Navigating data centre opportunities across APAC - Vietnam

Vietnam is growing as a data centre market from a relatively low base. There is strong government support for data centre investment.

To explore settings in other jurisdictions visit our APAC Regulatory Guide.

Sources: Worldometer, Statista, Cushman & Wakefield, Việt Nam News

Recent legislative changes provide greater certainty around foreign ownership, PPAs and the regulatory status of data centres, while strategic incentives and benefits are available including at special high- tech parks.

With a growing and digitally savvy population, Vietnam is focused on digital transformation and infrastructure development. Foreign capital is needed to supplement the domestic response to the increasing demand for data centre services. This is promising, provided that existing power stability issues can be overcome to sustain growth.

There's no limit

The Law on Telecommunications 2023 (Telecoms Law) confirmed that there is no limit on foreign ownership of companies providing data centre services or cloud services in Vietnam.

While this is not officially a change in law as there was no specific limit previously, this is the first time that it has been confirmed in law. The regulatory clarity will provide foreign investors with more confidence to invest in the Vietnamese data centre industry.

The right incentives

Vietnam has several high-tech parks and SEZs in central and strategic locations.

These offer favourable conditions and incentives for data centre investments, including:

• supporting infrastructure well-suited to data centre operations such as access to power and telecommunications networks, and
• tax breaks and other incentives including corporate income tax incentives, import duty exemptions and land and water surface rent exemptions.

An evolving regulatory landscape for data

New obligations dramatically heighten the burden for companies handling data.

On the back of data localisation, security and privacy reforms in recent years, the Law on Data 2024 (Data Law) came into effect on 1 July 2025. In parallel, a decree giving the implementation of the Data Law (Data Decree) was issued on 30 June 2025 and came into effect on 1 July 2025.

The Data Law and Data Decree:

heighten obligations for handling important data, including by foreign-owned enterprises, to address national security concerns

restrict the transfer of important data outside of Vietnam (see Section 9 Data Localisation below)

restrict the transfer of important data outside of Vietnam, and its use by Vietnamese and foreign entities, and

introduce licensing or registration for certain data-related products and services, which may include data centre and data processing services.

What are the legal instruments in Vietnam?

Each of these legal instruments is generally subordinate in priority to the instruments issued by higher authorities. They may vary in detail - from high-level principle documents to more technical and granular instruments.