a registered contract. Companies have been signing PDFs with digital certificates for years and calling the result electronic. The platform changes what the word means, because a contract without a platform identification code cannot be evidenced the way a registered one can.
Scope note: this article covers the contract instrument and its record keeping. Work permits for foreign employees, social insurance registration and probation rules each follow their own procedures and are not covered here.
What Circular 08/2026 actually changed
Decree 337/2025 said electronic labour contracts would exist. Circular 08/2026 said how. The gap between those two sentences is where most of the operational work sits, and it is the reason a company that read the decree in 2025 and did nothing is now behind rather than merely late.
The circular puts concrete obligations on HR and accounting rather than leaving them to IT. Account access has an approval, lock and unlock procedure that someone must own. Contract data has to connect to the platform. The identification code has to be captured and carried through the employment record. None of that is a technology decision, and all of it changes a process that HR already runs.
One judgement worth stating: the companies that will struggle are not the ones with old systems. They are the ones where the employment contract lives in a shared drive and the payroll record lives somewhere else, with no field linking them. The platform does not create that problem. It makes it visible.
Does your payroll record carry the contract reference? If the answer is no, every future reconciliation between a contract and a pay run is manual. Ask terra how we link contract records to payroll.
The contract identification code and why payroll cares
Each valid electronic labour contract in Vietnam receives an identification code made up of one letter and twelve digits, generated automatically by the platform. The code is assigned once and does not change for the life of the contract, including when the contract is amended, supplemented, suspended or terminated.
That stability is the useful part. A code that survives amendment gives payroll a permanent key to join on, which is exactly what has been missing. Salary changes, position changes and contract extensions have historically created version confusion between the HR file and the payroll master. A single persistent identifier removes the ambiguity, provided someone stores it in the payroll record at onboarding rather than six months later.
| Event | Effect on the identification code |
|---|---|
| Contract amended or supplemented | Code unchanged |
| Contract suspended | Code unchanged |
| Contract terminated | Code unchanged |
| New contract signed with the same employee | New code issued |
There is a quiet benefit here that nobody advertises. Once the code is in the payroll master, the annual reconciliation between headcount on contract and headcount on payroll stops being a manual name matching exercise. That reconciliation is the one auditors ask for and the one teams dread, and it is the first thing that gets easier.
How long must you keep the record?
Ten years, counted from the termination date of the last contract where an employee signed several consecutive contracts. The clock does not restart with each contract and it does not run from the signing date, which is the detail most retention policies get wrong.
Read that against your current deletion schedule before year end. A policy that purges HR records seven years after an employee leaves will now delete records that are still within the statutory retention window. The same policy also has to coexist with the deletion duties under the personal data protection regime, which pull in the opposite direction. Where a retention rule and a deletion rule conflict, the statutory retention period governs, and the deletion obligation applies to what sits outside it.
What should HR and finance do now?
Four things, in this order. Confirm who owns the platform account and who can approve, lock and unlock access, because an unowned account is the control weakness an auditor finds first. Add an identification code field to the payroll master and make it mandatory at onboarding. Reconcile existing contracts and decide which need to be concluded on the platform going forward. Then revisit the retention schedule against the ten year rule.
A boundary on urgency, because not everything here is equally pressing. A company hiring two people a quarter can absorb this inside its normal onboarding review. A company running high volume seasonal hiring across several provinces is doing a process redesign, and the account administration question becomes a real one rather than a formality.
Teams tightening onboarding and payroll at the same time will find the related obligations in payroll for expats in Vietnam and the broader filing picture in the monthly payroll process. For a structured review of current state, start with a payroll audit.
How terra BPaaS payroll fits the new contract regime
terra delivers payroll as BPaaS, which means the platform and the specialists come together rather than separately. For the electronic labour contract in Vietnam that pairing is the point, because the change is half system and half procedure. A software licence alone gives you a field to store the code. It does not give you anyone who makes sure the code is captured at onboarding every time.
| What terra covers | What it means for your team |
|---|---|
| Onboarding record, contract reference and payroll master kept in step | Contract to pay run reconciliation stops being a manual match |
| Payroll calculation, payslips and the monthly register | One source feeding insurance and tax filings from the same data |
| Retention aligned to the statutory period | The ten year rule is applied by policy, not by whoever last cleaned the drive |
On credibility, the structural facts are more useful than adjectives. terra operates as Vina Payroll Outsourcing Co., Ltd., a member of the I-GLOCAL Japan group, so payroll sits beside accounting, tax and audit practices that already serve foreign invested companies in Vietnam. That matters when a contract question turns into a tax or insurance question, which it usually does at termination and at restructuring.
Where terra is not the answer: a company with a handful of long tenure staff and almost no hiring will touch the platform twice a year and does not need an outsourced function to do it. The case strengthens with hiring volume, with multiple provinces, and with foreign staff whose contracts carry a second set of requirements.
Moving onboarding onto the platform this quarter? terra can align the contract record, the identification code and the payroll master so they reconcile without mchecanual matching. Tell us your setup and we will map the gaps.
Conclusion
The electronic labour contract in Vietnam is a record keeping change dressed as a technology change. Claim the platform account, capture the identification code in payroll at onboarding, and fix the retention schedule to ten years. Review your contract and payroll setup with terra.
References reflect Decree 337/2025/ND-CP and Circular 08/2026/TT-BNV issued 15 May 2026, with the platform operating from 1 July 2026. General guidance only, not legal advice for a specific entity.
