A furniture factory sends a quotation, a photo of a workshop full of finished chairs, and a promise that the wood is “all legal.” None of that tells you where the timber came from, whether the paperwork behind it exists, or which of three different legality regimes your shipment actually has to satisfy once it reaches your market. Vietnam runs its own timber legality system, and it does not automatically produce the document your customs authority will ask for on arrival.
💬 Sourcing furniture from Vietnam and need the timber paperwork checked before you commit to a factory? Tell us the species and destination and we will read the file with you.
What is Vietnam’s own timber legality system, and what does it actually control?
Decree 102/2020/ND-CP set up the Vietnam Timber Legality Assurance System (VNTLAS), which classifies both imported timber and the enterprises that handle it by risk, and it was amended by Decree 120/2024/ND-CP, in force from 15 November 2024.
VNTLAS runs on two classifications at once. Imported round or sawn timber is sorted by the country it came from: the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (the ministry formed in 2025 from the former Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) keeps a list of lower-risk source countries, and timber from a country not on that list is treated as higher risk and carries a heavier paper trail. Separately, the wood-processing and trading enterprise itself is classified — an enterprise with a clean compliance history gets lighter-touch controls than one without a track record.
This system was built under the EU–Vietnam Voluntary Partnership Agreement on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (VPA/FLEGT), which entered into force in 2019. Its end goal is a FLEGT licence attached to Vietnamese timber products entering the EU, which under the EU framework stands in place of a separate legality check on arrival. That licensing has not started: it begins only once the EU and Vietnam jointly confirm that VNTLAS is fully operating as designed. Until that joint assessment is complete, a Vietnamese furniture shipment into the EU carries no FLEGT licence, and the EU’s own due-diligence rules apply in full regardless of what VNTLAS says about the factory.
What should a furniture buyer actually ask the factory for?
Ask for the paper trail on the wood input, not just the finished product’s own factory paperwork, because the point where legality breaks down is usually the raw timber before it enters the workshop.
| Document | What it should show | Why you ask for it |
|---|---|---|
| Timber species and country of harvest for each input | Species name, country the log or sawn timber was harvested in | Determines which risk category and which import controls apply |
| Import customs declaration for the raw timber (if imported into Vietnam) | HS code, species, country of origin, quantity | Confirms the timber entered Vietnam through a normal, recorded channel |
| Domestic transport and origin paperwork | The document accompanying the timber as it moves between the harvest site or import point and the factory | Breaks in this chain are where undocumented wood gets mixed in |
| CITES permit, where the species is CITES-listed | Export and import permit numbers | Certain species (some rosewoods and other tropical hardwoods) cannot move without one |
| Factory’s VNTLAS enterprise classification, where the factory will state it | Classification category | Affects how much independent verification a heavier-risk input needs |
Ask these questions before you agree a price, not after the container is packed. A factory that cannot say which country each species in a mixed-wood piece came from is a factory that has not tracked it internally either — the same gap that shows up when verifying a Vietnamese supplier remotely turns up a registration that only covers trading, not manufacturing.
💬 Comparing more than one furniture factory on price alone hides exactly this kind of gap. See how to compare Vietnamese supplier quotations, or send us the specification and we will read the timber paperwork alongside it.
When does the EU Deforestation Regulation actually start applying to furniture?
The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) applies to large and medium operators and traders from 30 December 2026, and to micro and small enterprises from 30 June 2027 — both dates later than the original 2024 and 2025 timetable, after two rounds of postponement.
EUDR is a separate instrument from the VPA/FLEGT system above, and it covers more than the EU’s older Timber Regulation did: wood furniture is inside its scope. Where FLEGT licensing under Vietnam’s VPA has not yet begun, a Vietnamese furniture shipment gets no shortcut through EUDR’s requirements — the EU importer placing the goods on the EU market still carries the full due-diligence obligation itself, including a geolocation record of the plot the wood was harvested on and a due-diligence statement confirming the product is deforestation-free and produced legally.
