Every company in Vietnam must have a registered head office, and the address it registers is the address the State will use against it. Under Article 42 of the Enterprise Law 2020, the head office must be on Vietnamese territory, must be the company’s contact address, must be identified by administrative boundaries, and must carry a telephone number and, where available, fax and email.
What the registered address is actually used for
- It is where the business registration authority and the tax authority send notices; service at that address counts as service on the company.
- It appears on the Enterprise Registration Certificate, on invoices and on contracts.
- It fixes which provincial authority handles the company’s filings.
Three rules that catch foreign-invested companies
| Rule | Source | What goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| The company name must be displayed at the head office | Decree 122/2021/ND-CP — fine of VND 30–50 million for failing to display it | A pure mailbox with no signage fails an inspection |
| Company records must be kept at the head office (or another place stated in the charter) | Decree 122/2021/ND-CP, same fine band | Records sit in a director’s home abroad |
| An apartment in a residential building cannot be used for non-residential purposes | Housing Law 27/2023/QH15, prohibited acts | An address in a condominium is rejected or later challenged |
So is a virtual office legal in Vietnam?
There is no provision that bans a shared or serviced address. The test is practical: the address must exist, the company must be reachable there, its name must be displayed, and someone must be able to receive official mail. A serviced office that provides those things supports a valid registration. A mailbox that provides none of them leaves the company exposed — and a company that cannot be found at its registered address risks having its tax code flagged as not operating at the registered address, which stops invoicing until it is fixed.
What arrives at the address, and who must read it
Tax notices, requests from the business registration authority, court summons and contractual notices are all served on the registered address, and deadlines run from delivery whether or not anyone opened the envelope. A forwarding service can receive, scan and date-stamp; it cannot decide what a tax notice requires. For foreign-invested companies whose management sits abroad, UniLaw acts as the point of contact: we read what arrives and escalate only what needs a decision.
Foreign-owned companies: the address is checked twice
For a foreign investor the address is reviewed once for the investment registration certificate and once for the enterprise registration certificate, and the two dossiers must match. A serviced address carries the registration where the provider gives a lease in the company’s name, allows signage and receives official mail — but not where the licence applied for requires physical premises that the licensing authority inspects, such as manufacturing, education, healthcare or food.
How UniLaw handles it
| Step | What we do |
|---|---|
| Address review | Check the proposed address against Article 42, the apartment rule and the lease or service agreement offered by the provider |
| Registration | File the address in the enterprise registration dossier under Decree 168/2025/ND-CP, or file the change if the company is moving |
| Compliance | Signage, records kept at the office, and a person who actually receives notices |
| Fixing problems | Where the tax authority has flagged the company as absent from its address, we handle the explanation and the restoration |
Send the draft lease or the provider’s service agreement to legal@unilaw.vn and we will tell you whether the address will hold. Company set-up itself is handled by our corporate lawyers in Vietnam.
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