Vietnam moves traveller VAT refunds onto an electronic system from 1 July 2026
- Jurisdiction
- 🇻🇳 Vietnam
- Tax
- VAT
- Change type
- Compliance
- Status
- In force
- Impact
- Action required
- Announced
- 30 June 2026
- Effective
- 1 July 2026
- Instrument
- VN-CIRC-84-2026
- Authority
- Công Báo — Official Gazette of the Government of Vietnam
- Systems
- Invoicing, POS, Reporting
- Verified
- Fetched from official source · high confidence
Retailers registered in the Vietnamese traveller VAT-refund scheme, and the customs and banking parties handling refunds on exit.
Retailers registered in the Vietnamese traveller VAT-refund scheme should confirm their invoicing and refund-declaration flows meet the electronic requirements of Circular 84/2026/TT-BTC, in force since 1 July 2026.
InvoicingPOSReporting
Circular 84/2026/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance, signed 30 June 2026 and published in Công Báo No. 436 of 25 July 2026, establishes an electronic system for refunding VAT on goods bought in Vietnam and carried out of the country by foreigners and overseas Vietnamese on exit. It takes effect on 1 July 2026 and replaces Circular 72/2014/TT-BTC of 30 May 2014 and Circular 92/2019/TT-BTC of 31 December 2019, except as provided in Article 17.
What changed in detail
Circular 84/2026/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance, signed 30 June 2026 and published in Công Báo No. 436 of 25 July 2026, establishes an electronic system for refunding VAT on goods bought in Vietnam and carried out of the country by foreigners and overseas Vietnamese on exit.
The Circular takes effect on 1 July 2026 and replaces Circular 72/2014/TT-BTC of 30 May 2014 and Circular 92/2019/TT-BTC of 31 December 2019, except as provided in Article 17.
What it means
Worth noting how late the gazette publication ran. The circular took effect on 1 July but only appeared in Công Báo on 25 July — so retailers in the refund scheme spent most of a month operating under rules that were in force before they were formally published, and any procedural step taken in that window was taken against a text they could not officially read.
For a retailer the practical question is whether the invoicing and refund-declaration flow meets the electronic requirements, since the replaced circulars allowed paper handling that the new system does not. Article 17 carries the transitional carve-outs and is the first thing to read before assuming a legacy process has lapsed.