A Vietnamese product-registration dossier can be refused over the form of its foreign paperwork, not only over what is in the product file. Until 11 September 2026 the form was predictable — every foreign document went to a Vietnamese embassy or consulate for legalisation. That single route has now split into four, and which one a document takes depends on who issued it, who signed it, and which country it came from.
💬 Preparing a first product dossier for Vietnam and unsure which certificates need which route? Sunsho Trade handles market entry and product registration for foreign brands from Ho Chi Minh City — tell us what you are registering.
Which route each document in your dossier takes
Sort every document by two questions — was it issued or certified by a public authority, and is the Apostille Convention actually in force between Vietnam and the issuing country — and each document falls into one of four routes.
| Document in the dossier | Route |
|---|---|
| Certificate of Free Sale from a health or trade authority | Apostille only if the issuing country’s competent authority treats it as apostillable — see below |
| GMP certificate, manufacturing licence or export certificate from a government body | Apostille on the same condition — an export certificate is trade-adjacent, see below |
| Extract from a commercial or companies register | Apostille on the same condition — the register is an authority’s, the extract is trade-adjacent |
| Patent or trade mark certificate from an IP office | Apostille — expressly inside scope |
| Certificate of analysis issued by a private laboratory | Notarise, or have the signature certified, then apostille the notarial act |
| Power of attorney or letter of authorisation from the brand owner | Notarise first, then apostille |
| Sales or distribution contract, board resolution, signed declaration | Notarise first, then apostille |
| Any of the above issued in Germany, Austria or Czechia | Still the embassy — consular legalisation |
| Any of the above from a state not party to the Convention | Still the embassy |
| Commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading | Cannot be apostillised |
The dates behind the table: Vietnam acceded on 31 December 2025 and the Convention entered into force for Vietnam on 11 September 2026, both in the HCCH status table. It is implemented by Decree 293/2026/ND-CP of 23 July 2026, whose Article 34 sets the same effective date (Vietnamese text). Checked against the published texts on 15 September 2026.
Direction is easy to get backwards. For an inbound dossier the apostille comes from the competent authority of the country that issued the document, never from anyone in Vietnam; Vietnam’s own Apostille offices matter only for documents going the other way.
The notarise-first rows follow from what an apostille is: it sits only on a public document, and it certifies the signature, the signatory’s capacity and the seal, never the content. The HCCH Apostille Handbook places documents executed in a private capacity outside the Convention’s scope (paras 182–184); Article 1(2)(d) brings in the official certificate placed on such a document, not the document itself. The decree says the same for Vietnamese documents — Article 11(1)(c) excludes anything not issued or certified by a competent body and not yet notarised or authenticated, while Article 10(3) and 10(4) put notarised contracts, certified copies and certified signatures inside scope.
The last row is our reading, not HCCH’s: an invoice, a packing list or a bill of lading is a privately issued commercial paper rather than an act of an authority, so it fails the public-document test before any exclusion is reached. If you are costing the shipment instead, which local charges belong to which Incoterm is the more useful page.
The three countries where nothing changed
Germany, Austria and Czechia each lodged an objection under Article 12(2) of the Convention, so the Convention is not in force between Vietnam and those three states and documents moving either way still need consular legalisation.
This is a part commonly got wrong: the usual line is that Vietnam has joined, so apostilles now work with every member state. The HCCH notifications page for Vietnam’s accession records objections from Germany (20 May 2026), Austria (19 June 2026) and Czechia (2 July 2026). An objection prevents the Convention operating between the acceding state and the objecting state, and the decree anticipates it: Article 5(4) routes documents to and from such states back to the consular-certification rules. A German GMP certificate for a Vietnamese registration file still goes through the embassy, on the old timeline.
The list can change: an objection may be withdrawn, and another may be lodged. As fetched on 15 September 2026 the page showed exactly three and nothing else. Check it for your own country before you promise a faster route.
What the Apostille office refuses, and what it costs
For a Vietnamese document going abroad the decree writes its own refusal grounds into Article 11(2), and most of them are about the state of the paper rather than its content — check the document against that list before you queue.
Under Article 11(2) an Apostille office must refuse a document that has been erased, altered or falsified; one there are grounds to treat as forged; one where the verification under Article 15 shows the issuing body did not issue it, or the seal, signature or title is not genuine, not within the signatory’s competence, not original, or does not match the registered specimen; one that a judgment or decision of a court or competent body has declared void, revoked, cancelled or unlawfully issued; one that may not be taken abroad under Vietnamese law; and an electronic document whose digital signature is missing or in the wrong format. The specimen-mismatch ground is worth checking first, because it turns on the signature file the issuing body registered, not on anything visible to you.
Article 6(1) makes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the competent authority, and the two offices notified to the HCCH are the Consular Department in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City’s Department for External Relations. Article 6(3), echoed in Article 30(2), lets the Minister set criteria, conditions and a roadmap for delegating that power to provincial People’s Committees; it names no province and no date.
On cost, Article 9 sets the fee as the consular certification and legalisation fee under the law on fees and charges, with postage on top if you file by post, and provides that where a file was returned because the verification period expired and you refile under Article 15(5)(c), the fee already paid carries over.
Article 36(4) phases in the electronic side. Until the Minister announces that the Apostille information system is operating, apostilles are issued on paper. The electronic apostille, the QR code on the certificate (Article 20(2)) and the public register under Article 21 — 24-hour lookup by certificate number or QR, in Vietnamese and English — start from that announcement, not from 11 September 2026.
💬 If your file mixes certificates from several countries, settle the routing once rather than discovering it at submission. Send us the document list and we will tell you which rows are which.
