Fact check: What is the timeline for implementing digital IDs nationwide in Vietnam?

1. Why July 1, 2025 Became a Turning Point for Businesses

On July 1, 2025 the Vietnamese state made organizational electronic identities mandatory for corporate online administrative procedures, invalidating existing corporate accounts after June 30, 2025 and requiring company legal representatives to possess a level-2 e-ID to obtain organizational eID credentials. This action followed the Decree on Regulations for Electronic Identification and Authentication issued June 25, 2024, and triggered immediate compliance pressure on domestic and foreign businesses, with foreign nationals initially excluded from level-2 e-ID eligibility and business groups asking for implementation delays ^{[1] [2]}. The policy pivot framed corporate digital identity as a prerequisite for routine government interaction.

2. How the Government is Bringing Foreign Residents Into the System

The state launched a concentrated "50-day peak campaign" starting July 1, 2025 to issue level-2 e-ID accounts to foreigners residing in Vietnam, with immigration agencies and local authorities actively enrolling participants to enable access to online public services like visa extensions and banking. Early local rollout data show over 2,200 foreigners in Ho Chi Minh City received e-ID accounts in the campaign’s first weeks, signaling prioritized operational fixes to the earlier exclusion and aligning foreign resident access with the corporate and citizen digitalization push ^{[5] [6] [7]}. This phase indicates a pragmatic shift to reduce frictions for international communities.

3. VNeID Expansion and Airport Biometric Defaults — A Seamless Mobility Play

Directive No. 24/CT-TTg mandates biometric and digital ID verification as the default at all domestic airports from December 1, 2025, integrating VNeID systems into travel and transit operations as part of the National Digital Transformation Project. This move complements the broader objective of seamless public service access, linking transport checkpoints to the national identity layer and accelerating adoption through everyday use cases like airport check‑in and immigration processing ^[4]. The airport timeline underscores how logistics and mobility are used as force multipliers for digital ID uptake.

4. The 2025 Infrastructure Milestone and the 2030 Universal Target

Decree 59/2022 established a roadmap that positions infrastructure completion by 2025 and expects comprehensive digital identity development across 2025–2030, with the goal that every citizen will possess a digital identity by 2030. Progress indicators include mass digitization of official documents—over 20 million driving licenses and 26 million health cards integrated into the VNeID platform—demonstrating substantive backend consolidation in 2025 that supports the longer-term universalization goal ^{[3] [8]}. The timeline blends near-term operational deadlines with a strategic decade-long target for universality.

5. Points of Tension: Exclusions, Requests for Delay, and Operational Complexity

The July 2025 corporate e-ID mandate exposed friction points: foreign nationals were initially ineligible for level-2 e-ID accounts, complicating corporate compliance where legal representatives can be non‑nationals, and foreign business groups requested postponements to adapt. The government’s subsequent enrollment campaigns for foreigners indicate responsiveness but also reveal that policy design and operational rules required iterative fixes during implementation ^{[2] [7]}. These tensions highlight the practical gap between regulatory timelines and on-the-ground realities for cross-border companies and resident expatriates.

6. Localized Rollouts Show Capacity but Also Variable Uptake

City-level data from mid‑2025 show rapid integration in major hubs, with Ho Chi Minh City issuing e-ID accounts to thousands of foreign residents in two weeks, and VNeID absorbing large volumes of digitized documents across agencies. These pockets of success indicate administrative capacity in urban centers, yet the national roadmap implies variable uptake across provinces, where resource constraints and local coordination could affect the pace of achieving the 2030 universal identity target ^{[6] [8]}. Operational scalability outside big cities remains an implied implementation risk.

7. What This Timeline Means for Businesses and Residents Now

Between July and December 2025, stakeholders should expect mandatory corporate e-ID workflows, active campaigns enrolling foreigners into level‑2 accounts, and biometric defaults at airports beginning December 1, 2025; by 2030, the state targets universal citizen digital IDs supported by completed infrastructure. Entities interacting with Vietnamese administration must update identity practices, ensure e-ID capability for legal representatives, and monitor further technical and regulatory clarifications as the government iterates policy to resolve early exclusions and operational issues ^{[1] [4] [3]}.

8. Bottom Line — A Timebound Push with Room for Adjustment

Vietnam’s timeline is a mix of fixed operational dates in 2025 and an overarching 2030 universality goal: immediate mandates like the July 1, 2025 corporate e‑ID requirement and the December 1, 2025 airport biometric default are concrete inflection points, while broader coverage depends on sustained campaigns and continued system integration through 2030. The authorities have shown capacity to course-correct for foreign residents, but the success of the timeline hinges on administrative rollouts beyond major cities and the resolution of eligibility and technical issues surfaced during 2025 ^{[2] [5] [3]}.