Vu Van Anh
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| The Decree establishes a system of technical requirements for the eContract system to guarantee the safety, integrity and validity of electronic labour contracts__Photo: Internet |
Legal grounds for electronic labour contracts Legal grounds for electronic labour contracts
The performance of electronic labour contracts applies from January 1, 2026, in pursuance to Government Decree 337/2025/ND-CP dated December 24, 2025 (the Decree), while the conclusion and performance of such kind of contracts officially apply six months later, i.e., July 1, 2026, under the Decree’s guiding text, Ministry of Home Affairs’ Circular 08/2026/TT-BNV (the Circular). Electronic labour contracts concluded prior to the effective date of the Decree may continue to be performed under regulations effective at that time.
These two legal documents have established a relatively comprehensive legal framework for the entire life cycle of an electronic labour contract, from conclusion, performance, modification and storage, to data management and utilisation. Based on this legal framework, the State may incrementally realise the objective of building a digital labour environment that facilitates both the employer and the employee during the establishment and performance of indutrial relations.
Conclusion and performance of electronic labour contracts
Principles of conclusion and performance of electronic labour contracts
Under the Decree, the entry into and performance of electronic labour contracts must comply with the laws on labour, electronic transactions, cyberinformation security, data, personal data protection, and archives, and relevant specialised regulations. This demonstrates the requirement to ensure the legality, safety and legal validity of contracts throughout the conclusion and performance process.
An electronic labour contract must be established in the form of a data message and sent to the employee and the employer via a suitable electronic means as agreed upon by the parties. This provision helps guarantee the right of the entities participating in industrial relations to access information, establishing a basis to determine the time of contract conclusion, and to store and retrieve data upon request.
Notably, the Decree encourages enterprises to gradually replace paper labour contracts with electronic ones in human resource administration as well as in the performance of administrative procedures related to industrial relations. This is expected to contribute to reducing administrative costs, improving management efficiency, and enhancing transparency in labour management.
To ensure that the entry into and performance of electronic labour contracts take place in a safe, uniform and legal manner, the Decree establishes an operational mechanism through the eContract system. This is an information system serving electronic transactions in the field of labour, which is connected to the Electronic Labour Contract Platform to assist the parties in creating, digitally signing, storing, retrieving and managing electronic labour contracts. At the same time, the System supports the certification of electronic contracts and the reporting on labour employment status in accordance with law.
Conditions for employers to enter into electronic labour contracts
Under current regulations, the parties participating in the conclusion and performance of electronic labour contracts include employees, employers that are competent to enter into contracts under Article 18 of the 2019 Labour Code (the Labour Code), and eContract service providers that fully satisfy the law-specified conditions.
The Decree gives specific provisions regarding the conditions for employers to enter into electronic labour contracts. For individual employers, the law requires valid personal identification documents such as citizen identity card, identity card, electronic identity, identity certificate, level-2 electronic identification account, or passport. Foreign individual employers must possess a valid entry visa or a document proving their exemption from visa under regulations.
For employers being enterprises, agencies, organisations, cooperatives or business households, in addition to the documents proving their legal person status, such as establishment decision, enterprise registration certificate, investment registration certificate or business household registration certificate, they must ensure that their legal representatives have valid personal identification documents as required by law.
In particular, to accurately determine the time of conclusion of a contract and mitigate the risk of disputes arising during contract performance, employers are required to have digital signatures and use timestamping services in accordance with the law on electronic transactions.
Responsibilities of employers when concluding and performing electronic labour contracts
The Decree clearly defines the responsibilities of employers throughout the process of formulation, management and utilisation of electronic contracts.
Under Article 19.2 of the Decree, employers are responsible for entering into, modifying, supplementing, suspending or terminating electronic labour contracts in accordance with the law-specified order and procedures. They must also ensure contract data storage and confidentiality; and maintain data integrity and information retrieval capabilities should management or dispute resolution requirements arise.
Furthermore, employers are required to coordinate with eContract service providers and state management agencies in inspecting and verifying information and handling issues related to electronic labour contracts. Employers have to provide guidance, training, adequate means and necessary conditions for employees to enter into, use and access electronic contracts on the Electronic Labour Contract Platform.
Employers are also obliged to promptly notify the agency managing the Electronic Labour Contract Platform upon detecting signs of information insecurity, data falsification, information discrepancies, or unauthorised access. The retrieval and use of electronic labour contract data must comply with the regulations on protection of state secrets and personal data, and the operational rules of the Electronic Labour Contract Platform.
Mandatory contents of electronic labour contracts
In essence, an electronic labour contract must have all principal contents as specified in Article 3.1 of the Decree and Article 21 of the Labour Code. Accordingly, an electronic labour contract must include full details of the employer, such as name, address, and full name and title of the person entering into the contract on behalf of the employer; and personal identification details of the employee, including full name, date of birth, sex, place of residence, and citizen identity card, identity card or passport number.
More specifically, the contract must clearly state the job to be performed by the employee, workplace, contract term, salary level based on the employee’s job or title, and payment mode and schedule and salaries and salary-based allowances, and other supplementary amounts. The contract must also state the terms for salary scale promotion and pay rise; working time and rest time; personal protective equipment; social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance regimes; and other contents on training and occupational skill improvement for the employee in accordance with law.
