Vietnam to Require Employee Data Registration by 2026

From January 1, 2026, Vietnam will implement a significant shift in labor governance through the revised Employment Law. Article 17 introduces a new obligation requiring all enterprises to register and update employee information in the National Labor Database.

The reform aims to modernize labor market management, streamline administrative procedures, and align Vietnam more closely with international norms in digital labor governance. Yet as with any structural reform, its success will depend not only on the law itself but also on businesses’ ability to adapt to new demands in data standardization, compliance, and cybersecurity.

A Push Toward Greater Transparency

At its core, the new requirement seeks to build a unified and transparent picture of Vietnam’s labor force. For decades, government agencies have struggled with fragmented, inconsistent, and sometimes incomplete labor data submitted by enterprises.

A centralized digital database has the potential to eliminate this fragmentation, giving policymakers the ability to track labor flows, identify skills shortages, assess unemployment trends, and understand regional workforce dynamics with far greater precision. Such visibility is essential in an economy transitioning from labor-intensive manufacturing toward higher-value, knowledge-based industries where reliable workforce data is indispensable.

Reducing Administrative Burden but...

If implemented effectively, the national labor database could replace many overlapping and paper-based reporting requirements that businesses currently face. Routine submissions such as: reports on labor usage, notifications of personnel changes, or documentation for inspections… could be automated through seamless synchronization.

Beyond administrative simplification, integration with social insurance and national identification systems would allow employment records, salary history, and contribution data to be verified instantly. This connection may help reduce fraud, accelerate benefit claims, and protect workers’ rights even when they change jobs or move across provinces.

Challenges: Cost, Capacity, and Data Risks

Despite its benefits, the transition poses significant challenges. Many small and medium-sized enterprises still rely on manual spreadsheets or physical files, lacking standardized HR systems capable of exporting data in required formats.

These businesses will need to clean and update employee records, re-collect missing information, and restructure HR workflows tasks that demand both time and new technical skills.

Cybersecurity adds another layer of complexity. Sensitive information such as identification numbers, employment contracts, and salary data will be transmitted and stored digitally; without strong safeguards, enterprises face heightened risks of data breaches and regulatory sanctions as Vietnam strengthens its data protection framework.

How Does Vietnam Compare Internationally?

Vietnam’s effort mirrors a broader global shift toward centralized labor data management. 

Singapore operates the MyMOM system, requiring employers to update worker information in real time, which allows authorities to anticipate skills shortages and adjust policies quickly. 

South Korea integrates its Employment Insurance Database with the country’s welfare system, improving efficiency in processing unemployment benefits and verifying contributions. In the European Union, although there is no supranational labor database, many member states maintain mandatory digital reporting systems aligned with GDPR standards, promoting transparent oversight while ensuring stringent personal-data protection.

These examples demonstrate that centralized databases can succeed, but only when supported by robust IT infrastructure, clear technical guidance, and sustained cooperation between governments and businesses.

What Businesses Should Be Doing Now

From now until the end of 2025, companies have a crucial preparation window. Standardizing employee records, upgrading HR software, and training staff will be essential steps.

Businesses should establish clear internal procedures for verifying information, managing data access, and meeting cybersecurity requirements. Larger enterprises may already be positioned to integrate API-ready HR systems that can eventually connect directly to the national database.

Smaller enterprises, meanwhile, should focus on cleaning existing data and assigning a dedicated compliance officer to handle reporting obligations once the law takes effect. Early preparation will minimize disruptions and help avoid costly mistakes when compliance becomes mandatory.

The Role of VNBIS in a Data-Driven Business Environment

As Vietnam advances toward digital governance, the need for reliable, accurate business information is growing quickly. VNBIS (Vanguard Business Information LLC), a leading provider focusing on Vietnam, is expanding its nationwide coverage of companies by gathering corporate records, financial statements, compliance indicators, and operational insights. 

The new labor data requirement will add a crucial layer to Vietnam’s information network. As businesses formalize and standardize labor data, the quality of public and commercial datasets will improve, allowing VNBIS to provide even more accurate risk assessments, credit analyses, and due diligence reports to investors, lenders, and supply chain partners who increasingly depend on verified data to make decisions.

A Reform That Faces a Difficult Road Ahead

Although Article 17 embodies a modern vision for digital labor governance, its path to practical success is far from assured. Vietnam has introduced many ambitious reforms that appear robust in legislation but take years, even decades, to achieve widespread compliance. The new data requirement may follow the same pattern.

Large corporations, foreign-invested enterprises, and organizations with well-developed HR systems are likely to comply first because they already possess the infrastructure and incentives. However, the vast majority of Vietnamese businesses are small or micro enterprises that operate informally, lack HR departments, and remain unfamiliar with digital reporting standards. For them, compliance may be slow, inconsistent, or symbolic rather than substantive.

Even when regulations are clear, enforcement depends on stable IT systems, transparent technical guidance, active monitoring, and long-term capacity development—all areas where Vietnam’s administrative systems often need time to improve. Without strong incentives, practical support tools, and a phased implementation plan, the regulation risks becoming just another well-meaning policy adopted unevenly across the market.

In the early years, the national database may only record a small part of the workforce, mainly those employed by larger, formal businesses, leaving millions of workers in smaller firms untracked. Such inconsistent compliance would weaken the database’s accuracy, credibility, and usefulness for policymaking.

Ultimately, the success of this reform will depend less on the legal mandate and more on the day-to-day capacity of Vietnamese businesses to adapt, the government's ability to enforce the rules consistently, and the willingness of enterprises, especially smaller ones, to invest in proper data management. Without these conditions, Article 17 may join the long list of regulations that are formally enacted but only partially realized in practice.