Legal position as at 16 September 2026
Legal basis
| Instrument | What it governs | In force from |
|---|---|---|
| Circular 186/2010/TT-BTC | Conditions and procedure for remitting profit abroad | To be confirmed |
| Circular 38/2026/TT-NHNN | The account the transfer must run through | 18 August 2026 |
Most remittance files are not refused on the law. They are sent back because the documents do not hold together — a figure that does not reconcile, an obligation still outstanding, a signature from someone the bank has no mandate for. The rule is rarely the problem. The file is.
These are the reasons a file comes back, roughly in the order they come up.
There are accumulated losses#
A company can be profitable this year and still be unable to remit, because accumulated losses (lỗ luỹ kế) from earlier years have not been cleared. This catches companies that have had a good year after several bad ones, and it is the reason most often misunderstood by a parent company looking only at the current year’s result.
Tax and other obligations are not settled#
Financial obligations to the state have to be discharged before profit is distributed, and the company has to remain able to meet its debts afterwards. In practice this means corporate income tax, value added tax and any special consumption tax are paid and reconcilable, not merely declared.
The financial statements are not audited, or not the right ones#
Remittance rests on audited financial statements (báo cáo tài chính đã được kiểm toán) for the year the profit belongs to. An unaudited statement, a draft, or a statement for a different period will not carry the file.
The tax authority was not notified in time#
Notice has to reach the tax authority (cơ quan thuế) a set number of working days before the transfer — commonly stated as seven. A file that is otherwise complete will simply wait until that period has run.
The transfer is routed through the wrong account#
Profit leaves through the investment capital account, not through the company’s ordinary current account. Since Circular 38/2026/TT-NHNN this account is called a foreign investment capital account (tài khoản vốn đầu tư nước ngoài) ; older documents call it a direct investment capital account.
The signatory is not the person the bank has a mandate for#
The person who signs the instruction has to be the person on the bank’s specimen signature record, with authority that matches what the corporate documents say. A change of legal representative that was never notified to the bank stops a file at the counter regardless of how correct everything else is.