The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has announced no gold bar production licence under Decree 232/2025/ND-CP, which makes bar production a licensed activity open to companies with charter capital of at least VND 1,000 billion and commercial banks with at least VND 50,000 billion, according to the SBV’s summary of the decree published on 26 August 2025. Article 28 of Decree 340/2025/ND-CP, in force since 9 February 2026, fines bar production, bar trading and imports of raw gold or bars without a licence VND 300–400 million and confiscates the gold, with organisations fined at twice the individual rate. At a 14 April 2026 briefing the SBV reported 11 applicants and said only those granted a production licence would be considered for import licences.
Article 14, as amended by Decree 232, reserves the annual quota and the per-shipment licence for importing gold bars or raw gold to Article 11a production licensees, admits only metal of 99.5% fineness or higher, and requires the importer to record each foreign counterparty, weight, fineness and value in a system connected to the SBV. With no Article 11a licence issued, no Vietnamese company or bank can receive bars or raw gold through that channel, and a consignment cleared without a per-shipment licence is liable to confiscation under Article 28. Raw gold used outside the terms of its import licence carries VND 200–250 million and a 9–12 month suspension of raw-gold imports.
Decree 232 defines a gold bar as metal stamped with the mark of an SBV-licensed producer or made by the SBV, and licensed traders may deal only in bars of that definition. A Heraeus or Argor-Heraeus bar enters Vietnam as raw gold under Article 14, whatever its LBMA Good Delivery status, and the bar that reaches a Vietnamese buyer carries the licensed producer’s mark.
Inside Vietnam, one customer’s gold purchases of VND 20 million or more in a day settle only between that customer’s payment account and the trader’s account at a commercial bank or foreign bank branch; Article 28 fines settlement outside those accounts VND 10–20 million. Licensed bar traders may not sell through authorised agents, an offence carrying VND 140–180 million and a 6–9 month suspension of bar trading, and they record each buyer’s citizen identity or company tax code with the weight and value of the trade in a system connected to the SBV. Jewellery producers reselling raw gold bought from Article 11a licensees must issue an electronic invoice for each sale and report it to the SBV, a duty written for a supply channel with no licensed participant as of 29 September.
Application files, quota allocation and the SBV data connection are set by the SBV Governor in Circular 34/2025/TT-NHNN.