Question: I have established a 100% foreign-owned company with labor subleasing as a registered business line. Given the current regulations and the newly effective Investment Law 2025, I would like to inquire whether I am required to obtain a License to provide labor subleasing service ?
Answer
Pursuant to Decree No. 31/2021/ND-CP guiding the Law on Investment, the labor subleasing service business is not subject to market access restrictions for foreign investors. Consequently, foreign investors are permitted to conduct labor subleasing services in Vietnam.
However, pursuant to the provisions of the Labor Code, this is a conditional business line; therefore, an enterprise wishing to conduct labor subleasing business must be granted a License to provide labor subleasing services in accordance with Article 54 of the Labor Code 2019 and Article 12 of Decree No. 145/2020/ND-CP.
Accordingly, to be granted a license to provide labor subleasing services, an enterprise must satisfy the conditions stipulated in Article 21 of Decree No. 145/2020/ND-CP:
“Article 21. Licensing conditions
- The legal representative of the dispatching agency shall:
- a) be an enterprise executive as prescribed by the Law on Enterprises;
- b) not have any criminal conviction;
- c) have at least 03 years (36 months) of working in labor dispatch or labor supply in the last 05 years before the application for licensing is submitted.
- The enterprise has paid a deposit of 2.000.000.000 VND (2 billion Vietnam dongs).
...”
Additionally, the applicant must not be subject to the grounds for license refusal prescribed in Clause 5, Article 25 of Decree No. 145/2020/ND-CP:
“Article 25. Licensing procedures
...
- The application will be rejected in the following cases:
- a) The conditions specified in Article 21 of this Decree are not fully satisfied;
- b) A fake license is used for labor dispatch operation;
- c) The legal representative used to be the legal representative of an enterprise whose license was revoked because of the reasons specified in Points d, dd, e Clause 1 Article 28 of this Decree over the last 05 years before the application is submitted;
- d) The legal representative used to be the legal representative of an enterprise that used a fake license.”
Accordingly, should your company intend to conduct labor subleasing business and satisfy all stipulated conditions, the company is required to submit an application dossier to the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (DOLISA) where its head office is located to request the issuance of the relevant license in accordance with the prescribed legal procedures.