Retaining the principal contents of traditional labour contracts shows that the newly issued regulations do not alter the essence of industrial relations when transitioning to an electronic environment, but merely change the methods of contract conclusion and management to meet the requirements of the digital economy.
Conversion between paper labour contracts and electronic labour contracts
To ensure flexibility during the digital transformation process, the Decree permits conversion between paper labour contracts and electronic labour contracts in accordance with the Law on E-Transactions.
For a paper contract converted into an electronic contract, the contractual parties must be authenticated in accordance with regulations on electronic identification and authentication. Following the conversion, the electronic contract must be digitally signed by an authorised representative of the employer to confirm its accuracy and completeness as compared to the original, who has to bear responsibility before law for the converted contents. At the same time, the converted contract must be assigned an identification code under regulations.
Conversely, an electronic contract may also be converted into a paper contract following the procedures specified by the Law on E-Transactions. The converted contract will be as legally valid as the original if it satisfies all statutory conditions.
Regarding the period of storage of electronic labour contract data, the Circular says that all open data on the Electronic Labour Contract Platform will be synchronised with the National Data Centre in order to ensure consistency in information management and utilisation. Under Article 18 of the Circular, data on electronic labour contracts, contract annexes and relevant electronic documents will be retained for 10 years from the date of contract termination.
In case an employee and an employer continuously enter into multiple labour contracts under Article 20 of the Labour Code, the 10-year retention period will be calculated from the date of termination of the final contract.
Technical requirements for entry into electronic labour contracts
The Decree establishes a system of technical requirements for the eContract system to guarantee the safety, integrity and validity of electronic labour contracts.
Accordingly, the eContract system must utilise a digital signing and digital signature verification software that fully satisfies the requirements provided in the law on e-transactions. At the same time, the system must apply security measures to ensure customer information and contract data safety, and work out technical plans to maintain operation and remedy incidents during the certification of electronic contracts.
In addition to information security requirements, the eContract system must be capable of ensuring data storage, preserving the integrity of electronic documents, and supporting searches for signed contracts.
To ensure the voluntary intent of the parties upon entering into an electronic labour contract, the eContract system must have technical measures to confirm that the parties have consented to the entirety of the contract’s contents. Before a contract is transmitted to the Electronic Labour Contract Platform for issuance of an identification code, the system must perform the function of contract certification in accordance with the law on e-transactions.
Additionally, the eContract system must support the conversion between electronic labour contracts and paper labour contracts by providing electronic transaction accounts, assisting enterprises in reporting on labour employment status, and summarising data to serve the management work.
These requirements indicate that an electronic labour contract is not merely the digitisation of a paper contract, but is embedded within a digital ecosystem with strict technical standards aimed at ensuring authenticity, security, and data interoperability.
Issuance of electronic labour contract identification codes
Process of assigning identification codes
The Decree stipulates that an electronic labour contract may only be transmitted to the Electronic Labour Contract Platform for issuance of an identification code after completing all steps of subject authentication, digital signing, timestamping, and data message certification by the eContract service provider.
Within 24 hours from the time the last contractual party completes the digital signing, the eContract service provider is responsible for transmitting the contract to the Electronic Labour Contract Platform in order to receive an identification code in accordance with regulations of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
With respect to the effect of contracts, the Decree provides that an electronic labour contract takes effect from the time the last contractual party gives its digital signature and affixes a timestamp to digital signatures of the contractual parties, alongside the completion of data message certification by the eContract service provider, unless otherwise agreed by the parties.
Identification code issuance mechanism
The Circular establishes a mechanism for issuance of an identification (ID) code for each individual electronic labour contract. This is regarded as a unified data management tool, facilitating data lookup, verification and connection among state management agencies.
Under Article 4 of the Circular, each electronic labour contract transmitted to the Electronic Labour Contract Platform that satisfies all statutory conditions may be assigned a unique identification code. This code is not identical to any other electronic labour contract and is issued only once throughout the contract’s life cycle.
The identification code remains unchanged even if the contract is modified, supplemented, suspended or terminated. In these cases, the contract annex, suspension notice or termination notice will all be attached to the previously issued identification code of the contract. This helps ensure data continuity and facilitates tracking the history of each industrial relation.
The Circular also clearly specifies that the identification code serves as the digital data management code for the electronic labour contract within the system of state agencies. However, the issuance of an identification code does not alter the conclusion time, content or effect of the contract, but solely serves data management purposes.
The identification code is also linked to display or lookup codes, such as administrative unit codes, employee identification numbers, or employer tax identification numbers, to facilitate information retrieval. However, these codes serve the auxiliary lookup function only and do not replace the contract’s official identification code.
Conclusion
From the perspective of state management, the implementation of the regulations on electronic labour contracts is expected to enhance the efficiency of labour data management, increase transparency, reduce administrative costs, and intensify digital transformation in the labour sector. For enterprises and workers, this serves as an important foundation for establishing a modern, convenient and secure method of contract conclusion suitable to the development demand of the digital economy. However, for these new regulations to work well in practice, alongside improving technical infrastructure and ensuring information security, management agencies, enterprises and eContract service providers should proactively prepare resources, raise their data governance capabilities, and intensify law dissemination to ensure that the performance of electronic labour contracts is consistent, uniform and effective nationwide.-
