Label rules › Vietnam

Vietnam label requirements: Decree 37/2026 and the 2026 nutrition table

Goods sold in Vietnam carry a label in Vietnamese. In 2026 the rules changed: Decree 37/2026/ND-CP (23 January 2026), under the Law on Product and Goods Quality, replaced Decrees 43/2017 and 111/2021, and Circular 30/2026/TT-BYT (in force 10 July 2026) replaced Circular 29/2023 on the nutrition table. Here is what goes on the pack.

Checked: 29 October 2026

Mandatory items

Decree 37/2026: what every label carries

Article 42 lists the mandatory contents and its Appendix I adds those of each group of goods: food, drinks, cosmetics, medicines, toys, electrical goods and so on. Every label names the goods, the organisation or person responsible for them, the origin and the quantity; food adds the manufacturing date, expiry date, ingredients, warnings and directions.

New in 2026: origin may be written in English (“Made in”, “Product of”, “Produced in”, “Origin”), some foods may say “Sử dụng tốt nhất trước” (best before), and part of the information may sit behind an electronic label (QR or NFC) when the decree allows it. Labels printed under the old decrees may be used until January 2028.

Imported goods

Imports carry their original label and, before they are sold, a Vietnamese sub-label (nhãn phụ) with the mandatory items, stuck where it does not hide the original’s mandatory contents. The name and address of the importer go on it.

The nutrition table: Circular 30/2026/TT-BYT

Packaged food declares, per 100 g / 100 ml or per serving:

1. energy (kcal), protein, carbohydrate (without fibre), fat (g) and sodium (mg);
2. total sugars for sweetened food and drinks, and saturated fat for fried food;
3. single-ingredient foods, plain tea and coffee, bottled water, alcohol, health supplements and small producers are exempt.

Why the rules look like this

Vietnam’s label law has been rewritten four times in twenty years, each time after the market outgrew it:

1. 2006 — Decree 89/2006 sets the first general rules on goods labels. Its lesson stays: the Vietnamese label is the one the authorities read, whatever the brand prints in English.
2. 2017 — Decree 43/2017 replaces it as imports surge after the trade agreements; the sub-label for imports becomes the everyday tool of distributors. Leave room for it on export artwork.
3. 2021 — Decree 111/2021 tightens origin wording after goods assembled abroad were sold as “made in Vietnam”. Origin is now something to prove, not a slogan.
4. 2025 — police in Hanoi break up a ring selling hundreds of fake milk powder products; the campaign against counterfeit goods that follows makes inspectors read labels line by line.
5. 2026 — Decree 37/2026 and Circular 30/2026 modernise again: English origin wording, electronic labels, a leaner nutrition table. Expect inspections to check the new form from 2028, when old labels run out.

Seasons that sell packs

Tết is the year’s peak: gift boxes of confectionery, tea, coffee, nuts and liquor are designed in summer and printed by autumn, and every box that holds food needs its own label — the outer gift box does not replace the label of each product inside. Mid-Autumn follows with mooncake boxes, where a lavish box often costs more than the cakes; keep the mandatory items legible on the box’s base or sleeve, not hidden under the ribbon. 8 March and 20 October (women’s days) and Christmas in the cities add smaller gift runs.

Who answers for the label

The organisation or person responsible for the goods — the one named on the label: the maker, or the importer for imports. A shop that sells goods with no label or a wrong one is fined too, and organisations pay double what an individual would.

The designer and the printer are not named by these laws — but a contract can make them pay for the reprint. Keep the client’s written approval of the final copy; Drint’s review link records it.

If the label is wrong

Wrong labels are fined under the administrative-penalty decrees on goods quality and on commerce, at double the amount for companies; the goods may be held until relabelled, or destroyed. A false origin or a counterfeit label moves to the Penal Code (Articles 192 and 193 on counterfeit goods and counterfeit food), where prison terms apply. In practice the costliest outcome is the one a print shop sees: a whole Tết run held in a warehouse, relabelled sticker by sticker.

Who else loses, beyond the fine

A wrong label costs more than its fine, and the cost travels down the chain:

1. The shopper — an undeclared allergen can put someone in hospital; that is why recalls for allergens move fastest.
2. The brand — a recall notice with its name stays online for years, and retailers may delist the product.
3. The importer and distributor — stock held at the port or in a warehouse, storage fees, relabelling labour, sometimes a whole container sent back.
4. The shop — products immobilised or pulled from shelves in the middle of a season.
5. The printer — a reprint at its own cost if the contract says so, and a lost client either way.
6. The designer — the reprint blamed on the artwork, unless the client’s approval is on record.

