Family Law · 03.11.2024

Family Law Attorney in Vietnam: Marriage, Children and Cross-Border Family Matters

Vietnamese family law reaches you as soon as you marry in Vietnam, marry a Vietnamese citizen, or have a child here. It decides whether your marriage is recognised, what counts as yours and what is joint, who a child legally belongs to, and which court can rule on any of it. This…

Lawyer UnilawReading time: 9 min

By Lawyer Nguyen Nhu Hai – UniLaw LLC

When does Vietnamese family law apply to foreigners?

The Law on Marriage and Family (Law No. 52/2014/QH13) has a dedicated chapter on relations with a foreign element. Three provisions set the frame.

Article 123(2) — a Vietnamese court’s power over a family case with a foreign element is determined by the Civil Procedure Code, not by the Law on Marriage and Family itself.
Article 469(1)(d) of the Code — a Vietnamese court has jurisdiction where a claimant or respondent is a Vietnamese citizen, or where the parties are foreign nationals residing, working or living long-term in Vietnam.
Article 470(1) — jurisdiction is exclusive to Vietnam over rights to immovable property located here, and over a divorce between a Vietnamese citizen and a foreign national where both spouses live long-term in Vietnam.

Which court, since 1 July 2025. Law No. 85/2025/QH15 of 25 June 2025 replaced Articles 35 and 37 of the Civil Procedure Code. First instance now sits with the Regional People’s Court (Tòa án nhân dân khu vực) through its Family and Juvenile Court; the Provincial People’s Court is left appeals, cassation and review. Note a trap in the statute: Article 123(3) of the Law on Marriage and Family still reads “district-level People’s Court” for border-area cases, because that Law has not been amended. On court competence the Civil Procedure Code as amended governs.

Marriage and marriage registration in Vietnam

Article 8 sets the conditions: the man must be 20 or over and the woman 18 or over, both must decide freely, neither may lack civil-act capacity, and the marriage must not fall within the prohibited cases. Article 8(2) states that the State does not recognise marriage between persons of the same sex.

Article 9(1) is the one that catches couples out: a marriage must be registered by the competent State authority, and a marriage that is not registered has no legal effect. A ceremony, a family celebration and years of living together do not create a marriage in Vietnamese law. Article 9(2) adds that a divorced couple who want to be spouses again must register the marriage afresh.

For a mixed couple, Article 126 applies two sets of conditions at once. Each party must satisfy their own national law on capacity to marry; and where the marriage is celebrated before a Vietnamese authority, the foreign party must also satisfy the conditions in the Vietnamese Law. Two foreign nationals permanently resident in Vietnam who marry before a Vietnamese authority are subject to the Vietnamese conditions as well.

Registration itself runs under the separate law on civil status. The competent office changed in 2025 when local government moved to a two-tier model and civil-status tasks were reorganised, so confirm the current office for the locality before you prepare a file — guidance written before mid-2025 names an authority that no longer handles it.

Marital property and prenuptial agreements

Vietnam is not a pure community-property country. Article 28 lets a couple choose between the statutory regime and an agreed property regime, and Articles 33 and 43 define common and separate property under the statutory one.

If you want the agreed regime, the formalities in Article 47 are strict and there is no way back.

The agreement must be made before the marriage. There is no post-nuptial version of it.
It must be in writing, notarised or authenticated.
It takes effect from the date the marriage is registered, not from signature.

Article 48 lists what it must cover: what is common and what is separate; each spouse’s rights and duties over each, and over transactions; which property meets the family’s essential needs; and the conditions, procedure and principles for dividing property when the regime ends. Where the couple left a question open or unclear, the statutory rules fill the gap. Article 49 allows amendment, but only in the same notarised form.

Article 50 is the reason these agreements are worth drafting properly. A court will declare one invalid where it fails the general conditions for a valid transaction under the Civil Code, where it breaches Articles 29 to 32 of the Law, or where its content seriously infringes rights to maintenance, to inherit, or other lawful interests of a parent, a child or another family member. An agreement that leaves a spouse or child with nothing is the classic case.

Parentage and recognition of father, mother and child

Article 88 works on presumptions, and the dates matter.

A child born during the marriage, or conceived by the wife during the marriage, is the couple’s child.
A child born within 300 days of the marriage ending is treated as conceived during it.
A child born before the marriage was registered is the couple’s child if both acknowledge it.
A parent who does not acknowledge a child must produce evidence, and only a court can make that determination.

