How to Go From a Short-Stay Visa to a Labour TRC in Vietnam: Work Permit, LD2 Visa, and the Full Process

Updated: March 25, 2026

A foreigner employed in Vietnam cannot apply for a Temporary Residence Card directly — the employer must first obtain a work permit, then sponsor an LD2 visa, after which the TRC application can proceed for a card valid up to two years, subject to the work permit's remaining validity.

Short-Stay Visa to Labour TRC: Process at a Glance

Employer submits integrated work permit application (including demand justification) to the provincial labour authority under the People's Committee
With work permit confirmed, employer sponsors the LD2 visa application through the Immigration Department
Foreign employee receives LD2 visa — typically 5 working days from a valid submission
Foreign employee registers temporary residence at the ward-level police (khai báo tạm trú) at their current address
Employer assembles and submits the full TRC dossier online through the national portal, then delivers hard copies to the Immigration Department
Foreign employee attends the immigration office in person to collect the TRC card — issued within 5 working days of an accepted dossier

> This article was first published on 17 March 2026 and last updated with corrections to Decree 219/2025 processing timelines, issuing authority references, and new FAQ content. This guide reflects work permit and immigration procedures as understood in early 2026. Requirements can change without advance notice. Verify current requirements directly with the relevant departments.

For a foreign worker building a stable long-term base in Vietnam — securing housing, opening a bank account, putting health insurance in place — the labour TRC is the residency foundation that makes everything else easier. This guide covers the full pathway from a short-stay visa through the work permit and LD2 visa to the labour TRC, including where the process stalls, what officers check, and what gets applications refused.

In this guide

Who This Guide Is For
The Three-Stage Structure
Stage One: Work Permit and LD2 Visa
The 12-Month Validity Threshold
Stage Two: The Labour TRC Application
Processing Time and Costs
What Officers Check and Why Applications Are Refused
Practical Notes for Workers and Employers
Frequently Asked Questions

Who This Guide Is For

This guide is written for foreign nationals who are employed or have accepted employment in Vietnam, are currently in-country on a short-stay visa — e-visa, tourist visa, or business visa — and need to move to a legally recognised long-term residency status through the employer-sponsored labour pathway. Note that it does not cover TT TRCs for spouses or dependents or DT-category TRCs for investors.

It is equally relevant for HR and compliance teams at Vietnamese companies who are sponsoring a foreign employee's work permit and TRC for the first time, and want a clear overview of what each stage requires and where the process typically stalls.

The Three-Stage Structure

Unlike some immigration systems where residency and employment authorisation are combined into a single application, Vietnam treats them as three separate steps that must be completed in sequence.

Step A — Work permit: Authorises the specific employment arrangement. Under Decree 219/2025, work permits are issued by the Provincial People's Committee (PPC) in the province where the foreign employee will work. In practice, most PPCs delegate this function to a specialised labour authority. Without a valid work permit, there is no basis for any subsequent steps.

Step B — LD visa: Categorises the foreigner's presence in Vietnam as labour-based. Required to be in place before the TRC application begins. Sponsored by the employing company through the Immigration Department.

Step C — Labour TRC: Issued by the Vietnam Immigration Department under the Ministry of Public Security. Authorises residence for up to two years, linked to the work permit's remaining validity. Cannot be applied for without both the work permit and the LD visa already confirmed.

What practitioners are currently reporting (February 2026): Current office practice appears to have narrowed accepted types to LD2 in standard employment cases. Whether this reflects a statutory change or a sustained processing practice update has not been confirmed in published legislation as of the time of writing. Confirm the current position with the Immigration Department or a licensed practitioner before filing.

A note on LD1 visas: Work-permit-exempt roles — including certain senior managers and technical specialists — may be issued an LD1 visa. As of early 2026, practitioner reports indicate that TRC processing is occurring for LD2 holders specifically. Whether an LD1 visa currently supports a TRC application under office practice should be verified directly with the relevant provincial immigration office or an immigration practitioner before filing. Do not assume the LD1 pathway is currently available without this confirmation.

