Legal Challenges Arising from Vietnam's Administrative Reorganization

Introduction

From 1 July 2025, Vietnam’s local Government system formally operates according to a new “two-tier” system in 34 provinces as opposed to the old “three-tier” system in 63 provinces. In the new system, there are only two levels of local Government including provinces (tỉnh) and wards (xã, phường). Government agencies at district level no longer exist. Vietnam also combines several existing wards to form a larger ward. As a result, we estimate that Vietnam now has about 3,300 local people’s committees down from 10,000 local people’s committees.    

To achieve this, by 1 July 2025, the National Assembly and the Government have, among other things, amended the Constitution, amended the Law on Organisation of Local Government, issued 34 resolutions and 28 Decrees to restructure the local government system. Unfortunately, despite such herculean efforts, it appears that the new regulations have not addressed adequately various legal issues arising from the restructuring. In this post we will discuss some of these issues. More information can be found from the attached research generated by the latest AI LLM from Google (Gemini Pro 2.5).

No clear geographical boundaries between various local authorities at wards levels.  

It appears that on 1 July 2025, the Government did not establish clear geographical boundaries between the newly established wards. This is because the Standing Committee of the National Assembly sets a deadline of 30 September 2025 for the Government to do so for each province. Until a source of truth of the geographical boundaries at wards level is set up, many companies and individuals may not know for sure the correct addresses that they may use in their operations including application submitted to the authorities, invoices issued to clients, or contracts.

Overhaul To Vietnam Court System From 1 July 2025

n 2024, the National Assembly of Vietnam enacted the new Law on Organization of the People’s Court (Law on Courts), which implemented significant reforms to the structure of the People’s Court system in comparison to the 2014 Law on Courts. Shortly after the promulgation of the 2024 Law on Courts, Vietnam initiated a substantial reorganisation of its administrative divisions, transitioning from a three-tier (province, district, commune) model to a two-tier (province, commune) model. Consequently, in 2025, the National Assembly approved an amendment to the 2024 Law on Courts to align the court system with the updated two-tier administrative division model (2024-2025 Law on Courts). Below are our discussions on the key changes under the 2024-2025 Law on Courts when compared to the 2014 Law on Courts.

1)           Complete Restructuring of the Court Hierarchy

The court system is majorly reformed with the removal of the High People's Courts (Tòa án nhân dân cấp cao) and replacement of District Courts with Regional Court (Tòa án nhân dân khu vực).

Further Discussions On The New Provisions On Beneficial Owners

In this post, we continue to discuss certain aspects of the new provisions on beneficial owners (BOs or commonly called as “UBOs”) under the new amendments to the Enterprise Law 2020 passed in June 2025 (2025 Enterprise Law Amendment) and the new Decree 168/2025 on enterprise registration. We have discussed some of the issues in our earlier post.

UBOs with joint controls

Under the 2025 Enterprise Law Amendment and Decree 168/2025, the criteria to determine whether an individual is an UBO seem to apply to a single individual only. As such, it is not clear if the information about related persons of such individual (e.g., his/her relatives) should be taken into account when determining an UBO. For example, it is not clear if an individual together with his/her spouse hold more than 25% voting rights of an enterprise should be declared as an UBO. A literal reading of Decree 168/2025 suggests that declaration of UBOs is not required in case of joint control. However, such an approach is likely not consistent with the purpose of the provisions on UBOs.

Vietnam Enacts Major Government Restructuring in Early 2025

n a landmark reform for 2025, the Government of Vietnam has commenced a significant restructuring of its ministries. This major overhaul, approved by Resolution No 176 of the National Assembly dated 18 February 2025, aims to create a leaner, more efficient, and effective state apparatus to better support the nation's development.

The restructuring involves a series of complex mergers and transfers of functions between ministries. Based on the guiding decrees, the key changes include: