Vietnam seeks to unlock the potential of its two-tier local government system

When Vũ Ngọc Huyền needed a copy of his daughter’s birth certificate extract, he expected to spend a day traveling from Hanoi to Thai Nguyen, where the original registration had been completed. Instead, he visited a digital public-service support point in Hanoi’s Dương Nội Ward.

Officials checked the system and found that civil-status data had already been linked. The application took about 10 minutes to process through the public-service portal, and the result was scheduled for collection within two days. “For residents, this is not simply about completing an administrative procedure. It saves time, money and effort, especially for people who live and work far from the place where their civil-status records were previously registered,” Huyền said.

His experience reflects changes reported during more than a year of Vietnam’s two-tier local government model. Nearly 3,200 public administration centers have been established at communes and wards nationwide. They can handle 839 types of administrative procedures locally, reducing the need for residents to travel to district or provincial offices.

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For residents, this is not simply about completing an administrative procedure. It saves time, money and effort, especially for people who live and work far from the place where their civil-status records were previously registered.

The system is also gradually moving procedures away from dependence on administrative boundaries. Linked databases allow residents to complete some applications from locations other than the place where their records were created. In Hanoi, 126 communes and wards processed 2,268,401 applications during the model’s first year. Almost 99.5% were completed on time or ahead of schedule, including 619,214 applications handled without administrative-boundary restrictions.

At a July 1 conference, Hanoi Party Committee Secretary Trần Đức Thắng said the city’s overdue application rate had fallen from 44.63% in 2025 to 4.2% in the first six months of 2026. He said real-time surveys showed that 98.95% of residents were satisfied or very satisfied. The article also notes that Ho Chi Minh City handles more than 20% of Vietnam’s administrative applications, while broader operational bottlenecks still require attention.

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Real-time surveys show that the rate of residents who are satisfied and very satisfied has reached 98.95%.