For a Vietnam-side factory, the practical consequence is upstream: if your EU buyer needs plot-level geolocation for the timber in your furniture, that information has to come from wherever the wood was harvested, and a Vietnamese processor sourcing mixed lots from several suppliers may not have it unless it was captured at the point of harvest or import. Ask this question before signing, not after your EU customer’s compliance team asks it of you.
What does the US Lacey Act ask of a furniture importer?
A commercial furniture shipment into the United States generally needs a Lacey Act plant declaration — PPQ Form 505 — naming the scientific species, the quantity, the value and the country where the wood was harvested or grown, filed electronically rather than on paper.
The US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) extended Lacey Act declaration requirements to a wider range of wood products, including furniture, under a phase that began 1 December 2024. From 1 January 2026, APHIS stopped accepting paper PPQ 505 declarations; filing now goes through US Customs and Border Protection’s Automated Commercial Environment or through APHIS’s own Lacey Act Web Governance System. The declaration is filed by the US importer, but the information on it — species, harvest country, quantity — has to come from the exporting factory, so a Vietnamese furniture supplier that cannot name the species used in a piece by its scientific name is handing its US buyer an unfileable declaration.
💬 If a US or EU buyer has sent you a compliance questionnaire you are not sure how to answer from the Vietnam side, walk us through it — this is part of our sourcing work in Vietnam.
Checklist before you commit to a furniture factory
Work through these five points before the deposit, because every one of them is far easier to fix before an order than after a shipment is held at the destination port.
- Get the species and harvest country for every timber component in the piece, not only the dominant one — many furniture designs mix a structural hardwood with a cheaper secondary species.
- Ask whether any species used is CITES-listed, and if so, ask to see the export permit before production starts.
- If your destination is the EU, ask whether plot-level geolocation for the harvest exists anywhere in the supply chain, and if not, treat that as a gap to close before shipping, not after.
- If your destination is the US, confirm the factory can name every species by its scientific (Latin) name — a common name is not enough for the declaration your importer will file.
- Keep the domestic transport and origin documents for the timber, separately from the general factory audit paperwork; they answer a different question and a customs authority may ask for them separately.
Frequently asked questions
1. Does Vietnam issue a FLEGT licence for furniture exports to the EU yet?
No. FLEGT licensing under Vietnam’s VPA begins only after the EU and Vietnam jointly confirm that the VNTLAS system is fully operational, and that joint assessment has not concluded. A Vietnamese furniture shipment into the EU today carries no FLEGT licence.
2. If there is no FLEGT licence, does that mean EU buyers cannot import Vietnamese furniture?
No, it means the EU importer’s own due-diligence obligations under EUDR apply in full, in the same way they would for furniture from any other country outside the EU that has not reached FLEGT licensing.
3. Is the EUDR start date the same for every size of company?
No. Large and medium operators and traders are covered from 30 December 2026; micro and small enterprises have until 30 June 2027. Both dates have already been pushed back once from the original schedule, so confirm the current date before planning around it.
4. Who files the Lacey Act declaration for a furniture shipment into the US — the Vietnamese factory or the US buyer?
The US importer of record files PPQ Form 505. The Vietnamese factory’s job is to supply accurate species, quantity and harvest-country information; without it, the importer cannot complete the form.
5. Does a VNTLAS enterprise classification replace the need to check timber species and origin myself?
No. The classification affects how much scrutiny Vietnamese authorities apply to that enterprise’s timber inputs; it is not a substitute for a buyer asking the species and origin questions directly, and it is not evidence you can show your own market’s customs authority.
Checked on 25 September 2026.
Sources:
- Decree 102/2020/ND-CP on Vietnam’s Timber Legality Assurance System
- Decree 120/2024/ND-CP amending Decree 102/2020/ND-CP, in force from 15 November 2024
- EU–Vietnam Voluntary Partnership Agreement on FLEGT (VPA/FLEGT), in force from 2019
- Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 on deforestation-free products, as amended for application dates
- European Commission, Access2Markets — EUDR application timeline
- US APHIS, Lacey Act declaration requirements and PPQ Form 505 filing guidance