Stage One: Work Permit and LD2 Visa

The Work Permit Application

The work permit process is entirely employer-led. The foreign employee cannot initiate, submit, or manage their own work permit application — everything runs through the sponsoring company.

Under Decree 219/2025 (which replaced Decree 152 from August 7, 2025 onwards), the work permit application process was restructured. The demand justification — where the employer explains the need for a foreign worker — is now integrated into the work permit application as a single dossier, rather than being a separate prior-approval step as under Decree 152. This means the employer submits one combined application, and the authority processes both the demand assessment and the work permit decision together.

The application timeline runs as follows:

New work permit applications must be filed within 60 days of the intended employment start date and no later than 10 business days before the expected start
Extension applications must be filed within 45 days and no later than 10 business days before the existing permit's expiry

Applications go to the Provincial People's Committee (or its delegated labour authority) in the province where the employee will be working. Standard processing time under the integrated procedure is 10 working days from receipt of a complete and valid dossier. Despite this being a higher day-count than the old 5-day work permit processing step under Decree 152, the overall process is typically faster because the separate demand approval step — which previously added weeks — has been eliminated.

Under Decree 219, the job vacancy advertising requirement has also been simplified. For positions filled by labour contract, the employer must still post a vacancy notice, but the advertising period has been shortened to 5 days (from 15 under Decree 152), and the employer may choose its own advertising platform rather than being required to use the government portal.

Key documents typically required for the work permit application:

Employer's request letter and demand justification — now submitted as a single integrated form under Decree 219
The employee's valid passport and relevant qualifications
Criminal record certificate — must have been issued within 6 months of the filing date
Medical / health fitness certificate — must have been issued within 12 months of the filing date, from an authorised Vietnamese or foreign health facility
Employment contract or offer letter
Documents evidencing the employee's qualifications, experience, or specialist status (varies by worker category: expert, manager, technical worker)

Decree 219 introduced an online joint application option for criminal record certificates, allowing the work permit and criminal record certificate to be processed simultaneously through the National Public Service Portal. Where applicable, the employer's HR team should confirm eligibility for this route.

Worker categories and updated requirements under Decree 219: The definitions for expert, manager, and technical worker categories have been updated. Notably, the minimum experience requirement for experts has been reduced to 2 years (with a university degree or higher), down from 3 years under Decree 152. For experts in designated priority sectors — including finance, science, technology, AI, and digital transformation — the requirement is further reduced to 1 year of relevant experience. Document requirements differ by category, and if the original work permit was issued under Decree 152, reviewing the current requirements before renewal is worthwhile.

Foreign-language supporting documents — including qualifications and criminal record certificates from outside Vietnam — must be consularly legalised and certified-translated into Vietnamese. This is the step that most consistently causes timeline overruns: allow adequate lead time for foreign document legalisation before the employer files.

Getting the LD2 Visa

Once the work permit is confirmed, the employer sponsors the LD2 visa application for the foreign employee inside Vietnam. The LD2 visa is the specific visa category that links the foreign employee's presence to their labour authorisation and sets the stage for the TRC application.

The LD visa application is filed through the Immigration Department, with the employer as the sponsoring party. Processing typically takes 5 working days from a valid submission.

The foreign employee's current short-stay visa must remain valid throughout the work permit and LD visa process. If the tourist visa or e-visa is approaching expiry while these stages are in progress, it should be extended rather than allowed to lapse — remaining in Vietnam on an expired visa creates compounding compliance problems.

The 12-Month Validity Threshold

This is one of the most consequential and least-discussed requirements in the LD TRC process, and it is the source of a significant number of avoidable refusals.

When the TRC application is filed, the work permit must have at least 12 months of remaining validity. This is a fixed threshold — it is not waivable by the immigration officer and cannot be resolved by additional supporting documentation.

The practical implication: an employer who obtains a short initial work permit — say, for 14 or 15 months — and then immediately files for a TRC may find that the time taken to complete the work permit and LD visa stages has eaten into the buffer, leaving less than 12 months on the permit by the time the TRC application arrives at the counter. The TRC application will be refused.

