> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://en.thevietmedia.net/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # What Is VNeID? The App Replacing Vietnam's ID Card, Driving License and Health Insurance Card - URL: https://en.thevietmedia.net/vietnam-vneid-explained/ - Published: 2026-09-30T14:45:29.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-30T14:45:35.000Z - Description: VNeID, Vietnam's police-run digital ID app, has more than 60 million activated accounts. It can stand in for a citizen's ID card, accounts on 12 kinds of digital platforms must now be linked to it, and foreigners who enter or live in Vietnam legally can apply. - Author: The Viet Media - Tags: Vietnam, VNeID, Living in Vietnam, Vietnam Regulations \[What Is VNeID? The App Replacing Vietnam's ID Card, Driving License and Health Insurance Card\] VNeID is Vietnam's digital identity app, built by the National Population Data Center under the Ministry of Public Security. Put simply, it is an ID card on your phone. As of 2026, more than 60 million accounts have been activated. Once verified, Vietnamese citizens can use it as their ID, and it is the only login for online government services. It did not start out as an ID. The ministry launched VNeID in 2021, during the pandemic, for health and travel declarations: people showed a QR code from the app at checkpoints. From 2022, the ministry turned it into the dedicated app for Vietnam's electronic identification (định danh điện tử) system, shifting its job from disease control to proving who you are. Accounts for Vietnamese citizens come in two levels, depending on how thoroughly the holder is verified. A level-1 account can be requested inside the app: enter your ID number and a phone number registered in your own name, take a selfie, and the police approve it. It unlocks only some features. For level 2, you go to a police office in person, where officers capture your face and fingerprints and check them against the identity database. That unlocks everything. By law, the electronic ID in a level-2 account carries the same legal weight as the physical ID card. Driving licenses, health insurance cards and passports can be stored in the account too, and showing them in the app counts the same as showing the paper originals. Level-2 holders can show VNeID instead of their ID card to board domestic flights at airports across Vietnam. As of September 2026, 19 airports had also rolled out biometric checks that take only seconds. Vietnam's national public services portal, along with the online systems of ministries and provinces, accepts only VNeID logins. Dozens of personal documents can be stored in the app under current rules, from birth certificates and passports to visas and driving licenses. When citizens use those stored documents, government agencies and other organizations may no longer ask for originals or copies. By mid-2026, the app offered 85 features, from electronic health records to credit assessments and loan applications through VNeID, the latter piloted with VPBank. The ministry's stated goal is to make VNeID a single gateway shared by the state, businesses and citizens. Since new rules took effect in September 2026, mandatory linking has spread from public services to digital platforms more broadly. Transaction accounts on digital platforms in 12 fields must now be linked to VNeID: education, the national digital literacy program, securities, telecommunications, banking, e-commerce, e-invoicing, transport, tourism, pharmaceutical businesses, healthcare, and social networks operating in Vietnam. For e-commerce, the rules name only sellers, livestream sellers and affiliate marketers, not ordinary shoppers. Separately, platforms serving defense, security and cross-border services must link only once they meet the conditions and are connected to the system. Ministries can also add other types of online transactions later. Accounts opened before the rules took effect get a grace period: the end of 2026 for most platforms, and mid-2027 for online transaction accounts in banking. The rules do not say what happens to accounts that miss the deadline. Phone numbers are tied into VNeID as well. In the first half of 2026, Vietnam's Ministry of Science and Technology pushed a real-name check for mobile numbers. Users can now see every number registered in their name inside VNeID and confirm which ones they still use. Foreigners can apply too. In 2025, Vietnam began taking applications nationwide from foreigners for level-2 accounts, limited to holders of temporary or permanent residence cards. From September 2026, the rules widened to any foreigner who has entered or lives in Vietnam legally, and foreigners' accounts are no longer split into levels. By September 2026, more than 90,000 accounts had been issued to foreigners. They can use the account to log in to online public services and store documents such as visas and residence cards. Applicants must go in person to the immigration department of the provincial police, present a passport or other travel document, and fill in an application form. Officers take a facial photo and fingerprints on the spot. The form requires a