How Much Tax Do Foreigners Pay on Inheritance in Vietnam?

Foreigners inheriting assets in Vietnam often carry one big fear: that taxes will swallow most of the estate's value, the way inheritance taxes do in the United States, Korea or Japan. This misplaced worry leads many to put off claiming their inheritance for years. The real damage then comes not from taxes, but from estates being disposed of by others, files grinding to a halt, and late-payment interest piling up.

So what exactly do you pay when you receive a house, a savings account or an equity stake left behind by a family member in Vietnam? Does a foreign passport mean a heavier tax bill than locals pay? And why, for the same three-billion-dong house, does one heir pay nearly three hundred million dong in tax while another pays nothing at all? The answer turns on three factors few people know to check: the type of asset you receive, your relationship with the deceased, and the timing of your paperwork. Timing matters more than ever now that Vietnam's new Law on Personal Income Tax takes effect on 1 July 2026, changing both the taxable threshold and the point at which income is assessed. The analysis below breaks down every tax and fee with concrete numbers, identifies the cases that are fully exempt, and flags the mistakes that drag files out for months, so you can estimate the cost of your own case.

The legal framework: Vietnam has no separate "inheritance tax"

Unlike many countries, Vietnam has never enacted a standalone inheritance or estate tax. What an heir actually pays is personal income tax levied on "income from receiving an inheritance", plus a handful of administrative fees and charges when transferring title. This starting point matters: Vietnam taxes inheritances under an income-tax logic with a flat rate, not by taking a progressive bite out of the entire estate as some jurisdictions do.

The second point worth stating up front: foreign citizenship neither removes nor reduces inheritance rights in Vietnam. The Civil Code 2015 records the principle of equal inheritance rights for all individuals:

For tax purposes, the law distinguishes between tax residents and non-residents: non-residents (which is what most heirs living abroad are) are taxed only on income arising within Vietnam's territory, and an estate located in Vietnam falls squarely within that scope. What surprises many people is that for inheritance income, the two groups are treated identically: the same tax rate, the same threshold, the same full exemptions. There is no rule under which "overseas Vietnamese (Việt kiều) pay more tax than locals" on an inheritance.

Finally, timing. Through 30 June 2026, tax obligations are determined under the Law on Personal Income Tax 2007 (as amended several times) and Circular 111/2013/TT-BTC. From 1 July 2026, the Law on Personal Income Tax 2025 (Law No. 109/2025/QH15, passed by the National Assembly on 10 December 2025) replaces it entirely. Most cross-border inheritance files take many months, so even if your relative passed away earlier, your paperwork will most likely be completed under the new law. This article therefore follows the new law, with a comparison against the old rules below.

Four taxable asset classes and the 10% formula

Not every inheritance is taxed. Under Clause 9, Article 3 of the Law on Personal Income Tax 2025 (carried over from the old law), taxable inheritance income covers only four asset classes:

• Securities: shares, bonds, fund certificates and other types of securities;
• Capital interests in economic organizations or business establishments: stakes in limited liability companies, shares in joint stock companies, capital in private enterprises;
• Real estate: land use rights, houses, structures attached to land, including future-formed housing;
• Other assets subject to ownership or use registration: cars, motorbikes, vessels, yachts, aircraft.

The single most practical consequence of this list: cash, savings deposits and bank account balances are not taxable. If your mother left you a five-billion-dong savings book, you receive all of it without paying any personal income tax, whatever your nationality and wherever you live. This is the number-one misconception DEDICA encounters when advising clients abroad: many have braced themselves to "lose 10%" of a deposit that was never taxable in the first place.

For the four taxable classes, the formula from 1 July 2026 is: take the portion of the asset's value above VND 20 million per receipt, and multiply by 10%. For non-residents, the law says so expressly:

Example: you inherit an apartment with a taxable value of VND 3 billion and no exemption applies. Take VND 3 billion minus the VND 20 million threshold, multiply by 10%, and the tax due is VND 298 million. Note that "taxable value" is not market value: under current rules, the value of inherited real estate is determined by reference to the official land price table issued by the provincial People's Committee and the registration-fee price list, which usually sit below actual transaction prices. How valuation works under the new law will be detailed in a government decree (still in draft at the time of writing), so for files completed after 1 July 2026 the exact figure should be re-checked at the time of filing.

The full exemption: real estate passing between direct family members

Most real-world inheritances run from parents to children, or between spouses, or from grandparents to grandchildren. For real estate, this is precisely the group the law exempts entirely, and the new law keeps the rule intact:

In practice: a US-citizen child who inherits a house left by a birth father in Ho Chi Minh City pays no personal income tax at all, regardless of the house's value. Lawful adoptive, daughter-in-law and son-in-law relationships are also covered. Alongside that, the registration fee (lệ phí trước bạ) payable when re-titling a house or land, normally 0.5% under Decree 10/2022/NĐ-CP, is likewise waived for the same family list under Clause 10, Article 10 of that Decree. Because the two exemptions travel together, the real cost of receiving an estate within the direct family usually comes down to small procedural fees.

But the boundary of the exemption list is rigid, and this is where many people miscalculate: aunts and uncles leaving property to nieces and nephews; cousins; or a beneficiary named in the will with no blood relationship. None of them qualify, and all pay 10% on the value above the threshold as usual. The exemption also applies to real estate only: a child inheriting company shares or a car from a parent still pays tax under the general formula. And to claim the exemption you must prove the relationship with civil-status documents. For long-time residents abroad, birth and marriage certificates issued overseas must be consular-legalized and translated with certification before they can be used in Vietnam.

