A cosmetic that sells freely at home cannot cross a Vietnamese port on that fact alone. Every cosmetic product placed on the Vietnamese market needs its own notification receipt number first, and the file behind that number has to be built by someone with a legal footing here — not by the brand owner sitting abroad.
Who can file
Only an organisation or individual registered to do business in Vietnam and responsible for placing the product on the market may file the notification, and the receipt number is issued in that party’s name.
Under Circular 06/2011/TT-BYT (as amended, most recently by Circular 34/2025/TT-BYT), this is normally the importer or the appointed distributor established in Vietnam. A foreign brand owner without a Vietnamese entity cannot submit its own file; it authorises a Vietnam-based party to do so instead. That authorisation is what the dossier’s authorisation letter records, and it is the document that ties the whole file together — get the name and scope wrong on it and the rest of the dossier does not matter.
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The two documents the whole file depends on
An imported cosmetic notification stands or falls on two supporting documents: the Certificate of Free Sale from the country of manufacture or export, and an authorisation letter running from the manufacturer or brand owner to the party filing in Vietnam.
| Document | What it has to show | Where it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Certificate of Free Sale (CFS) | Issued by the competent authority of the country of manufacture or export, confirming the product is freely sold there | Expired, or naming a product variant that does not match the label filed |
| Authorisation letter (Giấy ủy quyền / LOA) | The manufacturer’s or brand owner’s name exactly as on the CFS, the full name of the party filing in Vietnam, and a commitment to hold the Product Information File (PIF) available for inspection | Names on the CFS and the authorisation letter do not match, or the letter lacks the PIF commitment |
| Product Information File (PIF) | Not filed with the notification itself, but held by the responsible party and produced on request | Assumed unnecessary because it was never asked for at filing |
Checked against the published text on 15 September 2026.
The requirement traces to Vietnam’s status as a signatory to the ASEAN Cosmetic Directive, which Circular 06/2011/TT-BYT was written to implement — the notification model, the ingredient restrictions and the PIF obligation all follow the ASEAN framework rather than a Vietnam-only standard. That also means an ingredient permitted at home but restricted under the ASEAN annexes can still block the notification, regardless of what the CFS says.
Because the ingredient rules sit at the ASEAN level rather than being written fresh for each member state, the practical check is the same one a formulator would run before selling anywhere in the region: cross the finished formula against the ASEAN Cosmetic Directive’s permitted, restricted and prohibited-substance annexes before the notification is drafted, not after a query comes back from the Drug Administration. A formula built and cleared for one ASEAN market is a strong starting point in Vietnam, but it is a starting point rather than a guarantee — the annexes are updated from time to time, and a formula cleared under an older version can fall out of date without the brand’s home-market regulatory team noticing, since it is not their market to watch.
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How the filing itself runs
The notification is filed to the Drug Administration of Vietnam through the national single-window portal, and a receipt number is issued once the file is complete — this is a notification model, not a pre-market approval that examines the formula.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. File submission | The responsible party in Vietnam submits the notification form and supporting documents through the national single-window portal |
| 2. Screening | The Drug Administration checks the file is complete and internally consistent — names, CFS validity, ingredient list against the permitted and restricted lists |
| 3. Receipt number issued, or amendment requested | A complete file is issued a receipt number; an incomplete one is returned electronically with the points to fix |
| 4. Product may circulate | Circulation may begin once the receipt number is issued, subject to the labelling and advertising rules applying separately |
Since Circular 34/2025/TT-BYT, submission through the national single-window portal is the confirmed channel, and both electronic and digital signatures are accepted on the form — a change from the paper-only practice the circular replaced. This is a notification, not a scientific review of the formula: the Drug Administration checks the file for completeness and for the product’s ingredients against the ASEAN permitted and restricted lists, not for efficacy claims. Efficacy and treatment claims are policed separately, at labelling and advertising stage, which is why a notification receipt number is not by itself a green light for whatever marketing language a brand uses at home.
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What the receipt number is worth, and for how long
A cosmetic notification receipt number does not expire on a fixed date tied to a fee renewal, but it stands in the name of the party that filed it, and a change of that party means filing again.
The receipt number is tied to the responsible organisation, the product formula and the label as filed. Change any of those — a new importer of record, a reformulation, a name change on the label — and the existing number no longer covers the product; a fresh notification follows. This is the same structural point that governs food declarations under Decree 15/2018/ND-CP, covered in which declaration route your food product takes: the certificate belongs to the entity, not to the brand.
Labelling is the other half of getting a notified product onto a shelf. The Vietnamese content on a cosmetic label runs on the same Decree 37/2026/ND-CP checklist that applies to other imported goods, with the group-specific fields for cosmetics still drawn from Circular 06/2011/TT-BYT — see the Vietnam supplementary label checklist for the field-by-field detail. A notification receipt number and a compliant label are two separate approvals, and a product needs both before it reaches a Vietnamese shelf.
Advertising sits outside the notification
A cosmetic notification says nothing about what a brand may claim about the product afterward — advertising and imagery are governed separately and have tightened.
Cosmetic advertising in Vietnam is checked against a separate set of rules from the notification file, and enforcement in this area has moved toward tighter, not looser, scrutiny of medical-sounding claims and imagery. A notified cosmetic still cannot carry a treatment claim, a disease reference, or medical-professional imagery on its packaging or in its marketing — confirm current advertising restrictions against the text in force before artwork is finalised, since this is an area where the rules move independently of the notification procedure itself.
Frequently asked questions
1. Can a foreign brand owner file its own cosmetic notification in Vietnam?
No. The party filing has to be an organisation or individual registered to do business in Vietnam and responsible for placing the product on the market — commonly the importer or appointed distributor. A foreign brand owner authorises that party in writing instead.
2. Is the Certificate of Free Sale always required?
For imported cosmetics, yes — the CFS from the country of manufacture or export is one of the two documents the file depends on, alongside the authorisation letter. Confirm the current document list for your specific country of origin before filing, since requirements can differ by source country.
3. Does the notification review whether the product’s claims are true?
No. The Drug Administration checks the file for completeness and the ingredients against the ASEAN permitted and restricted lists. It is a notification, not a scientific approval of efficacy, and marketing claims are checked separately under advertising rules.
4. If we switch importers, does the existing notification move with the product?
No. The receipt number stands in the name of the party that filed it. A new responsible party files its own notification, which means assembling the CFS and authorisation letter again under the new party’s name.
5. Is the cosmetic notification the same procedure as the Vietnamese label requirement?
No. The notification and the Vietnamese supplementary label are two separate obligations — a product can hold a valid notification receipt number and still be non-compliant if the label does not carry the mandatory Vietnamese content. Both have to be in place before the product reaches the market.
Sources: Circular 06/2011/TT-BYT and Circular 34/2025/TT-BYT (thuvienphapluat.vn); national single-window portal (vnsw.gov.vn). Checked on 25 September 2026.