Where it goes, and how dates are written

The label sits where it is easy to see on the pack without opening it; when the pack is too small for every item, the name, quantity and dates stay on the pack and the rest may go on an attached leaflet or an electronic label the decree allows. Dates are written day, month, year in the Gregorian calendar; the abbreviations “NSX” (manufacturing date) and “HSD” (expiry date) are accepted.

Quantities use legal symbols: “g”, “kg”, “ml”, “l” — not “gr”, “Kg” or “ML”. A pack sold by count says the number of pieces.

Mistakes print shops see, and a check before printing

The commonest rejections: food with an expiry date but no manufacturing date; a nutrition table still in the Circular 29/2023 form; an imported product whose sub-label forgets the importer; origin written as “Xuất xứ: Châu Âu” instead of a country.

1. Find the group of goods in Appendix I of Decree 37/2026 and list its extra items.
2. Check the client’s copy has every item of Article 42 and of that group.
3. Write dates as NSX/HSD with day, month, year, and quantities with legal symbols.
4. For food, lay out the nutrition table to Circular 30/2026 with the five or seven rows it asks.
5. For imports, put the sub-label where it hides none of the original’s mandatory items.

Worked example: a 200 g box of butter cookies

Made in Vietnam and sold in Vietnam, the pack reads, line by line (the client’s own names and numbers replace those in brackets):

1. BÁNH QUY BƠ
2. Thành phần: bột mì, bơ (sữa) 18%, đường, trứng, muối, chất tạo xốp (500(ii)).
3. Thông tin cảnh báo: Chứa lúa mì (gluten), sữa, trứng.
4. Khối lượng tịnh: 200 g
5. NSX: xem trên đáy hộp · HSD: 12 tháng kể từ NSX
6. Bảo quản nơi khô ráo, thoáng mát, tránh ánh nắng trực tiếp.
7. Sản xuất tại Việt Nam bởi: [Tên công ty], [địa chỉ]
8. Thành phần dinh dưỡng trong 100 g: Năng lượng [ ] kcal · Chất đạm [ ] g · Carbohydrat [ ] g · Đường tổng số [ ] g · Chất béo [ ] g · Natri [ ] mg

Why it reads this way

Sweetened, so the table adds total sugars to the five rows Circular 30/2026 asks of every food; “bơ” is in the name, so its percentage is given.

How Drint helps

Three kinds of people make packs for Vietnam with Drint, and each needs something different:

Free, no account: the barcode generator, the mm to inches converter and the paper sizes table.

1. A business with its own brand — The label kit for Vietnam places every mandatory block and Check lists what is missing before you export. See the pack in 3D before it is printed, send the design to the person who must approve it with a review link, and hand the printer one CMYK PDF/X-4 with the die on its own layer, so nobody retypes the label.
2. A household business — start from a ready dieline cut to your exact box or bag size instead of paying for a die drawing, use your own photos on 3D mockups for your online shop, and keep the mandatory text exactly as you wrote it: Drint never translates or rewords a client’s copy.
3. A designer — lay out several markets from one design, each with its own language and items, keep every client’s approvals in one place, and show finished packs on a portfolio page at drint.io/your-name.

Laying it out in Drint

1. In the studio, click Insert → Product label and choose the market Việt Nam and the goods group.
2. Paste the client’s copy as they wrote it — Drint does not translate or reword it.
3. Check in Export lists the items still missing; export the CMYK PDF/X-4 with the die on its own layer for your printer.

Official sources

1. Văn bản quy phạm pháp luật — Cổng thông tin Chính phủ
2. Bộ Y tế — Thông tư 30/2026/TT-BYT
3. Uỷ ban Tiêu chuẩn Đo lường Chất lượng Quốc gia

Drint checks this label while you design, for 47 countries: see how the label-law check works.

Lay out the label in Drint

Questions

A summary written to design packs, not legal advice. Check Decree 37/2026/ND-CP, its Appendix I for your group of goods, and Circular 30/2026/TT-BYT on the government portal before printing.