What changes from 1 July 2026 under the Law on Personal Income Tax 2025

Law No. 109/2025/QH15 does not change the philosophy of taxing inheritances, but it adjusts several parameters that anyone processing a file around the transition date needs to get exactly right:

The threshold increase from 10 to 20 million dong gets the headlines, but look at the substance: because the threshold is simply deducted before applying 10%, the maximum saving is exactly VND 1 million per receipt. The more consequential changes for heirs abroad are that the point at which taxable income is determined moves from "when ownership is registered" to "when the inheritance is received", and that asset valuation will be detailed in a new decree. These parameters directly determine which law governs your file and on what value your tax is computed.

The process step by step, and the fees along the way

Tax is only part of the cost picture. A typical inheritance file moves through the following steps, each with its own charge:

1. Declare the inheritance at a notary office. The inheritance declaration or estate division agreement is notarized and publicly posted as required. Notarial fees are charged on the estate's value on a sliding scale under Circular 257/2016/TT-BTC: an estate of VND 1 billion pays a fee of VND 1 million; VND 5 billion pays VND 3.2 million; the fee is capped at VND 70 million per case. Set against the estate's value, this is a minor item.
2. File personal income tax for each receipt of inheritance. Under current rules, filing is mandatory even where you qualify for an exemption: the registration authority will only process the title transfer once there is a tax payment receipt or the tax authority's confirmation that the inheritance is exempt. Skip this step and the transfer file will certainly be returned.
3. Pay the registration fee and register the title. The rate is 0.5% of the house or land value (waived for direct family as noted); cars and motorbikes have their own rates under Decree 10/2022/NĐ-CP. After this step, the asset is formally in your name.
4. For foreigners specifically: determine the form of receipt before step 1. If you are eligible to own housing in Vietnam (for example an apartment in a commercial housing project open to foreign buyers, and you are permitted to enter Vietnam), you can take the asset in kind. If not, especially for residential land use rights (which are not granted to foreign individuals without Vietnamese origin), the law lets you "receive the value": the Land Law 2024 (Article 44) and the Housing Law 2023 (Articles 20 and 22) allow an heir who cannot be issued the ownership certificate to stand as the transferor, sell the asset and take the proceeds. The sale triggers an additional personal income tax on real estate transfers of 2% of the transfer price under Article 24 of the Law on Personal Income Tax 2025. That is a tax on the sale transaction, separate from the inheritance tax.

Once the estate is sold or the inherited funds are withdrawn, moving the money out of Vietnam is governed by separate foreign-exchange rules. DEDICA has published a detailed guide on transferring inheritance money abroad, worth reading alongside this piece if that is your end goal.

Risks and common mistakes when working out inheritance tax

The costliest mistake, paradoxically, grows out of the fear of tax itself. Plenty of overseas Vietnamese who left the country long ago have heard that "inheriting means paying tens of percent in tax" and stall on the declaration, and some give up their share altogether. In the meantime, co-heirs in Vietnam may complete the declaration themselves and leave out the person abroad. By the time it is discovered, recovering that share means negotiation or litigation, costing many times the imagined tax. As the analysis above shows, for direct family receiving a house or land, the real cost is usually a few million dong in notarial and procedural fees.

The second cluster of mistakes sits at the boundary of the exemption list. Someone left a house by an aunt assumes "family means exempt", but the aunt-and-nephew relationship is not on the list in Clause 1, Article 4, and a 10% tax on the house's value above the threshold becomes a very large surprise. Likewise, a child inheriting company shares from a father still pays tax, because the exemption covers real estate only. Before accepting, check your exact relationship and asset type against the rules instead of going by gut feel.

Third is a procedural error by the exempt themselves: assuming "exempt means nothing to do with the tax office". In reality, filing for each receipt remains mandatory, and without the exemption confirmation the land registration office will not transfer title. For someone abroad, every returned file means another round of couriering documents, powers of attorney and waiting, sometimes losing several months over a single form.

Fourth, family-relationship documents issued abroad that have not been consular-legalized. If you cannot prove you are a "natural child" or "full sibling" to the standard Vietnamese paperwork requires, you risk not only losing the exemption but also failing to complete the notarized declaration itself. This is the most common defect DEDICA sees in cross-border files.

Finally, those planning to sell the estate and repatriate the money often fail to add up every layer of obligation: inheritance tax (if no exemption applies), then 2% transfer tax on the sale, and, depending on the law of your country of residence, the inheritance or sale proceeds may need to be declared and taxed again there. Vietnam has signed double taxation agreements with many countries; which amounts are creditable and where each must be declared should be worked out in advance for your specific case, ideally with a lawyer in Vietnam and a tax adviser in your country of residence working together.

How DEDICA supports heirs living abroad

Most of DEDICA's inheritance clients live overseas and cannot return to Vietnam to chase the paperwork. For them, DEDICA calculates the full tax and fee load of each option in advance (taking the asset in kind, receiving the value, or redistributing among co-heirs) so you decide on real numbers rather than guesswork; guides the preparation and consular legalization of relationship documents from your country; and acts under power of attorney to run the entire process in Vietnam: notarized declaration, tax filings, registration fee, title transfer, and where needed the sale of the asset and the procedures to remit the proceeds to you.

If you are weighing different ways to take an inheritance, a working session with a lawyer to run the tax and fee numbers for each scenario usually makes the decision much clearer.

Every cross-border inheritance is its own equation of asset type, family relationship and country of residence. The final tax bill can differ by hundreds of millions of dong between options. Before deciding to accept, sell or decline an estate, let DEDICA's lawyers calculate the full tax and fee position of each scenario and handle the procedures in Vietnam while you remain abroad. Contact DEDICA Law Firm for advice on your specific case.

This article is for reference, based on the law in force at the time of writing (June 2026), with the Law on Personal Income Tax 2025 applying from 1 July 2026 and its implementing decree still being finalized. Every case has its own facts; please consult DEDICA's lawyers for advice tailored to you