From February 18, what will happen to the price of imported goods under 1 million VND?

According to Decision No. 01/2025/QD-TTg, from February 18, 2025, imported goods worth less than 1 million VND via express delivery will no longer be exempt from import tax and value added tax (VAT).

This policy change was made in the context of strong development of e-commerce, and significant increase in small-value imported goods. This caused budget loss and created unfairness between imported goods and domestically produced goods.

Metric's 2024 Online Retail Market Overview Report and 2025 Forecast shows that 2024 will witness strong growth in imported goods with more than 324.1 million products imported into Vietnam, generating VND 14,200 billion in revenue, up 37.9% and 42.9% respectively over the same period.

It shows that Vietnamese consumers are no longer too hesitant to order products from abroad. This change comes from a number of key factors such as improved logistics systems that help speed up shipping times, minimizing the risk of lost or delayed delivery.

In addition, e-commerce platforms also provide better return and consumer protection policies, helping to reduce risks when purchasing goods from abroad.

In addition, competitive prices from international brands are also an important factor, as many imported products have better prices thanks to low production costs.

According to Metric, in 2024, the low-cost segment under VND 200,000 will record strong growth in both sales and market share, increasing by about 3.7% market share.

Before the regulation that imported goods worth less than 1 million VND via express delivery will no longer be exempt from tax, Mr. Le Hong Duc, founder of OneAds Digital Company, predicted that cross-border sales prices on the platform will increase due to the additional 10% VAT and import tax, and customers will be the ones to pay for this increase.

However, this will reduce competitive pressure in the domestic retail market, sellers will have the opportunity to develop, reach more customers and Vietnamese goods will develop better when recently, cheap foreign goods have been dominating.

Mr. Bui Huu Nghia, founder of the Vicolas fashion brand, said that in the case of collecting taxes on low-value cross-border goods from shops through the platform, the selling price may increase slightly to offset this cost.

However, for Chinese sellers, they will probably try to do everything they can to keep prices down, such as reducing costs or accepting a reduction in profits to retain customers.