On 10 December 2025, the National Assembly passed the High Technology Law No. 133/2025/QH15 (the “High-Tech Law 2025″), which is considered an important step in institutionalizing the spirit of making scientific and technological development a key breakthrough for the country. This law aims towards technological self-reliance and sustainable development in line with Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW dated 22 December 2024, by the Politburo on the development of science, technology, and innovation until 2030, with a vision toward 2045. The High-Tech Law 2025 will come into effect on 1 July 2026, and will replace the High Technology Law No. 21/2008/QH12 (the ” High-Tech Law 2008″).
The High-Tech Law 2025 clarifies, expands, and harmonizes the concepts of high technology (“High-Tech”) and High-Tech products. Accordingly, “High-Tech refers to technologies that have a high content of scientific research and technology development, integrating advanced scientific achievements, being breakthrough, creating products and services of superior quality, high added value, and environmental friendliness”. As a result, High-Tech products will not only include physical products but also services created by High-Tech. This provision is reasonable given the current context, where many high-impact services, such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain technology, and big data, have become widespread and significantly influence social life.
In addition to High-Tech concepts, the High-Tech Law 2025 provides new regulations regarding strategic technologies: “Strategic technology is breakthrough and widely disseminated technology, identified by the state as a focus for investment to enhance technological self-reliance, create national competitive advantages, ensure national defense and security, and promote sustainable economic and social development”. The concept of strategic technology was already defined in the Law on Science, Technology, and Innovation 2025, but it was not specifically tied to creating national competitive advantages, industrial self-reliance, and did not differ significantly from the concept of High-Tech. The new regulation in the High-Tech Law 2025 presents a clearer approach, providing a basis to focus policies, resources, and incentives at the highest levels for strategic technologies/products with particular importance for the nation’s development.
The criteria for identifying strategic technologies are based on their critical, long-term role in the country’s development. Both High-Tech and strategic technologies aim to promote economic and social development while ensuring national defense and security. However, while High-Tech mainly focuses on creating products and services with superior quality, high added value, and broad applicability, strategic technology emphasizes breakthrough impact, the ability to create long-term national competitive advantages, and the role in shaping new production methods, new industries, and new value chains. Strategic technology focuses on self-reliance and mastery of technology, with the potential to originate from core technologies researched and mastered by domestic organizations or individuals to create strategic technology products.
The list of High-Tech/High-Tech products and strategic technologies/strategic technology products will be issued periodically by the Prime Minister, based on the criteria aligned with the economic-social development situation at each stage.
Classification of enterprises in high technology activities
According to the High-Tech Law 2025, enterprises in the high-tech sector are categorized with the following criteria:
The separation of enterprises into specific groups has brought about significant meaning both in legislation and in practice. This classification addresses the weaknesses and limitations of the High-Tech Law 2008, which only regulated a single type of high-tech enterprise, leading to broad-based preferential policies that did not accurately reflect the level of investment and technological capability of enterprises. The High-Tech Law 2025 has clearly defined the criteria for each group of enterprises, creating clear tiers with different levels of preferential treatment.
Accordingly, strategic technology enterprises and Group 1 High-Tech enterprises are the ones that receive the highest preferential treatment in terms of investment, taxes, and land use. Group 2 High-Tech enterprises, which do not engage in R&D activities or fail to meet the criteria for total R&D expenditure or local production content ratio, will not receive the highest level of preferences like Group 1. High-Tech product manufacturing enterprises are only entitled to corporate income tax incentives. It is evident that each group of enterprises will receive different levels of preferential treatment. The systematization in the High-Tech Law 2025 helps to identify, assess, and apply appropriate incentives, while encouraging development with clear criteria and benefits.
Promotion through Policies and Specific Incentives
The production of High-Tech products, strategic technology products, and High-Tech supporting industry products are industries with special investment incentives. The High-Tech Law 2025 has provided various preferential policies and support measures to promote innovation, enhance localization, and achieve technological self-reliance as follows:
Developing Integrated Infrastructure and a Comprehensive Ecosystem
The High-Tech Law 2025 reflects the policy of building and developing a comprehensive ecosystem to serve high-tech research, investment, and development, promoting connections between key entities within the ecosystem, and focusing on creating a favorable environment for the sustainable development of high technologies. This provides a more favorable legal basis, with expectations of enhancing collaboration effectiveness among research institutions, educational entities, businesses, startup support organizations, and regulatory bodies in high-tech research, development, and application activities in Vietnam. The intention to develop such an ecosystem is a reasonable policy objective.
In this ecosystem, High-Tech enterprises play a central role, and high-tech parks are the hubs where research, development, application, education, training, trade promotion, and infrastructure provision are interconnected. They are also particularly crucial for the controlled testing of product manufacturing and the application of new policies, aiming to establish a comprehensive and safe High-Tech ecosystem.
One of the key changes in the High-Tech Law 2025 is that provincial People’s Committees will have the authority to establish, expand, and adjust high-tech parks, rather than to the Prime Minister as stipulated in the High-Tech Law 2008. This transfer of power helps shorten the approval process, allowing local governments to be more proactive in developing high-tech parks that are suited to their specific situations and development needs, providing flexibility in attracting investment and developing high-tech infrastructure.
The High-Tech Law 2025 also provides new regulations on high-tech urban areas. A high-tech urban area is a city developed based on a high-tech ecosystem, where high-tech parks and scientific and technological organizations play a central role. Unlike regular urban areas, high-tech urban areas not only focus on developing infrastructure but also emphasize the establishment and development of technological and scientific organizations, creating a green, smart environment conducive to the growth of high technology and innovation. The formation and development of high-tech urban areas are expected to create modern living and working environments, where technology and scientific research play a leading role in the city’s development.
The High-Tech Law 2025 demonstrates Vietnam’s strategic direction in promoting the development of high technology, core technologies, and enhancing technological self-reliance through technology transfer and increasing the domestic content ratio. With favorable preferential policies for domestic enterprises and foreign investors, the law not only drives innovation but also lays the foundation for the formation of high-tech parks, urban areas, and ecosystems, contributing to sustainable development and enhancing the competitiveness of the economy. Enterprises and investors need to proactively monitor and update any changes in the legal framework and implementation guidelines in order to fully understand the new regulations and preferential policies. Based on this, businesses can adjust their strategies, operational models, and investment plans to effectively engage in the market, seize supporting opportunities, and thus promote technological cooperation and sustainable development in Vietnam in the coming years.
