How Vietnam Does Year-End Bonuses: The 13th-Month Salary and Tet Bonus Explained

Lunar New Year is approaching. For Vietnamese workers, only one question matters: how much is the company paying this year?

In Vietnam, there are two year-end payments to understand.
The first is the "13th-month salary" (luong thang 13), a relatively fixed amount usually equal to one month's base pay, prorated by months worked.
The second is the "Tet bonus" (thuong Tet), a variable sum that depends on company profits and individual performance.
Some companies pay both. Some pay only one. Others roll them into a single package.

Legally, neither is mandatory. But if written into the labor contract, both become binding.
In practice, the year-end bonus is the baseline for retention. Pay too little or nothing at all, and workers walk after Tet. The period right after Lunar New Year is Vietnam's biggest job-hopping season.

How Much Are Companies Paying This Year?

The north-south gap is stark.
According to provincial labor departments, the average Tet bonus in HCMC is about 12.02 million VND per worker (roughly USD 470), up 6.8% from last year.
In Hanoi, private-sector averages sit at just 4 million VND (about USD 155). Foreign-invested firms average 4.5 million VND. That is roughly a third of HCMC levels.

But averages can mislead.
The highest bonus in HCMC went to an employee at a foreign-invested firm: 1.841 billion VND (about USD 72,000).
Hanoi's top was 614 million VND at a private company.
The lowest was just 880,000 VND (about USD 34). The gap between top and bottom exceeds two thousand to one.

Da Nang shows a clear decline -- this year's top bonus exceeded 368 million VND, but last year's was 700 million VND. Foreign-invested firms saw the sharpest cuts.

Overall, about 19% of companies admitted they struggled to pay bonuses this year, citing market volatility, unstable orders, and thin profit margins in 2025.

How Do Different Industries Pay?

According to the Talentnet-Mercer 2025 Compensation Survey (covering 678 companies in Vietnam), overall bonus budgets range from 0.8 to 1.5 months of base salary, depending on industry performance and profitability.
Multinational companies typically pay 1 to 2.5 months, tied to KPIs and regional performance.
Vietnamese SMEs mostly pay 0.5 to 1 month, sometimes adding Tet gift packages or shopping vouchers.

From provincial labor department reports, the best-paying sectors include banking and finance, electronics, software development, real estate, and petrochemicals.
Textile and footwear manufacturers operate on thinner margins, but most still tried to match last year's bonus levels to retain assembly-line workers.

Civil Service Bonus Reform

This year brought a major change to civil servant Tet bonuses.
Under Decree 73 (Nghi dinh 73), bonuses are no longer calculated uniformly by salary grade. Instead, they are drawn from a bonus fund equal to 10% of the total payroll, distributed according to performance ratings.

Top performers receive up to 3 times base salary. Good performers get 2.5 times. Those who meet basic requirements receive 1 times.
In practice, civil servant Tet bonuses land between roughly 7 million and 11 million VND.

This is seen as an important step in shifting Vietnam's civil service compensation from seniority-based to performance-based.

Collect the Bonus, Then Quit?

Vietnam shares a workplace culture with Taiwan: collect the year-end bonus, then resign.
Tet is the annual reset for Vietnam's labor market. Many workers hand in their notice right after receiving their bonus, making the post-holiday period the prime hiring season.

According to recruitment platform TopCV, nearly 70% of companies plan to increase hiring after Tet, with half planning large-scale expansion.
But 47% of companies say they cannot find experienced talent, and 42% report shortages in critical skills.

Vu Quang Thanh, deputy director of the Hanoi Employment Service Center, has observed that the post-Tet job-hopping mindset has not disappeared, but its nature has changed.
Workers no longer quit impulsively. They line up their next role first and confirm it fits their long-term plans before moving.
Stability is no longer passive compromise -- it is a survival strategy in a volatile market.

Wages Keep Rising, Bonus Pressure Grows

According to AON's 2025 Salary Survey (covering over 700 companies across Southeast Asia), Vietnam's wages are projected to grow 7.1% in 2026 -- the highest in the region.
For foreign companies with operations in Vietnam, the pressure to compete on year-end bonuses will only increase.

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