What Documents Do Chinese Nationals Need to Inherit Assets in Vietnam?

A Chinese family's inheritance file can sit untouched at a notary's office for months simply because a document proving kinship has not been consularly legalized, or because papers issued in Taiwan were prepared along the channel meant for mainland China. When the estate is in Vietnam and the heirs are in China, having the right and complete set of documents from the very start determines the entire timeline for receiving the assets.

Will a kinship notarial certificate issued by a Chinese authority be accepted by a Vietnamese notary? Vietnam and China already have a judicial assistance treaty, so do Chinese documents still need consular legalization, or should you wait until Vietnam adopts the Apostille stamp from September 2026? And if you cannot travel to Vietnam, who will file the paperwork and follow the procedure on your behalf? These are the obstacles that cost many Chinese heirs months of delay. This article lists the documents required under the rules in force in 2026, sets out the separate legalization routes for papers from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, and points to the filing errors that drag the process out.

The inheritance rights in Vietnam of a person holding Chinese nationality

The first point to make clear: Chinese nationality does not extinguish the right to inherit in Vietnam. Every individual has an equal right to enjoy an estate under a will or under the law (Article 610, Civil Code 2015), and a foreigner in Vietnam has civil legal capacity like a Vietnamese citizen, unless Vietnamese law provides otherwise (Clause 2, Article 673, Civil Code 2015). This means a spouse, child or parent holding Chinese nationality is still entitled to the estate like any other heir. Many families believe that "a foreigner gets no share" and quietly arrange matters while leaving out a relative living in China; that view is wrong in law and is the source of many lawsuits seeking re-division of an estate.

In an inheritance relationship with a foreign element, the first question is always which country's law applies. The Civil Code 2015 sets a clear rule:

What does this mean for you? If the deceased was a Vietnamese citizen (for example, the Vietnamese wife or husband of a Chinese national, or the Vietnamese parent of a child holding Chinese nationality), the inheritance is governed by Vietnamese law: with no will, the estate is divided among the first rank of heirs, namely the spouse, biological father, biological mother, adoptive father, adoptive mother, biological children and adopted children of the deceased, with those in the same rank receiving equal shares (Article 651, Civil Code 2015). Conversely, if the deceased was a Chinese national with assets in Vietnam, Chinese law determines who the heirs are and in what proportions, but the exercise of rights over real estate in Vietnam still follows Vietnamese law. If there is a will made in China, its form is recognized in Vietnam where it conforms to the law of the place where it was made (Article 681, Civil Code 2015), and that will must also go through legalization and translation like any other foreign document.

One point specific to real estate: if all of the heirs are foreigners, the heirs are not granted a Land Use Right Certificate but instead receive the value, by being named as the transferring or gifting party for that portion of the estate (Clause 3, Article 44, Land Law 2024). This concerns how the estate is received; DEDICA has analyzed it in a separate article on foreigners inheriting land use rights. For the purposes of this article, the point to remember is that the type of asset (real estate, bank deposits, capital contribution) determines the set of documents you must prepare.

The document checklist for an estate declaration under the 2024 Notary Law

From 1 July 2025, the procedure for receiving an estate at a notarial practice organization is carried out under the 2024 Notary Law. One change that many older articles have not updated: the new law merges the former "estate acceptance document" and "estate division agreement" into a single type, the estate division document, which applies even where there is only one heir (Clause 5, Article 59). The file revolves around the following groups of documents:

Applied to a case where the heir is a Chinese national, the documents to prepare typically include:

• Personal identification of the heir: a valid Chinese passport (or a Chinese resident identity card); Clause 1, Article 42 of the 2024 Notary Law accepts a passport in place of an identity card in a notarization file.
• Proof of death: if the deceased died in Vietnam, use the death extract issued by the Vietnamese civil status authority; if death occurred in China, use the death certificate or a notarial certificate of death issued by a Chinese authority.
• Documents proving the inheritance relationship (the most complex group for a Chinese file): depending on the relationship, these usually include a kinship notarial certificate issued by a Chinese notary office, a marriage certificate, a birth certificate and a household register. Note one difference: in China, personal relationships are usually proved by a notarial certificate issued by a notary office, rather than by a civil status extract always being available as in Vietnam, so you need to request the right type of document that fully reflects the relationship with the deceased.
• Documents on the estate: the land use right and home ownership certificate (the "pink book"), savings books, bank account information, capital contribution certificates, vehicle registration, depending on the type of asset the deceased left behind.
• The will (if any): the original will; a will made in China should be accompanied by certification from the competent authority of the place where it was made to prove its formal validity.
• Power of attorney (if you do not travel to Vietnam yourself): its content and how to prepare it are set out in the procedure section below.

