Vietnam Moves to Help Defunct Businesses Complete Dissolution

For many Vietnamese businesses that have been inactive for years, closing legally can cost hundreds of millions of dong. They may owe business license fees, penalties for late value-added tax and corporate income tax filings, and accumulated late-payment interest.

The burden has left some companies effectively frozen. They have stopped operating but cannot complete dissolution because they are still waiting for tax finalization and closure of their tax codes. Some owners, faced with mounting costs, simply leave the procedure unfinished.

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The General Department of Taxation is continuing to review obstacles involving policy, tax obligations and penalties, and study appropriate solutions to submit to the relevant authorities, creating conditions for businesses.

At a tax authority briefing on September 4, Nguyen Duc Huy, deputy head of the Tax Operations Division, said a campaign to clean up tax codes began in mid-May. The review focuses on reducing the number of taxpayers in two categories: those that have stopped operating but have not closed their tax codes, and those no longer operating at their registered addresses. During the first eight months of 2026, the tax authority closed the tax codes of nearly 72,000 businesses and organizations in those categories.

Huy said the General Department of Taxation is continuing to review obstacles involving policy, tax obligations and penalties. It is studying solutions to submit to the relevant authorities, with the aim of making it easier for businesses to complete the process.

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As soon as a business stops operating, it should file to end its business activities, pay its taxes and cancel its tax code. Then there would be no need to pay penalties.

Readers also described the human cost of stalled dissolutions. One said the hardest steps were tax finalization and tax-code closure. Another reported submitting a dissolution application in 2020, receiving confirmation that the paperwork was valid and later receiving approval of the dissolution notice, but remaining stuck at the tax inspection stage. Others said the unresolved status complicates the settlement of workers’ rights.

Many readers urged authorities to create an automatic mechanism to dissolve companies and close tax codes when businesses have no revenue, tax activity or apparent risk of abusing policies and invoices.

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If a business has no revenue and poses no risk of abusing policies or invoices, there should be a mechanism to automatically dissolve it and close its tax code.