The correct approach is to confirm the remaining validity on the work permit before the TRC dossier is assembled. If the permit has less than 12 months left, the work permit should be extended first before the TRC application is filed. Employers who understand this threshold up front tend to apply for longer initial work permits where possible, or sequence the TRC filing promptly after the work permit is issued while the validity buffer is still comfortable.

Stage Two: The Labour TRC Application

With the work permit and LD2 visa in place, and temporary residence registered, the TRC application proceeds through the Vietnam Immigration Department — at the national office or at the provincial/city immigration management office covering the employee's place of residence.

The standard process is online-first submission through the Ministry of Public Security's e-portal. The employer's authorised representative creates an account, submits documents electronically, and receives a submission confirmation before delivering original hard copies to the relevant office. Online submission and physical delivery are both required.

In Ho Chi Minh City the portal is accessed via dichvucong.gov.vn, and the employer account requires a company digital signature token. In Hanoi, submissions go to the Immigration Management Department at 44–46 Tran Phu, Ba Dinh District. Other provinces have equivalent processes, though smaller provincial offices may have local submission variations — confirming with the office before filing is advisable.

Step 1: Temporary Residence Registration

Before the TRC dossier is submitted, the foreign employee's temporary residence must be registered with the ward-level police at the address where they are living — khai báo tạm trú. The confirmation letter (Form CT07 either manually filled in or extracted from online by the host, signed by the ward police) is a required document in the TRC dossier.

If the employee is renting, the landlord is legally required to register foreign tenants, though this does not always happen automatically. The employee should confirm this is in order before the employer assembles the dossier. A missing or unstamped CT07 is one of the more avoidable reasons an application is returned.

Step 2: Assemble the Labour TRC Dossier

Required documents:

Sponsorship and issuance request letter from the employing company — filed on Form NA6, on company letterhead, signed by the legal representative
TRC application declaration form — Form NA8 (with passport-sized photo: 2×3cm, white background, front-facing, no glasses, taken within 6 months)
Original passport with minimum 13 months of remaining validity
Valid LD2 visa sponsored by the employing company
Original valid work permit with at least 12 months of remaining validity
Notarised copy of the labour contract
Temporary residence registration confirmation — Form CT07

Supporting documents:

Notarised copy of the company's business registration certificate
Certificate of seal registration
Company introduction letter authorising the representative submitting the application

Translation / legalisation: Any foreign-language qualifications or employment supporting documents included in the dossier must be consularly legalised and certified-translated into Vietnamese.

Step 3: Submit the Dossier and Pay the Fee

The employer's authorised representative submits the complete dossier. The up-to date regulation is to do it online by logging in using the employer's relevent VNeid. On receipt of a valid and complete submission, the officer issues an appointment slip for collection. The government fee for a labour TRC is approximately USD 145 for a card valid up to 2 years. Agent or service fees, if applicable, are additional and vary.

Step 4: Collect the Card

The foreign employee must attend the immigration office in person to collect the TRC — the employer's representative handles submission, but collection requires the employee's physical presence. The TRC is issued within 5 working days of an accepted dossier. If the application is refused, the office issues written notice of the reason.

Processing Time and Costs

The 5-working-day processing window for the TRC begins only when the dossier is accepted as complete. Dossiers returned for missing or incorrect documents restart the clock entirely. In practice, the time lost is almost always in document preparation — not in the official processing window. A clean dossier filed on a Monday is typically ready for collection the following Tuesday.

Realistic total timelines from the point of beginning the work permit application:

All documents already in Vietnam and in order: Allow 4–5 weeks from work permit filing to TRC collection (reflecting the 10-working-day work permit processing under Decree 219, plus the LD2 visa and TRC steps)
Foreign documents requiring consular legalisation and translation: Allow 6–8 weeks, with the legalisation step as the primary variable

Summary of costs:

Work permit fees: VND 400,000 (Hanoi) to VND 1,000,000 (highest provincial rate) — paid by the employer
TRC government fee: approximately USD 145
Agent or practitioner fees: additional; range widely depending on service scope

Confirm current work permit fees with the relevant provincial labour authority before filing, as these are set locally and subject to change.