Legalizing Chinese documents and the certified translation

All documents issued by a Chinese authority are only valid for use in Vietnam after going through consular legalization. This is a mandatory principle under Decree 111/2011/NĐ-CP (as amended and supplemented by Decree 196/2025/NĐ-CP):

For documents from mainland China, there are in practice two routes. One is certification at the Consular Department of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (or an authorized local foreign affairs office), followed by consular legalization at the Vietnamese representative mission in China. The other is certification at the Embassy or Consulate General of China in Vietnam, followed by legalization at Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1 January 2026, Decree 196/2025/NĐ-CP allows legalization files to be submitted electronically, sparing a person in China one trip.

Many people ask: Vietnam and China signed a Treaty on Judicial Assistance in Civil and Criminal Matters in 1998, so is legalization waived? Under the treaty, documents drawn up or certified by a court or competent authority of one country, bearing an official signature and seal, are exempt from legalization when used for the purposes of judicial assistance between the authorities of the two countries. The key point is that this exemption is tied to the judicial assistance channel (authority to authority); it does not automatically apply to documents you bring and submit yourself directly to a notary office or bank. In practice, notaries and banks still require Chinese documents used for an estate declaration to be consularly legalized. The domestic legal basis for treaty-based exemption already exists, but it must be applied within its proper scope:

The major change ahead lies in the Apostille Convention. China is already a party to the Convention, in force for China since November 2023. Vietnam deposited its instrument of accession on 31 December 2025 and the Convention takes effect for Vietnam from 11 September 2026 (the Prime Minister approved the implementation plan in Decision 330/QĐ-TTg dated 25 February 2026). The Convention applies between two countries only if neither objects to the accession, and to date no objection has been recorded against Vietnam. If this holds, from 11 September 2026 a public document from mainland China will need only a single Apostille stamp issued by China's competent authority to be used in Vietnam, replacing the current two steps of certification and legalization. Because application still depends on the factor noted above, for an urgent file you should confirm with the receiving authority or a lawyer before choosing the Apostille route.

One point that many people lump together and get wrong: "Chinese" in the documentary sense is not only mainland China. Papers issued in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau follow different channels:

After legalization, documents must be translated into Vietnamese, because the language and script used in notarization is Vietnamese (Article 7, Notary Law 2024). The translation has the translator's signature certified under Decree 23/2015/NĐ-CP, and a notary is also authorized to certify the translator's signature under Article 18 of the 2024 Notary Law.

The estate declaration procedure and the documents arising at each step

Once you have a picture of the list, you need to know which document is used at which step, so as to prepare in the right order and avoid duplicate or missing requests:

1. Collect and legalize documents in China. Obtain the civil status papers and the kinship notarial certificate mentioned above in full form, then have them certified and consularly legalized. If you cannot travel to Vietnam, prepare the power of attorney at this step as well: sign it before a notary office in China and legalize it together with the other documents, or go directly to the Vietnamese representative mission in China to have it notarized. A document certified by the Vietnamese representative mission is a Vietnamese document and therefore needs no further legalization.
2. Translate and certify the translation in Vietnam. All Chinese-language documents are translated into Vietnamese and the translator's signature is certified at a Justice Department or a notarial practice organization.
3. Submit the file to notarize the estate division document. The notary checks the death, the inheritance relationship and the assets; if anything is unclear, the notary may request clarification or carry out verification under Article 59 of the 2024 Notary Law. The more complete the file, the faster this step.
4. Wait for the public posting. This is the step that makes many distant heirs think the file is being "sat on", when it is in fact a mandatory procedure to protect them (see immediately below).
5. Sign the estate division document and receive the assets. The notarized document is the basis for transferring title to assets, releasing bank accounts and declaring tax obligations.

On the public posting, the time limit is specified precisely:

The posting is carried out at the headquarters of the commune-level People's Committee of the deceased's last place of permanent residence. Worth noting for a Vietnam-China file: if the deceased had no last place of permanent or temporary residence in Vietnam (for instance a Chinese national living in Guangzhou but owning an apartment in Ho Chi Minh City), the notarial practice organization will request the Department of Justice to post the notice on the Department's electronic portal under Clause 2, Article 44 of Decree 104/2025/NĐ-CP. The notary may only notarize after the posting is completed with no complaint or denunciation.

