Vietnam cuts VAT from 10% to 8% for the first half of 2024 (Decree 94/2023/NĐ-CP)

What changed in detail

The Government issued Decree No. 94/2023/NĐ-CP on 28 December 2023, signed by Deputy Prime Minister Lê Minh Khái on behalf of the Prime Minister. It implements National Assembly Resolution 110/2023/QH15 of 29 November 2023.

Article 1 reduces VAT on goods and services taxed at 10%:

• businesses using the deduction method apply 8% instead of 10%;
• businesses using the turnover method, including household and individual businesses, reduce their VAT percentage on turnover by 20%.

Three groups are excluded: Appendix I (telecoms, financial, banking, securities and insurance services, real estate, metals and cast-metal products, mining products (coal mining excepted), coke, refined petroleum and chemical products), Appendix II (goods and services subject to special consumption tax) and Appendix III (information technology goods and services under the IT law). Coal sold at the extraction stage qualifies.

Sellers show the 8% rate on the VAT invoice; turnover-method sellers note the amount reduced “theo Nghị quyết số 110/2023/QH15”. Where an invoice carries several rates, each item’s rate must be shown. Reduced supplies are declared on Form 01 of Appendix IV with the VAT return.

Under Article 2(1) the decree applied from 1 January 2024 to 30 June 2024.

What it means

This reduction is spent. It ended on 30 June 2024 by its own terms; nothing repealed it. The same cut was then renewed half-year by half-year under separate instruments: Decree 72/2024/NĐ-CP for July to December 2024, Decree 180/2024/NĐ-CP for January to June 2025, and then Resolution 204/2025/QH15 for July 2025 to 31 December 2026. Each is its own event with its own dates, not an amendment of this one.

Its practical relevance now is in audits and corrections of first-half 2024 invoices. Those should carry 8% (or the 20% turnover reduction) only for goods outside the three appendices, which is where most disputes about the cut arose.