Circular 25 on opening and using payment accounts, issued by the State Bank of Vietnam in 2025, includes a new regulation for naming payment accounts. This regulation, effective from March 1 this year, requires bank accounts to match the account holder's information.

For individual accounts, the account name must match the full name on identification documents. For organizational accounts, the name must align with the name on the establishment license or business registration.

This regulation will directly affect business households and individual traders. When opening accounts for production and business activities, business households must use the name registered on their business license, instead of the owner's personal account as was previously common.

A business household selling stationery on Hang Chieu Street, Hanoi. *Photo: Hoang Giang*

This name synchronization will enable tax authorities to more easily cross-reference and manage cash flow and actual revenue. The Ministry of Finance is also developing a draft decree on tax declaration, calculation, and deduction for business households and individual traders. Under this draft, business households must inform tax authorities of all accounts related to their operations, rather than just declaring electronic tax payment accounts as currently required.

Beyond transparency, the tightened account naming regulation also aims to prevent fraud risks. Circular 25 also prohibits the use of aliases or nicknames when naming payment accounts for individual customers.

The State Bank of Vietnam previously stated that some individuals exploited the allowance for customers to use nicknames instead of account numbers or names, impersonating reputable brands, committing fraud, or causing confusion during money transfers, thereby violating the law.

From 2026, business households will transition to declaring and paying taxes based on actual revenue, moving away from the previous lump-sum tax system. According to the amended Personal Income Tax Law, business households and individual traders must pay value-added tax (VAT) and personal income tax if their annual revenue exceeds 500 million Vietnamese dong.

By the end of 2024, Vietnam had approximately 3.6 million business households and individual traders nationwide. Of these, 2.2 million were actively operating (under both lump-sum and declaration methods). Last year, they contributed about 26,000 billion Vietnamese dong to the state budget, with 17,000 billion Vietnamese dong contributed in the first half of this year.

Quynh Trang