The Certificate of Free Sale question
For a Vietnamese certificate the decree gives a usable test — Article 11(1)(b) excludes commercial and customs documents but keeps those that were eligible for consular certification before 11 September 2026 — while for a foreign certificate the answer rests with the competent authority of the issuing country.
Article 1, third paragraph, of the Convention excludes “documents executed by diplomatic or consular agents” and “administrative documents dealing directly with commercial or customs operations”. Both qualifiers do work. A Certificate of Free Sale is unmistakably administrative — an authority issues it. Whether it deals directly with commercial operations is arguable: it attests that a product is lawfully sold in its home market, a regulatory statement, yet it exists almost entirely to serve export transactions.
Vietnam has answered that for its own documents. Article 11(1)(b) carries the exclusion across with an exception — a commercial or customs document is still apostillable if, before the Convention entered into force for Vietnam, it fell within the scope of consular certification under the old rules — and makes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs name the documents concerned in the catalogue it must publish under Article 30(7).
HCCH material reads the exclusion the same tight way. The Background Note on Article 1(3) records at paragraph 14 that the qualifiers “administrative” and “directly” were included so the exclusion would not be too general, and so that contracts, powers of attorney and certificates issued by patent offices would remain covered. The Handbook adds that a number of Contracting Parties apply the Convention to import and export licences, certificates of origin and health and safety certificates, and that doing so is considered valid (paras 136–137).
So the test to put to a foreign issuing authority is historical: did that category of document require legalisation before the Convention entered into force for their state? If it did, it is likely to be apostillable now — the same logic Vietnam wrote into Article 11(1)(b).
One note for anyone registering health supplements, where a Certificate of Free Sale is routine paperwork. Health supplements are foods, not medicines, and are not a substitute for medical treatment. The registration route is a separate exercise, set out in our note on the declaration route for food supplements, and the labelling that follows it in the supplementary label checklist.
Documents you already legalised
Foreign documents consular-legalised into Vietnam before 11 September 2026 remain usable and a Vietnamese receiving body may not demand an apostille for them, but the mirror-image guarantee for Vietnamese documents going abroad is not something the Convention can give you.
Article 36 handles the transition in several parts, four of which matter here. Under 36(2)(a), foreign public documents from a member state legalised before 11 September 2026 stay usable, and the receiving body must not require an apostille for them. Under 36(2)(b), Vietnamese public documents consular-certified before that date may be given an apostille on request, without re-issuing the original. Under 36(1), legalisation files validly received but not yet decided continue under the old consular rules. Under 36(3), apostilles issued abroad before that date are accepted in Vietnam from it, unless they fall under the refusal grounds in Article 26.
The qualification is on the outbound side: the decree binds Vietnamese receiving bodies, not a foreign counterparty. The Handbook (para 94) notes that nothing in the Convention prevents a destination state from requiring an apostille even where legalisation would previously have sufficed; the Permanent Bureau only recommends that earlier legalisations keep being honoured for a reasonable period. Article 30(5) meets that from the Vietnamese side: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must publish, on its portal and the National Public Service Portal, both the list of member states the Convention actually operates with and information on whether each of them will keep recognising consular certifications issued before the Convention entered into force for Vietnam.
What had not been published by 15 September 2026
Four things this page cannot give you, because on the date we checked they were not published.
- The fee amount. Article 9 points to the law on fees and charges; we could not locate the schedule.
- The ministry catalogue under Articles 11(1)(b) and 30(7) naming which commercial and customs documents Vietnam will apostillise.
- The Article 30(5) information on how member states treat Vietnamese consular certifications issued before 11 September 2026.
- The date the Apostille information system goes live under Article 36(4)(c), which controls electronic apostilles and the register.
Until those appear, ask the office that will handle your file, and do not commit anyone to a date.
💬 Sunsho Trade is a Japanese-managed trading company in Ho Chi Minh City, working in English, Japanese and Vietnamese. If you need someone on this side of the file room, start with the market entry service or contact us.
Frequently asked questions
1. My supplier is in Germany. Can I use an apostille now?
No. Germany lodged an objection under Article 12(2) on 20 May 2026, so the Convention does not operate between Germany and Vietnam and consular legalisation continues both ways. The same applies to Austria and Czechia. Objections can be withdrawn, so check the HCCH notifications page before each file.
2. Where is a Vietnamese document apostillised?
At the Consular Department in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City’s Department for External Relations, the two offices notified to the HCCH as of 15 September 2026. More locations are possible in time: Article 6(3) with Article 30(2) allows delegation to provincial People’s Committees on a roadmap the Minister sets.
3. Is a Certificate of Free Sale apostillable?
For a foreign certificate, ask the competent authority of the issuing country — Article 1(3)(b) excludes administrative documents dealing directly with commercial or customs operations, and whether a free-sale certificate is caught is arguable. For a Vietnamese one, Article 11(1)(b) keeps it in scope if it was eligible for consular certification before 11 September 2026.
4. Do I have to redo documents legalised before 11 September 2026?
Coming into Vietnam, no — Article 36(2)(a) says a Vietnamese receiving body must not require an apostille for a foreign document legalised before that date. Going abroad, the Convention guarantees nothing, so check what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes under Article 30(5).
5. Can I get an electronic apostille with a QR code today?
Not until the Ministry announces that the Apostille information system is operating. Article 36(4) provides for a paper certificate until then; the electronic certificate, the QR code under Article 20(2) and the public register under Article 21 begin from that announcement.
Every legal reference here was checked on 15 September 2026 against the HCCH status table and notifications page, the Convention text, the Apostille Handbook, the Background Note on Article 1(3) and the Vietnamese text of Decree 293/2026/ND-CP. Confirm anything load-bearing against the current text before you rely on it. For the supplier side of the file, see verifying a Vietnamese supplier remotely and comparing supplier quotations.