Vietnam's 183-Day Tax Residency Rule
183 days or more in a calendar year or any 12-month period makes you a Vietnamese tax resident. Here is exactly how the count works.
Last verified: July 2026
In short: you become a Vietnamese tax resident if you spend 183 days or more in Vietnam during either a calendar year or any 12 consecutive months counted from your first arrival. Both the arrival day and the departure day count, and a single day of entry and exit counts as one day. A registered home or a lease of 183 days or more is a separate route in.
- Threshold
- 183 days or more
- Counting window
- Calendar year or any 12 months
- A day counts if
- You are present for any part of it
- Other residence test
- Registered home or 183-day lease
- Tax year
- Calendar year
- Legal basis
- Circular 111/2013/TT-BTC
The rule
Vietnam treats you as a tax resident if you are present there for 183 days or more, measured over either of two windows. Reaching the threshold in either window makes you resident:
- Two windows, either one counts. The 183 days can fall inside a single calendar year (1 January to 31 December), or inside the 12 consecutive months counted from your first date of arrival. A stay split across two calendar years can still cross 183 days within 12 months of arrival.
- Both travel days count. The date of arrival and the date of departure are both counted. If your entry and exit fall on the same day, that is counted as one day. Days are based on immigration entry and exit stamps.
How to count it
- List every Vietnam trip with arrival and departure dates from your passport stamps.
- Count each day of presence, including both the arrival and the departure day. A same-day entry and exit counts as one day.
- Total the days for the calendar year, and separately total the days across the 12 consecutive months starting from your first arrival.
- If either total reaches 183 days, the day-count test is met.
Example. You first arrive in Vietnam on 1 October and stay 120 days into late January, then return in March for another 70 days.
No single calendar year reaches 183 days. But counted over the 12 consecutive months from your 1 October arrival, the two stays total 190 days, so the test is met and you are resident.
Beyond the day count
The 183-day count is one route in, not the only one. Vietnam also treats you as resident if you have a permanent or regular place to live there, regardless of how many days you spend: either a registered permanent residence, or a leased dwelling – a house, apartment, hotel, or workplace lodging – held under a lease of 183 days or more in the tax year. If you would be resident only under this leased-home test, you can still be treated as non-resident by producing a tax-residence certificate from another country. And if another country also claims you, a double-tax treaty decides residency through tie-breaker rules such as permanent home and centre of vital interests.
Official source: Article 1 of Circular 111/2013/TT-BTC, which implements Vietnam's Law on Personal Income Tax, published by the General Department of Taxation (Vietnam).
AtlasDays tracks Vietnam's 183-day rule automatically
Log your trips once. AtlasDays uses a rolling 12-month window that also covers the calendar-year leg, counting every day privately on your iPhone and warning you before you reach 183 days.
Get AtlasDays on the App StoreFAQ
How many days can you stay in Vietnam without becoming a tax resident?
Up to 182 days in a calendar year or in any 12 consecutive months. Reach 183 days or more in either window and the day-count test is met.
Does Vietnam use the calendar year or a rolling window?
Either one. You are resident if you reach 183 days in a calendar year, or 183 days in the 12 consecutive months counted from your first arrival.
Does renting a home make you resident?
It can. A lease of 183 days or more can make you resident regardless of the day count, unless you prove tax residency in another country.