On 15 May 2026, the Government issued Resolution No. 66.17/2026/NQ-CP (the Resolution 66.17 or the new), slimming down the list of conditional business sectors currently set out in Appendix IV of Investment Law 2025 (the old).

Resolution 66.17 will take effect on 1 July 2026 and is set to expire on 28 February 2027, by which time the Government expects the National Assembly to formalise these adjustments through an amendment to Appendix IV. Although there would be a question about the effectiveness of the Resolution 66.17 over the Appendix 4 of Investment Law 2025 and how the investment authority will apply in practice, the investor may, in the meantime, treat the Resolution 66.17 as the working text for the next 9–10 months while following up on the law amendments.

The number of conditional sectors drops from 198 to 142, a reduction of roughly 28%. Below is a walk-through of what has been cut and what has been merged or renamed.

*Note: summary above is created by AI and for your reference only.

1. Sectors removed entirely

The following sectors are no longer treated as conditional under the new list.

Companies still operating in these areas may continue to use their existing licences until expiry (under the transitional rule in Article 5 of Resolution 66.17), but no further sector-specific licensing condition will apply once Resolution 66.17 takes effect.

Some several removed sectors are economically important and tightly regulated elsewhere. Resolution 66.17 requires line ministries to publish replacement standards or post-licensing inspection regimes by 1 July 2026. The investors in these sectors should watch the implementing regulations closely to see whether the conditions are genuinely lifted, or simply relocated into a different legal instrument.

Security, weapons and auxiliary equipment

Paintball gun business (old No. 5).
Manufacture/trade of priority-vehicle signalling devices (old No. 9).

Legal and professional services

Property auction practice (old No. 14).
Bailiff/court enforcement officer practice (old No. 15).
Bankruptcy asset management and liquidation practice (old No. 16).
Accounting services (old No. 17).

Customs, commerce and consumer goods

Duty-free goods business (old No. 19).
Gas business (old No. 36).
Liquor/alcohol business (old No. 42).
Mineral trading (old No. 48).
White asbestos (Serpentine group) products (old No. 96).

Education

Vocational education quality accreditation (old No. 55).
General education quality accreditation (old No. 122).
Special-needed schools (old No. 120).
Foreign joint-training programs (old No. 121).

Labour

Occupational safety and hygiene training services (old No. 58).

Transport and logistics

Traffic safety auditor training (old No. 65).
Inland waterway transport (old No. 68).
Maritime transport (old No. 71).
Import and dismantling of used sea-going ships (old No. 72).
Seaport operation (old No. 73).
UAV/drone business (old No. 77).
Pipeline transport (old No. 85).
Fishing vessel building and conversion (old No. 128).
Fishing vessel crew training (old No. 130).

Construction and utilities

Construction inspection practice (old No. 93).
Clean water (domestic) supply (old No. 87).

Publishing, IT and telecoms

Publication distribution services (old No. 102).
Information content services over mobile and Internet networks (old No. 108).
Domain name registration and maintenance (old No. 109).

Agriculture, aquaculture and veterinary

Aquatic and animal feed testing services (old No. 126).
Plant protection services (old No. 134).
Veterinary technical services (old No. 136).
Plant/animal/aquatic breed testing services (old Nos. 146, 147, 148).

Health, IP and culture

Household-medical insecticides and disinfectants (old No. 153).
IP appraisal services (old No. 155).
Stage and music audio/video recording business (old No. 167).
Museum services (old No. 171).
Electronic games business other than prize games for foreigners and online prize games (old No. 172).

Land, natural resources and finance

Land investigation and assessment consulting (old No. 173).
Land-use planning and planning consulting (old No. 174).
Land valuation services (old No. 175).
Water resource regulation, allocation and reservoir operation decision-support services (old No. 180).
Foreign exchange business and services by non-credit institutions (old No. 191).
Radio operator training and certification (old No. 193).

2. Sectors with modified names or descriptions

These are sectors that remain conditional; in several cases the scope has been narrowed (e.g., from "trading" to "manufacturing only"), and in others several previously separate sectors have been merged into one.

Sectors merged into one

Concealed recording/positioning equipment (old No. 4) and Mobile signal jammers (old No. 114) are now combined under a single entry "Concealed recording, video and positioning equipment and software; mobile signal jamming and disruption equipment" (new No. 4);
Insurance business, reinsurance, insurance broker and insurance agent (old Nos. 24–27) are merged into "Insurance business activities (excluding insurance auxiliary services)" (new No. 17);
Electronic prize games for foreigners, casino and betting (old Nos. 30, 32, 33) are merged into "Prize-winning game business" (new No. 20);
Construction project management practice (old No. 88) and Site commander practice (old No. 92) are merged into "Construction project management practice and site commander" (new No. 63);
Data intermediation services (old 194) and Data analytics/aggregation services (old 195) are merged into "Data intermediation, analytics and aggregation products and services" (new No. 139).

Sectors with narrowed scope

Voluntary tobacco cessation, HIV/AIDS treatment, elderly care, care for persons with disabilities, and child-care services are removed. Only voluntary drug rehabilitation is retained (new No. 43);
"Operation of preschool, general, higher, foreign-invested, and continuing education institutions" (old No. 115–119) shifts from licensing of the institution to regulating the education activity (new No. 83-87) and drops the representative offices of foreign education institutions from scope;
Several conditional services narrow from “trading” to “production” activity, for example trading in aquaculture/livestock feed and environmental treatment products (old No.125 and 127) narrows to production thereof (new No. 90); fertiliser business (old No. 142) narrows to fertiliser production (new No. 101); and plant breed business (old No. 144) narrows to plant breed production (new No. 103). Trading and distribution are now expected to be governed by general commercial and product-quality law.

This post is written by Le Minh Thuy.

Vietnam Business Law