Vietnamese phone number registered in the applicant's own name. If the national immigration database already holds the applicant's biometrics, approval takes up to two working days; otherwise, up to five. Children under 14 must be accompanied by a legal representative or guardian and use that person's phone number. Actual procedures may vary by province. Whether short-term visitors without a residence card can actually get an account will depend on further guidance from the ministry. The linking rules make no distinction by nationality, but platforms have yet to explain how foreigners should link the bank and telecom accounts they already use. Which foreign account holders may use automated immigration gates will be set separately by the Ministry of Public Security together with the defense and foreign ministries. Consultants who work with expatriates noted that, as of early 2026, a new passport or residence card did not sync to VNeID automatically and had to be updated separately. The 2026 rules require issuing agencies to sync documents automatically once their databases are connected, but when that will happen in practice remains to be seen. The system can also lock accounts automatically, under different conditions for citizens and foreigners. A citizen's account is locked in two cases: if their electronic ID itself is locked, or if the phone number used to register has been transferred to someone else and is no longer in their name. Under the wording of the rules, getting an additional number while the original one stays in your name does not trigger a lock. Foreigners' accounts are locked when, among other things, their passport expires or their permitted stay in Vietnam ends. Once an electronic ID is unlocked, the account unlocks automatically. In other cases, citizens can call the ministry's electronic ID hotline at 19000368 or go to a nearby police office. The ministry itself acknowledges institutional and technical problems. VNeID is run by the ministry's Police Department of Administrative Management of Social Order, known as C06\. At a 2026 seminar, the department listed four issues to fix: the law has not kept up with how the system is used; systems follow different connection standards and data remains scattered; people need to move from simply having an account to actually using it and keeping their data up to date; and cross-border recognition of digital identities has barely begun. As of September 2026, VNeID was rated 2.8 out of 5 on Vietnam's App Store and 3.9 on Google Play. Complaints in the reviews include phones failing to read the ID card chip, SMS verification codes not arriving, driving licenses and other documents that won't add to the app, long waits for level-2 approval, and frequent forced app updates and password changes. When Vietnam reorganized its administrative units in 2025, crowds of people logging in at once to check their new registered addresses got "cannot connect" and "under maintenance" messages. Later that year, ahead of National Day, news that every citizen could receive 100,000 dong sent VNeID into overload again, and many people could not use it for hours. Local reports put it down to huge numbers of users logging in at the same time. The idea of a "digital citizen" has also drawn scrutiny from scholars. In late 2025, the ministry floated a draft resolution to rank and score digital citizens inside VNeID. Dien Nguyen An Luong, a visiting fellow at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, argued at the draft stage that the scoring would speed VNeID's shift into a national digital gateway run by the security apparatus. The final resolution, issued in 2026, dropped the scores and rankings. Instead, citizens with a level-2 account who have added five basic items to VNeID (a birth certificate, bank account, social welfare account, phone number and electronic health record) can get fee reductions or waivers on eligible online procedures. Older people, people with disabilities and ethnic minorities who also qualify for other incentives receive whichever benefit is highest. Each person's eligible incentive level is shown in their VNeID account. People can still apply at a counter or by other means. The resolution runs until February 2027. During the 2025 administrative reorganization, scams impersonating the police also appeared. The ministry warned that fraudsters posing as local police or ward officials called people, asked them to update their information, and had them click links or install fake versions of VNeID. Once malware was on the phone, the scammers tried to obtain bank verification codes or got victims to look into the camera to steal their facial data. The ministry advises people not to follow such calls and to update their information in person at a police office. --- **The Viet Media Pro**: at least four in-depth articles a month, access to every paid article, building into a knowledge base on Vietnam's policy, industries, companies, and people. ![The Viet Media Pro plans and pricing](https://en.thevietmedia.net/content/images/2026/09/price-card.en.png) [**Subscribe to The Viet Media Pro →**](https://thevietmedia.net/?ref=en.thevietmedia.net#/portal/signup)