Vietnam's Labour Code gives employees five paid Lunar New Year days, and Clause 3 of Article 112 leaves the Prime Minister to decide which days those are, once a year. The published run is longer because adjacent weekly breaks are absorbed into it: the Ministry of Home Affairs set nine consecutive days from 14 to 22 February 2026, against 25 January to 2 February in 2025.
Vietnam's Lunar New Year holiday is five paid days in the Labour Code, published each year as a run of about nine, on dates that move by weeks between one year and the next. Nothing in that schedule is fixed by statute, which is what catches out a transfer timed against last year's calendar.
Key Takeaways
- Article 112 of Vietnam's Labour Code gives employees five fully paid Lunar New Year days, out of eleven paid public holidays.
- Clause 3 leaves the Tet dates to the Prime Minister, decided once a year, so they are announced rather than known.
- The published run is longer because adjacent weekly breaks are absorbed into it: the Government Office and the Ministry of Home Affairs each announced nine consecutive days, for 2025 and 2026 in turn.
- The two years sat about three weeks apart: 25 January to 2 February in 2025, announced through the Government Office, and 14 to 22 February in 2026, announced by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
- A large majority of national settlement systems do not operate on public holidays, on the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures' survey.
Who decides when Tet falls, and when they decide it
The Prime Minister, once a year, and not long before the year in question.
Labour Code No. 45/2019/QH14 sets the entitlement. Article 112 lists the days an employee may take fully paid, and Lunar New Year Holidays is one line in it, at 05 days, which is five days written the way the English text of the statute writes it. The remaining six days sit across five more entries: the Gregorian New Year, Victory Day on 30 April, Labour Day on 1 May, National Day at two days around 2 September, and Hung Kings Commemoration Day on the tenth of the third lunar month.
Then Clause 3 does something the rest of the list does not need. It provides that the Prime Minister shall decide the specific Lunar New Year and National Day holidays on an annual basis. The other holidays name their date in the article. Tet cannot, because it tracks the lunar calendar, so the statute fixes a length and leaves the dates to a yearly decision.
That decision is published through the Government. The Ministry of Home Affairs announced the 2026 schedule in October 2025, setting nine consecutive days for public employees from 14 to 22 February, with a five-day National Day break from 29 August to 2 September. The year before, the Government Office announced on 26 November 2024 that the 2025 holiday would run 25 January to 2 February.
| Year | Public-sector Tet run | Announced by |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 25 January to 2 February | Government Office, November 2024 |
| 2026 | 14 to 22 February | Ministry of Home Affairs, October 2025 |
Nine consecutive days in both years, and about three weeks apart. A sender working from last year's dates is not slightly early or late; they are reading a different month. The Australian dollar to Vietnamese dong page carries the live figures for the pair; the calendar decides which day a Vietnamese system can act on the instruction.
Why five statutory days is published as nine
Five days become nine because the weekly break is folded in, and the Labour Code says how.
Article 111 entitles an employee to a weekly break of at least 24 consecutive hours, fixed by the employer on Sunday or another set day recorded in the internal labour regulations. Clause 3 handles the overlap: where a public holiday falls on that break, the employee takes compensatory time off on the next working days.
So five statutory Tet days rarely stand alone. They sit inside a run picking up the weekend either side, which is how five became nine in both the 2025 and 2026 schedules.
Whether everybody closes on the same days
They do not, and the announcement says so.
The schedule the Ministry of Home Affairs publishes is for public employees. Private-sector enterprises may set their own Lunar New Year and National Day arrangements with at least 30 days' notice to employees, taking days either side of the holiday according to operational need.
Banking is arranged the same way, and one State Bank of Vietnam announcement is on the public record in English to show it. Dated 29 December 2017, it gave 14 to 20 February 2018 for the Lunar New Year of the Dog. The announcement states that these long bank holidays are set in accordance with the Prime Minister's approval of the proposal submitted by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, which is the same annual decision Clause 3 of Article 112 leaves to the Prime Minister. It adds that credit institutions will make their own working arrangements on these long holidays and report to the State Bank's functional departments.
That is one announcement covering one year. It is not evidence of a fixed yearly series, and 14 to 20 February is a 2018 date that applies to no later year. What it does show is the order the decision runs in: the Prime Minister approves, and the banking schedule follows from that approval rather than being set independently of it.
What the announcement also shows is a layer below the schedule. Credit institutions arrange their own days around it, and those arrangements are not identical. A recipient's branch and the office issuing a document they need may keep different days.
