Foreigners living in Vietnam are used to handing over multiple copies of their passport and residency documents at government counters — and the government has started steering away from that hassle. According to VnExpress on August 12, 2026, Vietnam is building a "seamless digital environment" that links e-visas, the VNeID digital ID, banking, renting a home, residence declarations, and tax filing under a single electronic ID. For Japanese nationals living here long-term, this is a story that will shape how much lighter everyday procedures become.
This article is aimed at residents and expatriates settled in Vietnam, laying out what's changing now and what to prepare starting tomorrow.
The Plan to Link E-Visas and VNeID Into a Single Thread
At the heart of the report is a plan to let foreigners access administrative and everyday services through a single electronic ID. Vietnam has already opened VNeID Level 2 (the higher, identity-verified tier) to foreigners, and the app now has more than 71 million cumulative activated accounts. The infrastructure built for citizens is being extended to foreigners in stages.
That said, this is still just the starting point, and the report candidly admits that the foreigner-facing information on VNeID "remains basic and is not yet fully integrated." Linking it with services such as tax filing, banking, residence, immigration, and driver's licenses remains a task still to be worked out.
Why Foreigner Procedures Are a Hassle Right Now
To begin with, procedures for foreigners in Vietnam have been structured around handing the same personal information to separate counters again and again. After entering the country, you declare temporary residence (tam tru) through your landlord, and opening a bank account means gathering your passport, visa, and in some cases a work permit. On top of that, banks require residents to register facial and biometric authentication to keep their accounts active, doubling up on paperwork and app steps. Rental contracts also require landlords to report a tenant's residence details to the police, so you have to redo the declaration every time you move. With government offices, banks, and landlords each demanding their own identity checks, residents ended up photocopying the same passport several times a year.
If this fragmentation is replaced by identity verification through a single ID, the burden of rebuilding a stack of documents every time you open an account or sign a lease should, in theory, ease. Whether it's possible to step away from a daily routine of carrying your passport everywhere and handing out copies is the crux of this plan. For more on the banking side of biometric authentication, seeThe Biometric Check That Freezes Your Account If You Skip Facial Recognition— it's worth getting up to speed on first.
What VNeID Level 2 Can and Can't Handle on Its Own
The direction of travel is a design where, once you hold a Level 2 digital ID, any situation requiring identity verification can be handled inside the app. Immigration procedures are already being consolidated into VNeID, and residence declarations have also begun moving to a new online portal. For more on the shift of temporary residence declarations, seeForeigners' temporary-residence declarations consolidated onto a new site: where residents get stuckfor the details.
On the other hand, automatic integration with banking, tax, and licensing is still being built out. Even if your information is on VNeID, that doesn't guarantee each service can read and process it. It's safest to assume Vietnam hasn't reached the stage where "everything connects just because you have a digital ID." For the full picture on immigration consolidation, seeVietnam's immigration procedures consolidate into VNeID from June: what expats and companies should dofor reference.
Pitfalls of the Transition Period, and Its Honest Limits
Even if things are heading in a more convenient direction, confusion during the transition is hard to avoid. The report specifically points to the language barrier: the eTax screen used to check personal income tax is, for now, "Vietnamese only." English and Japanese guidance hasn't caught up, leaving a tough hurdle for non-Vietnamese speakers.
- Multilingual Support Isn't Ready Yet — English and Japanese Versions of Screens Foreigners Use, Including eTax, Are Still a Work in Progress
- Services still operate separately, so you'll still find yourself re-entering the same information at different agencies
- Data linkage isn't complete, and foreigner information on VNeID remains limited to basic fields
- Operations keep shifting as the system evolves, and a transition period in which different counters handle things differently will continue
In other words, "unification" is a work in progress, not a finished product, and for the time being the app will coexist with paper forms and in-person counters. Misjudge this, and you could end up throwing away documents you still need and scrambling to get them reissued.
What Japanese Residents Can Prepare Now
- Get VNeID Level 2 first, and confirm that your immigration and passport information is registered correctly
- Complete facial and biometric registration with your bank ahead of time to avoid having your account frozen
- Share with your landlord or management company that temporary residence (tam tru) declarations have moved to the new portal
- Since eTax's interface is Vietnamese only, handle tax code (MST) checks and filings for now through someone who reads Vietnamese or via your employer
- Until integration is complete, keep carrying your original passport, visa, and work permit, and keep copies on hand
Digital unification is a tailwind for residents, but the benefits will go first to those who register early. Rather than waiting for the system to be complete, getting your VNeID and bank authentication set up now is the better way to avoid getting caught out during the transition. The next time you need to handle a major procedure, it's worth checking in advance whether it can be done through the app or still requires an in-person counter.