What Officers Check and Why Applications Are Refused

Work permit with insufficient remaining validity — the most structurally significant refusal cause in the LD pathway. The 12-month minimum is fixed and cannot be argued at the counter. Employers who do not factor this threshold into their initial work permit duration planning regularly create avoidable refusals. Once the permit fails this threshold, the TRC application must wait for a permit extension before it can proceed.

Qualification mismatch — the foreign employee's degree or formal qualifications do not align with the job title on the work permit application. This is one of the most commonly reported refusal causes at the work permit stage, and it blocks the entire downstream pathway. Vietnamese law does recognise experience-based qualification: where an applicant has extensive documented experience (commonly 10+ years in the relevant field), this can substitute for a directly matching degree. The key is that experience must be evidenced with properly formatted letters from previous employers — not simply claimed. Under Decree 219, the reduced experience thresholds (2 years for experts, 1 year for priority sectors) apply only when combined with a degree in the relevant field.

LD2 visa not in place — a TRC application submitted without a valid LD2 visa as the active underlying status will be refused. Applications occasionally arrive with an e-visa or DN business visa still as the employee's active status. These are returned immediately. The LD2 visa must be confirmed before the TRC dossier is assembled.

Photos outside specification — a consistent minor cause of return: photos that are the wrong size (not 2×3cm), have a non-white background, show the applicant wearing glasses, or were taken more than 6 months before the application. This causes a full processing cycle delay. The employer should check photos against the specification before including them in the dossier.

Temporary residence registration missing — Form CT07 is required and must carry the ward police stamp. Employees who moved into rental accommodation recently, or whose landlord has not registered them, need to resolve this before the dossier is assembled.

Company documents not current — the business registration certificate copy and seal registration must be current and notarised. Companies that use an old business registration copy from a previous application sometimes find it is no longer valid.

Varies by provincial office: Procedures and specific document requirements in major cities are relatively well-established. In smaller provinces, requirements can differ or officers apply local interpretations. Where the employee is working and residing outside Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi, direct pre-submission confirmation with the local immigration office reduces the risk of an avoidable return.

Practical Notes for Workers and Employers

The employer's HR team drives the LD TRC timeline — not the foreign employee. This is the single most important practical reality of the LD pathway. The foreign worker cannot self-file, cannot chase the work permit independently, and cannot submit the TRC application. If HR is slow, the delay is real and the foreign employee's legal status remains short-term throughout. Workers who are approaching the end of their short-stay visa while waiting on HR should raise the urgency in writing, naming the specific expiry dates.

The TRC cannot be renewed — a fresh application is required each time. The full application cycle repeats when the card approaches expiry. Ideally the new application is initiated 30–60 days before expiry to avoid a gap in status. The employer's HR should treat TRC expiry as a recurring calendar item rather than a one-time event.

Multi-province work no longer requires a separate work permit. Under Decree 219, foreign employees working for the same employer in multiple provinces no longer need to update or reapply for a work permit when the work location changes. Instead, the employer must notify the competent labour authority in the destination province at least 3 working days before the employee begins working there. This is a notification, not a new application.

If a dependent TRC for a spouse or children is also needed, plan both applications together. Once the foreign worker holds an LD TRC, the spouse and children under 18 can apply for TT TRCs. These should be planned as a parallel process where possible — each dependent application follows the same basic TRC process, sponsored by the foreign TRC holder.

Working with a local immigration practitioner for the first application is often efficient. The document requirements under Decree 219 are detailed, and the legalisation requirements for foreign-issued documents are specific. A practitioner who files these applications regularly knows what individual offices check and what they return without explanation. The cost is modest relative to the time cost of a rejected and restarted application.

> Applicants should confirm the methods for applying, that is, which part requires online application and which one requires direct. The credible information we have so far is still very conflicting. Current fees, document requirements, and processing timelines should be checked directly with the relevant Provincial People's Committee (or its delegated labour authority) and the Vietnam Immigration Department (Cục Quản lý xuất nhập cảnh) before submitting any application. Requirements under Decree 219/2025 are subject to further implementing guidance and periodic updates.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to leave Vietnam to switch from a tourist visa to an LD2 visa?

