Fresh rules tighten exit bans for tax debtors

The decree sets out specific thresholds for imposing temporary exit bans based on the amount and duration of overdue tax liabilities, while also detailing notification procedures and the conditions for lifting the restrictions.

Under the new regulations, individuals engaged in business activities and heads of household businesses will be subject to a temporary exit ban if they are under tax enforcement measures and owe at least VND50 million (US$2,000) in overdue taxes for more than 120 days.

Meanwhile, legal representatives of enterprises, cooperatives and cooperative unions will face the same restriction if their entities owe VND500 million (US$20,000) or more in overdue taxes beyond the 120-day deadline.

The decree also targets businesses that have ceased operating at their registered addresses. Business owners, household business operators and legal representatives of such entities will be temporarily barred from leaving the country if they fail to settle overdue tax obligations within 30 days after receiving a tax enforcement notice.

In addition, Vietnamese citizens emigrating overseas, overseas Vietnamese and foreign nationals departing Viet Nam with outstanding tax debts will also be subject to temporary exit suspension measures.

To ensure transparency, tax authorities are required to notify taxpayers at least 30 days before requesting an exit ban. Notices will be sent through taxpayers' electronic tax accounts, registered phone numbers and email addresses, while legal representatives will also receive notifications at their registered residential addresses. The notices will be published on the tax sector's official online portal.

If electronic notification cannot be delivered, tax authorities will publish the notice on their official website. Should the tax debt remain unpaid after 30 days, the tax authority will submit an official request to the immigration authority to impose a temporary exit ban.

The Ministry of Finance said tax authorities have coordinated with local administrations to verify whether businesses and legal representatives are operating at their registered addresses as part of tax debt enforcement efforts.

The legal basis for the measure is provided under the Law on Tax Administration No. 38/2019/QH14, as amended by Law No. 56/2024/QH15. Based on these laws, the Government first issued Decree No. 49/2025/ND-CP in February 2025, establishing thresholds for applying temporary exit suspension measures to different categories of taxpayers.

However, authorities noted that no minimum debt threshold applies to entities that have abandoned their registered business addresses. According to the Ministry of Finance, these taxpayers present a particularly high compliance risk because they are often associated with other violations, including failure to submit tax declarations, failure to provide accounting records, illegal invoice transactions, tax evasion, tax appropriation and abandoning business premises without notifying authorities.

Tax authorities have so far issued temporary exit suspension notices to approximately 105,000 legal representatives of businesses and household business owners linked to nearly VND61 trillion (US$2.35 billion) in outstanding tax liabilities.

Among them, around 65,000 legal representatives and household business owners whose businesses were no longer operating at their registered addresses accounted for more than VND6.9 trillion (US$266 million) in unpaid taxes.

The measure has already contributed to tax debt recovery. To date, tax authorities have collected more than VND4 trillion (US$154 million) in overdue taxes from over 13,000 taxpayers.

Notably, about 7,100 taxpayers whose businesses had ceased operations at their registered addresses voluntarily contacted tax authorities, paid nearly VND100 billion (US$3.86 million) in outstanding tax obligations and subsequently had their temporary exit bans lifted./.