Since 1 July 2026 the rules behind Vietnamese invoices changed again. Decree 254/2026/NĐ-CP replaced Decree 123/2020, Circular 91/2026/TT-BTC took over from Circular 78/2021, and both sit under the Law on Tax Administration 108/2025/QH15. If you run a shop or a small company in Vietnam and still treat e-invoicing as something you will "get to later", the deadline for most sectors is already behind you.
The useful question is not which software is best. It is how many invoices you issue in a normal month. That single number decides what you should pay, and most small businesses overspend because they answer a feature question instead of a volume question.
The volume table
| Invoices per month | What you actually need | Plan that fits | Starting price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 50 | compliant invoices, nothing else | Invoice.vn | Free up to 50 invoices/month |
| A few dozen to a few hundred | fast creation and delivery, no accounting suite | EasyInvoice | VND 200,000/month |
| Hundreds, and the books kept too | invoices and accounting in one system | MISA SME.NET | VND 500,000/month |
| Issued at the counter | the sale itself generates the invoice | Sapo vInvoice | VND 300,000/month |
| Downtime costs you sales | infrastructure you can rely on | ViETTEL vInvoice | VND 300,000/month |
Two rules of thumb come out of that table. Start on the cheapest plan that covers your current volume - if you issue fewer than 50 invoices a month, the free tier is genuinely enough. And if you also need the bookkeeping done, the VND 500,000/month all-in-one plan is usually cheaper than paying for two separate tools and syncing them by hand. Reserve the VND 2,000,000/month ceiling for multi-user access and priority support.
The five plans, briefly
- MISA SME.NET - the all-in-one: invoicing, accounting and tax reporting behind one Vietnamese interface, for owners who do not want a second tool. Heavier for a one-person operation. 30-day trial.
- EasyInvoice - e-invoicing only, which is exactly right when your accounting software already exists. Quick setup, 14-day trial, limited integrations.
- ViETTEL vInvoice - telecom-grade delivery and storage, and the obvious pick if you already buy ViETTEL services. 7-day trial, less flexible outside that ecosystem.
- Sapo vInvoice - the invoice module shares customer and product data with Sapo POS, so counter staff never type an order twice. Sold as part of Sapo plans.
- Invoice.vn - the micro-business option: free to 50 invoices a month, then from VND 150,000/month.
What a compliant invoice has to carry
Compliance is about the data, not about the PDF looking tidy. Test any plan against this list before you sign:
- seller legal name and tax code, matching your business registration
- buyer name, plus the buyer tax code for business-to-business sales
- invoice number and issuance date, in sequence, with form symbol and series
- line items: description, quantity, unit price, line amount
- VAT rate and VAT amount per line - the part tax officers check first
- total payable, with any discount shown separately
- the seller's digital signature applied to the invoice data rather than to a scanned image
- the authentication code returned by the General Department of Taxation
- the XML structure and transmission method defined by Circular 91/2026/TT-BTC
- unalterable storage for at least 10 years
An invoice that has not been authenticated by the GDT is not a valid invoice to send to a customer.
Cloud or on-premise
For 90% of Vietnamese small businesses the answer is cloud. Setup takes hours instead of days to weeks, the monthly cost sits between VND 200,000 and 2,000,000, updates are automatic and compliance changes arrive without you doing anything. On-premise - a one-time VND 5-30 million licence - makes sense when you have an IT team and a reason to keep the data in your own building.
Where that data lives deserves one extra thought. Your vendor keeps a copy, but plenty of Vietnamese businesses also archive issued invoices on infrastructure they control. An entry-level VDS with dedicated CPU and RAM costs less than an invoice book per year, and it pairs well with the 3-2-1 habit: vendor copy, your own copy, one offline copy.
What non-compliance costs
Fines run from VND 20-100 million, and that is the cheap part. You also lose VAT deductions, which turns a paperwork failure into real money, and the tax authority can audit you and add penalties on top.
Switching over in 4 weeks
- Week 1 - count your monthly invoice volume, list the must-haves (accounting integration, Zalo delivery, multi-user), then test 2-3 plans on their free trials.
- Week 2 - register for e-invoice use with the tax authority if you have not already, configure tax codes and templates, set staff permissions.
- Week 3 - issue test invoices and confirm they authenticate, train staff on daily workflows only, test the accounting or POS integration.
- Week 4 - go live for new transactions, keep paper for edge cases, watch for authentication errors.
Basic setup is 1-2 days. Full implementation with staff training is 1-2 weeks.
Full guide - the ten-field compliance checklist, pros and cons of each plan, the cloud vs on-premise comparison and the complete FAQ: https://tanit365.com/en/blog/posts/e-invoice-software-vietnam-small-business-2026/
Originally published on Tân IT365 - practical IT, software and AI guides for Vietnamese businesses.
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