Articles 89 to 91 give the matching rights: a person not recognised as a parent may ask the court to declare that a child is theirs; a person recognised as a parent may ask the court to declare that a child is not; and a child has the right to claim a parent.

Article 101 splits the forum cleanly, and this is the practical point. No dispute — the civil-status registration office handles it. Dispute — the court does. A court decision on parentage must then be sent to the civil-status office to be recorded. Article 128 applies the same split to cases with a foreign element: the Vietnamese civil-status office where there is no dispute, including where one party lives abroad, and a Vietnamese court where there is.

Child custody, visitation and financial support

Article 81 governs who a child lives with after the parents separate. The parents may agree. Where they cannot, the court assigns the child to one parent on the child’s interests in every respect — not income alone. A child aged 7 or over must be asked what they want. A child under 36 months is generally placed with the mother, unless statutory exceptions apply: the mother is not in a position to care for the child, or the parents have agreed otherwise in a way that suits the child.

Article 82 covers the other parent. They must respect the child’s right to live with the parent who has care; they must pay support; and they have a right to visit which no one may obstruct — though a court can restrict visits that are used to obstruct or harm the child’s upbringing.

How much support. Article 110 puts the duty on a parent who does not live with the child. Article 116 sets the measure: the parties agree it on the payer’s income and actual ability and the child’s essential needs; failing agreement, the court decides. It can be changed later where there is a proper reason, again by agreement or by the court. So a figure fixed at separation is not fixed for the child’s whole minority.

Article 84 allows the arrangement itself to change: by agreement that suits the child, or where the parent with care is no longer able to provide it. A child of 7 or over is asked again. Close relatives, the State family and child authorities and the Women’s Union may all apply on the second ground.

Protection in domestic violence cases

Domestic violence has consequences inside family law and outside it.

Inside: under Article 56(1) domestic violence is a ground for a one-sided divorce once court conciliation has failed. Under Article 51(2), where a spouse cannot understand or control their conduct through mental or other illness and is a victim of domestic violence by the other spouse that seriously affects their life, health or mind, a parent or other close relative may petition for the divorce on their behalf. Article 59(2)(d) then lets the fault of each side weigh in the property division.

Outside: the reporting, intervention and no-contact machinery sits in the separate Law on Domestic Violence Prevention and Control, which runs through the commune authorities rather than the courts and moves in days rather than months. Where there is immediate risk, that route comes first and the family proceedings follow. Ask about it at the first meeting rather than after filing.

Family disputes when one spouse or child is overseas

Four questions decide how long a cross-border family file takes, and they are worth answering before anything is filed.

Does a Vietnamese court have jurisdiction, and is it exclusive? Articles 469 and 470 of the Civil Procedure Code, above. Where Article 470 applies, a foreign decision will not resolve the matter here.
Where is the property? Immovable property in Vietnam is exclusively for Vietnamese courts. Immovable property abroad is dealt with under the law of the country where it sits.
Where is the child, and who has had day-to-day care? Article 81 turns on the child’s interests in every respect, and the evidence for that is school, medical and residence records — which are slow to obtain from another country.
Does anything have to be served or collected abroad? This is usually what sets the timetable. Service, evidence-taking and witness statements across borders run through judicial-assistance channels, and Vietnam has recently legislated separately on civil judicial assistance. Budget months, not weeks.

Documents issued abroad need certified Vietnamese translation and usually consular legalisation unless a treaty removes it. Support obligations with a foreign element have their own provision in Article 129.

Divorce: a separate question

Divorce is a major part of family law, but a foreign-element divorce turns on its own questions of court jurisdiction, children and property. Those are set out with the statute and a decided Vietnamese case on our page for a divorce lawyer in Vietnam.

When should a foreigner use a family lawyer in Vietnam?

Four moments, in order of how often they go wrong unadvised. Before you marry, if you want an agreed property regime — Article 47 closes that door on the wedding day. Before a child is registered, if the parents are not married or one is abroad. As soon as a dispute about a child or property looks likely, because the documents that decide it take weeks to assemble. And immediately where there is violence, because the protective route is separate and faster than the family case.

We work in English from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang. At a first meeting we fix which Regional Court would have any case, test whether Vietnam is the only available forum, and list what needs translation and legalisation. Fees are agreed in writing before the file opens, and we do not act for both spouses in the same matter. Decided family cases with full reasoning are published on case.unilaw.vn.