Not necessarily — but you cannot convert a tourist visa directly to a work visa without first having a work permit in place. Under Law 51/2019/QH14 (Article 7, Section 4), Vietnam allows in-country visa purpose changes for foreigners who are invited or guaranteed by a Vietnamese organisation and who hold a valid work permit or work permit exemption. If your employer has already obtained the work permit while you are in-country on a tourist visa or e-visa, the LD2 visa can be applied for inside Vietnam without leaving. Where the work permit is not yet ready and the short-stay visa is expiring, the common practical solution is a brief exit and re-entry — often through a land border — on a DN1 business visa sponsored by the employer, which allows legal presence while the work permit is processed.

Can I start the TRC process as soon as my job offer is confirmed?

Not yet — the TRC process cannot begin until both the work permit and the LD2 visa are in place. The job offer itself is not a document that triggers eligibility. The employer must initiate the work permit application first, which takes 10 working days once a complete dossier is submitted under Decree 219's integrated process (plus document preparation time, which is typically the larger variable). The LD2 visa follows after the work permit is confirmed. Raising the timeline with HR at the point of accepting the offer — rather than after arriving in-country — is the most effective way to avoid an extended wait on a short-stay visa.

Can I work legally while my LD TRC application is being processed?

Yes, provided your work permit and LD visa are both valid. The right to work derives from the work permit, not the TRC. An LD TRC application in progress does not create a gap in work authorisation — it formalises long-term residency on top of an already-valid work status.

What is the difference between LD1 and LD2, and does it matter for the TRC?

LD1 is the visa category for foreigners in work-permit-exempt roles, including certain senior managers and technical specialists. LD2 covers standard work permit holders. As of early 2026, practitioners report that TRC applications are being processed for LD2 visa holders specifically. Whether an LD1 visa currently qualifies for TRC issuance under current office practice should be verified directly with your provincial immigration office or a practitioner before filing — do not assume it qualifies without this confirmation.

What happens if my tourist visa or e-visa expires before the LD2 visa is issued?

The current visa must remain valid throughout the process. If it is approaching expiry while the work permit or LD visa is still in progress, it should be extended rather than allowed to lapse. Working or remaining in Vietnam on an expired visa creates a separate overstay issue that complicates subsequent applications and can result in fines, exit bans, or delays on re-entry. HR should be managing this timeline, but the foreign employee should track it independently as well.

My employer wants to use a DN (business) visa as the basis for the TRC application. Is that acceptable?

No. A DN business visa does not qualify as the underlying visa for a labour TRC application. Only a valid LD2 visa (for standard permit holders) currently supports the TRC application in practice. If you entered on a DN visa and have subsequently received a work permit, the employer must sponsor the transition to an LD2 visa before the TRC application is submitted.

What happens to my TRC if I change employers?

A work permit is employer-specific and is not transferable. If you change employers, the new employer must apply for a new work permit. Once the new work permit is confirmed, the LD2 visa and TRC applications must be filed again under the new sponsorship. Your existing TRC — which was issued on the basis of the previous employer's permit — no longer has valid legal standing once the underlying work permit is cancelled or expires. The gap between permits is a period where your residency status is in transition, and this should be planned carefully. > Procedures for the LD2 visa and labour TRC application are governed by the Law on Entry, Exit, Transit and Residence of Foreigners in Vietnam (Law No. 47/2014/QH13, as amended by Laws 51/2019 and 23/2023) and Decree 219/2025/ND-CP. Requirements and fees are subject to change. Always confirm current requirements with the Vietnam Immigration Department or a licensed practitioner before submitting documents.

Key Sources

Vietnam Immigration Department — xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn
National Public Service Portal — dichvucong.gov.vn
Decree 219/2025/ND-CP — Government of Vietnam (replaced Decree 152/2020 and Decree 70/2023)
Law 47/2014/QH13 as amended by Laws 51/2019 and 23/2023
Ministry of Home Affairs (formerly Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs)
Provincial Departments of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (DoLISA) — provincial-level implementation