What a national closure does to a payment already in flight
It stops the leg that needs the settlement system, and leaves everything before that leg looking normal.
The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, the standard-setting body for payment systems hosted at the Bank for International Settlements, surveyed 82 jurisdictions and identified 62 real-time gross settlement systems. Vietnam's National Interbank Payment System is one of them.
Its findings on holidays are direct. A large majority of the systems surveyed do not operate on public or bank holidays, and only six reported that they did. The report describes the consequence as a lack of operations on holidays giving rise to substantial gaps in operating hours over the course of a year, and gaps during the particular weeks that contain them. One of its three proposed end states is expanding operations into days on which a system does not currently run, weekends and public holidays included.
On a corridor into a country taking a week off at once, that shows up as a remittance accepted and sent while the receiving settlement window is shut. Nothing is refused. The instruction arrives ahead of the banking day that can act on it, and a closure measured in days rather than hours makes the gap visible in a way an overnight one does not.
This is a claim about the calendar, not about the corridor. How much money moves between Australia and Vietnam across a year, and how evenly, is a separate question; a settlement closure says only which days the systems are open, and both can hold at once.
Where to look next
Why a transfer corridor exists at all uses this same corridor to explain how a route built by migration rather than trade shapes the money that moves along it across a year. How international transfers work sets out the ordinary sequence a payment moves through. For the live figures, see the Australian dollar to Vietnamese dong page.
Sources
- Labour Code No. 45/2019/QH14, English text held by the International Labour Organization's NATLEX database - Article 112 and its eleven paid public holidays, Lunar New Year Holidays at 05 days, Clause 3 leaving the Tet dates to the Prime Minister annually, and Article 111 on the weekly break
- Vietnam Government Portal, Ministry of Home Affairs announces 2026 holiday schedule - the nine days from 14 to 22 February 2026, the National Day arrangement, and the 30 days' notice private-sector enterprises must give
- Vietnam Government Portal, 2025 Lunar New Year holiday to span nine days - the 2025 run of 25 January to 2 February, announced through the Government Office on 26 November 2024
- State Bank of Vietnam, SBV announces bank holidays in 2018, announcement dated 29 December 2017 - the single announcement quoted here: bank holidays of 14 to 20 February 2018, set in accordance with the Prime Minister's approval of the proposal submitted by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, and credit institutions making their own working arrangements on these long holidays and reporting to the State Bank's functional departments
- Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, Extending and aligning payment system operating hours for cross-border payments, May 2022 - the 82 jurisdictions and 62 real-time gross settlement systems surveyed, Vietnam's among them, the large majority that do not operate on public or bank holidays against six that do, and holiday closures as substantial gaps in operating hours
General information about sending money to Vietnam and about national holiday schedules. Not financial advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.
Common questions
How long is the Tet holiday in Vietnam?
Five days in law and around nine in the published schedule. Article 112 of Labour Code No. 45/2019/QH14 entitles employees to fully paid Lunar New Year Holidays of 05 days. The schedule runs longer because those days sit inside a run absorbing the weekly breaks either side. The Ministry of Home Affairs set nine consecutive days for 2026, 14 to 22 February.
Why do the Tet dates change every year?
Because they follow the lunar calendar and are set annually rather than written into the statute. Clause 3 of Article 112 of the Labour Code provides that the Prime Minister shall decide the specific Lunar New Year and National Day holidays on an annual basis. The swing is large: the 2025 public-sector run was 25 January to 2 February, and the 2026 run 14 to 22 February.
Does every business in Vietnam close on the same Tet days?
No. The Ministry of Home Affairs schedule governs public employees. Private-sector enterprises may set their own Lunar New Year and National Day arrangements, with at least 30 days' notice to employees. A State Bank of Vietnam announcement dated 29 December 2017, covering the 2018 bank holidays, said credit institutions would make their own working arrangements on these long holidays and report to its functional departments. That announcement sets no dates for any later year.
Do payment systems keep running through a national holiday?
Usually not the settlement layer. The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures surveyed 82 jurisdictions and identified 62 real-time gross settlement systems, Vietnam's National Interbank Payment System among them. A large majority do not operate on public or bank holidays; only six reported that they did.
What happens to a transfer that reaches Vietnam during Tet?
It waits for the destination banking day rather than the sending one. The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures describes a lack of operations on holidays as producing substantial gaps in operating hours across a year. A payment can be accepted in Australia while the leg needing a Vietnamese settlement system stays queued.