How new businesses in Vietnam build and register their internal labor rules

Key Takeaways

• The most common misconception is treating internal labor rules as an internal employee handbook, when in fact they are a legal document that companies with 10 or more employees must register with the state labor authority.
• Internal labor rules can only serve as the basis for discipline against conduct they explicitly name, so the scope of drafting directly determines how far a company can enforce discipline.
• The rules take effect 15 days after the authority receives a complete dossier, not from the date the company is notified, and any discipline applied before that date risks being ruled invalid.
• The exposure is not only the fine but the risk that a disciplinary decision is voided, forcing reinstatement and back pay.

Opening

In the first half of 2026, nearly 111,700 new companies were registered in Vietnam, up 22.5% year on year. Many are crossing the 10-employee threshold for the first time before their HR infrastructure is mature, and for this group internal labor rules are one of the first compliance obligations, and one of the easiest to overlook.

Does your company have to register internal labor rules?

Internal labor rules are not the same as an employee handbook. A handbook is a broader internal HR document, while the internal labor rules are the legal core that every employer must have and that companies above a certain size must register to make enforceable. Headcount decides the obligation.

Knowing which group you fall into is the first step, but a set of rules is only enforceable when it covers the content the law requires.

What a valid set of internal labor rules must contain

The Labor Code 2019 and Decree 145/2020 require internal labor rules to cover nine areas:

• Working hours and rest periods
• Order at the workplace
• Occupational safety and health
• Prevention and handling of sexual harassment at work
• Protection of assets, business and technology secrets, and intellectual property
• Conditions for temporarily reassigning an employee to work outside the contract
• Breaches of discipline and the corresponding forms of penalty
• Material responsibility
• The person authorized to handle labor discipline

The decisive point sits in the discipline content. A company may only discipline conduct that is named in the internal labor rules, in the employment contract, or in the law. Disciplining conduct not covered by the rules can draw a fine of up to VND 20 to 40 million, and the decision is treated as unlawful. A thinly drafted set of rules therefore does more than create a compliance gap; it directly narrows how far the company can manage discipline later.

How to register the rules and when they take effect

For companies within scope, the process runs on fixed deadlines, and the effective date is the point most often misunderstood.

The process and the dossier

Before issuing the rules, the company must consult the grassroots employee representative organization and keep the written consultation record. Within 10 days of issuance, the company files the dossier with the provincial labor authority where it is registered. The dossier includes the application, the full text of the rules, the employee representative organization’s written comments, and any related regulations. Within 7 working days of receiving the dossier, if any provision conflicts with the law, the authority notifies the company to amend and re-register. This is where a practical guide to registering internal labor rules helps avoid a first-round rejection.

The 15-day effective date, the point most often missed

Internal labor rules take effect 15 days after the authority receives a complete, valid dossier, not from the date the company is approved or notified. The gap matters because any disciplinary decision applied under rules that are not yet in effect risks being ruled invalid, which in turn forces the company to reinstate the employee and pay back wages for the time they were kept out of work.

Bringing the rules into effect only completes the paperwork; how they are operated decides whether they are actually usable.

Making the rules enforceable in practice

Once the rules take effect, the company must notify all employees and post the main contents at the workplace. Skipping this step is penalized separately, from VND 2 to 6 million, even when the rules are properly registered. A company with branches or sites in several provinces must send the registered rules to the labor authority in each province, rather than keeping them only at head office. Failing to have written rules or to register them once the company reaches 10 employees carries a fine of VND 10 to 20 million and, more importantly, removes the legal basis for lawful discipline.

The rules are also not a document to file once and forget. Each time labor law changes, the company should review and re-register the amended parts through the proper procedure. As headcount and locations grow, handing the drafting, review and registration to a specialist compliance partner shortens turnaround and reduces the risk of a rejected filing.

Conclusion

For a company with 10 or more employees, registering internal labor rules is not a secondary formality but the condition for the rules to take effect as a basis for discipline. Covering the required content, consulting through the proper process and respecting the 15-day effective date are the three things that keep the rules usable. Talentnet’s service for building, reviewing and registering internal labor rules helps companies complete this process reliably from the start.