Goods imported through online platforms under 2 million VND can be exempted from tax.

Imported goods worth less than one million VND imported via express delivery are no longer exempt from import tax and value added tax (VAT) from February 18.

In the draft Decree on customs management of imported goods via e-commerce, the Ministry of Finance proposed tax exemption for packages purchased on online platforms worth VND2 million or less. However, each organization and individual can only enjoy this tax exemption when purchasing a maximum of VND96 million per year.

In case the goods are over 2 million VND or exceed the tax-free limit, import tax will be imposed on the entire order value.

In fact, Vietnamese consumers are no longer too hesitant to order products from abroad due to the improved logistics system. Last year, the market witnessed a significant increase in imported goods through this channel, with more than 324 million products imported into Vietnam, with sales of VND14,200 billion. This growth rate was nearly 38% and 43% respectively compared to 2023, according to data from the Metric data platform.

According to the platform's report, by the end of September 2024, goods under VND200,000 accounted for more than half of Vietnam's e-commerce market sales. Vietnamese people spend VND900 billion on online shopping every month. It is estimated that every day, about 4-5 million small-value orders are shipped from China to Vietnam via e-commerce platforms.

Currently, Vietnam does not have specific regulations for goods imported via e-commerce, so customs inspection is carried out normally, except for goods under 1 million VND sent via express delivery service.

However, according to the Ministry of Finance, the strong development of cross-border e-commerce has caused cheap goods from China to flood into Vietnam. Exemption from specialized inspections can create unfair competition between goods imported through e-commerce and products imported from other channels and domestically produced. This even leads to "reverse protection" for imported e-commerce goods and poor quality goods flooding into Vietnam without being controlled.

Therefore, the Ministry of Finance has proposed two options to exempt licenses and specialized inspections for goods imported through online platforms. Option 1,Aircraft on the list of exempted licenses and inspections according to the decision of the management agency.

Option 2,Goods imported via e-commerce under 2 million VND do not have to be inspected up to 4 times and the total value of exempted goods does not exceed 96 million VND per year. According to the Ministry of Finance, this is to limit buyers from taking advantage of the policy and dividing goods into smaller parts to be exempted from inspection.

The Ministry also proposed to ban the purchase of goods exempted from licensing and specialized inspection on e-commerce platforms.

E-commerce in Vietnam is growing rapidly, averaging 15-20% per year. Last year, the market size exceeded 25 billion USD and is now behind Indonesia (65 billion USD) and Thailand (26 billion USD) in the ASEAN region.