Vietnam proposes stock-style transfer tax and steep capital rules for crypto exchanges

Vietnam’s finance authorities have moved to fold digital-asset activity into a tax and licensing regime that resembles securities trading more than an unregulated crypto market. The draft would impose a 0.1% personal tax on each transfer executed via licensed platforms and levy a 20% corporate tax on institutional profits after allowable deductions; simultaneous VAT exemption for transfers is also proposed. The policy frames crypto transfers as taxable turnover while treating the instruments themselves as digitally verified assets, and it applies the turnover charge irrespective of the investor’s residency. Licensing criteria are a central friction point: exchanges would need extremely high charter capital—set at 10 trillion Vietnamese dong—and foreign investors would be limited to minority stakes. Those two requirements, together with the tax design, appear to prioritize control and revenue certainty over rapid market expansion. Officials have opened a licensing window and set a formal start date for applications, but the stringent thresholds already help explain why the pilot program found few takers in its early phase. For established players able to meet capital demands, the rules reduce legal ambiguity and create a predictable tax framework, which can improve compliance and institutional participation. For smaller operators and many international entrants, however, the combination of heavy upfront capital, ownership caps, and transaction-level levies materially raises the cost of entry and alters expected returns. That dynamic is likely to concentrate market-making and trading activity in a small number of well-capitalized firms or push some activity offshore, depressing domestic liquidity and innovation in the near term. Policymakers now face a trade-off between protecting local investors and fostering a competitive, diverse exchange ecosystem; recalibrating capital, ownership, or tax thresholds could be necessary to draw participants. In short, the draft formalizes tax and licensing rules that bring clarity but also erect high barriers that will shape who can operate and trade in Vietnam’s nascent regulated crypto market.