Vietnam abolishes presumptive tax from 1 January 2026: a 5-step transition roadmap for household businesses

For over two decades, presumptive tax (thuế khoán) was the comfort zone of Vietnamese household businesses: the tax office assigned a revenue figure, you paid a fixed amount each month, and nobody asked for books. That comfort zone has officially closed. Implementing Resolution 68-NQ/TW on private-sector development, the lump-sum method is abolished from 1 January 2026 — more than 2 million household businesses nationwide now self-declare and pay tax on actual revenue.

What changes in practice?

Previously, a coffee shop assessed at VND 30 million of monthly revenue paid about VND 1,350,000 in tax per month (4.5% for F&B: 3% VAT plus 1.5% PIT), whether it actually sold 30 or 80 million. From 2026:

• You declare actual revenue monthly or quarterly, backed by e-invoice and cash-register data;
• You must keep books under the household business accounting regime in Circular 88/2021/TT-BTC: a revenue ledger, expense ledger, payroll ledger, and cash and bank ledger;
• The tax authority cross-checks your declared revenue against cash-register data, bank statements and e-commerce platform reports.

The good news: the tax rates on revenue are unchanged (for example 1.5% for goods distribution; 4.5% for F&B and services bundled with goods; 7% for pure services — covering both VAT and PIT). What changes is that the revenue figure is no longer a number you negotiate with a tax officer.

The 5-step transition roadmap

Step 1 — Separate business money from personal money (do this today)

Open a dedicated bank account for the business. It is the cheapest step and the most important one: when personal and business cash mix, every incoming transfer can be treated as taxable revenue during an audit.

Step 2 — Set up e-invoicing and a cash register

If your revenue is VND 1 billion a year or more and you sell directly to consumers, this is mandatory under Decree 70/2025/ND-CP. Even below the threshold, adopting a register early gives you clean revenue data to declare from.

Step 3 — Build your books under Circular 88

The four prescribed ledgers are not difficult, but they demand consistency: record daily, keep purchase documents. Many households outsource this from VND 1.5 million per month — considerably cheaper than one assessed-tax decision issued against empty books.

Step 4 — File your first period on time

Declaring households file monthly (due the 20th of the following month) or quarterly (due the last day of the first month of the next quarter). The first period of 2026 is the one tax officers scrutinize hardest — errors there tend to put you on a watch list.

Step 5 — Decide: is it time to incorporate?

Once you keep ledgers, issue invoices and file declarations like a company, the gap between a household business and an actual company becomes thin. Incorporating lets you deduct input costs, borrow more easily and sign larger contracts — in exchange for full financial reporting duties. Our rule of thumb: revenue above VND 3 billion a year, 3–5 or more employees, or a customer base of companies that need VAT invoices — start planning the conversion. 3M's household-to-company conversion service handles everything from licensing to your opening accounting system.

Do not wait for finalization season

The most common mistake we expect in 2026: operating all year as if lump-sum tax still existed, then trying to "reconstruct" the books in December. With cash-register and banking data already sitting at the tax authority, that approach no longer survives contact. With 3M's household business accounting service on the Practica platform, AI reads your sales data and bank statements and posts the ledgers daily; a senior accountant reviews and files every declaration on time.

Want to know which path fits your numbers — declaring household or company? Book a free consultation and we will model both scenarios for you in concrete figures.