On tax, from 1 July 2026 the tax obligation on inherited assets is applied under the 2025 Law on Personal Income Tax. The set of legalized documents proving family relationship mentioned above is precisely the basis for tax exemption on real estate inherited between close lineal relatives; outside the exempt category, a person not residing in Vietnam is taxed on the value exceeding 20 million VND per receipt. DEDICA has a separate article on personal income tax when receiving an inheritance under the new law, so here we only note that the kinship documents serve both to make the declaration and to claim the tax exemption. If the estate is cash and you wish to remit it to China, there is one further step: the procedure to buy and transfer foreign currency abroad under the foreign exchange management rules.

Real-world risks that drag out a file from China

The biggest risk lies not in the rules but in the preparation. First is relying on the judicial assistance treaty to skip legalization. As analyzed above, the treaty's exemption is tied to the authority-to-authority channel, so documents you bring and submit yourself are still rejected by notary offices and banks if not legalized. Each round of sending documents back to China to be redone means several more weeks of waiting, plus courier costs and re-translation from scratch.

Second is confusing the channels between mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. A Taiwanese document taken for legalization along the mainland route will not be accepted, and vice versa. Identifying the correct place of issue from the outset spares you a costly round of redoing.

Third is missing documents proving the relationship. Because China proves personal relationships mainly through notary office certificates, an heir used to a civil status system can easily submit too little or submit a paper that does not fully reflect the relationship with the deceased, and is then asked to supplement precisely the hardest part to obtain. Experience says to request the full version, reflecting the complete relationship, from the very first time.

Fourth is inconsistent name transliteration. The name on the passport (in Latin script, Pinyin), on the Chinese-character documents and in the Vietnamese translation must be brought to a single consistent spelling; files have been paused simply because the translation and the passport spelled the name differently, forcing the heir to explain and reconfirm. Ask your translation provider to follow exactly the passport spelling on every document.

Fifth is a power of attorney that omits part of its scope. A power of attorney that only states "to declare the estate on my behalf" but omits receiving the posting result, signing the division document, receiving money, transferring title and declaring tax will force you to redo the power of attorney from China, that is, one more round of notarization and legalization. Settle the content of the power of attorney with a lawyer in Vietnam first, then take it to be signed and legalized.

Finally, there is the risk of being "left out" while you are far away: there are cases where co-heirs in Vietnam carry out the procedure themselves and leave out an heir living abroad. The posting mechanism is precisely the safeguard: a complaint within the posting period forces the notary to suspend the notarization; if the division has already been completed, the person left out still has the right to sue to seek re-division. Therefore, the moment you learn of a relative's death, the first thing to do is not to book a flight, but to establish your legal presence in the file.

DEDICA's role in the inheritance files of Chinese clients

DEDICA Law Firm regularly handles inheritance files with a foreign element where the heir cannot be present in Vietnam. For Chinese clients, DEDICA's lawyers review the existing documents, draw up the list of papers to obtain in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macau (the right type of document, the right legalization channel) and draft a power of attorney of sufficient scope before you incur legalization costs. DEDICA then accepts the power of attorney to carry out the entire process in Vietnam on your behalf: notarizing the estate division document, monitoring the posting, working with banks, the land registration authority and the tax authority, together with a plan to remit the inheritance to China under the foreign exchange rules. Should a dispute arise, or should you have been left out of an estate declaration carried out earlier, DEDICA represents you in negotiation among the co-heirs or in litigation before the court to recover your share of the estate.

If you are in China and need to receive a relative's estate in Vietnam, send DEDICA Law Firm photographs of the documents you have: passport, civil status papers or a kinship notarial certificate, and documents on the assets. The lawyers will compare them against the requirements of the notary office and the bank, identify the correct legalization channel according to the place of issue, draw up the list of items to supplement and draft the content of the power of attorney, so that you complete everything in a single round of legalization instead of travelling back and forth between China and Vietnam. Contact DEDICA for legal advice on your specific situation.

This article is for reference, based on Vietnamese law at the time of writing (June 2026), in which certain provisions applying from 1 July 2026 and 11 September 2026 have been clearly noted. Each inheritance file has its own particulars; please consult a DEDICA lawyer for accurate advice on your situation.