Law on Investment 2025: New Points Effective March 1, 2026

The Law on Investment 2025, passed by the National Assembly, aims to further improve the legal framework for investment activities, contributing to building a transparent, stable, and favorable investment environment in Vietnam. In the context of accelerating institutional reforms and improving the quality of investment attraction, the law both inherits relevant provisions of existing laws and adds many new contents to address practical obstacles, enhance the effectiveness of state management, and better protect the legitimate rights and interests of investors.

Some new points of the Law on Investment 2025:

1. Simplifying Overseas Investment Procedures

The Law on Investment 2025 amends regulations on overseas investment procedures in a streamlined manner. Accordingly, the law abolishes the procedure for approving overseas investment policies and narrows the scope of projects requiring the issuance of an Overseas Investment Registration Certificate. At the same time, the law assigns the Government the authority to specify in detail the cases exempt from or not required to carry out this procedure. Regulations related to foreign exchange management, capital flow control, and ensuring national financial security in overseas investment activities continue to be maintained in the relevant legal system.

2. Regarding Prohibited and Conditional Investment and Business line

The Law on Investment 2025 adds a provision prohibiting the business of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products in Article 6. Simultaneously, Clause 16 of Article 52 assigns the Government the authority to regulate the handling of projects producing electronic devices for e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products solely for export that were approved by competent authorities before January 1, 2025, in order to ensure the implementation of Resolution No. 173/2024/QH15 of the National Assembly on prohibiting the production, business, import, and use of these products. In addition, the law amends the principle for determining investment and business conditions in Clause 9 of Article 3, providing a basis for defining sectors requiring "pre-approval" and shifting some areas to a "post-approval" mechanism. Based on that, the law has reduced the number of conditional investment and business sectors by 38 and adjusted the scope of 20 other sectors.

3. Investment Incentive and Support Policies

The Law on Investment 2025 amends and supplements regulations on investment-incentive sectors in Articles 15 and 16, identifying priority areas for investment attraction such as science, technology, innovation, digital transformation, digital technology industry and semiconductor industry; green economy, circular economy, digital economy; development of industry clusters and value chains; renewable energy, clean energy and ensuring national energy security. The Law stipulates framework principles, creating a basis for the Government to proactively determine investment-incentive sectors suitable for each stage. At the same time, Article 17 is amended to entrust the Government with specifying the capital scale and disbursement schedule for projects eligible for special investment incentives and support.

4. Investment Policy Approval Procedures

The Law on Investment 2025 narrows and clarifies the scope of projects requiring investment policy approval. According to Article 24, some cases are exempt from this procedure, including: investment projects by individuals that do not require approval from the provincial People's Committee before land lease or land use change; projects for the construction of technical infrastructure for industrial clusters; mineral exploitation projects subject to auction for exploitation rights or serving works as stipulated by the law on geology and minerals; and other cases as prescribed by the Government. At the same time, Article 25 further promotes the decentralization of authority to approve investment policies to the Prime Minister and the Chairman of the provincial People's Committee, replacing the provincial People's Committee as before.