Short answer: Extra teaching and learning management tightened fundamentally under Circular 29/2024/TT-BGDDT (effective 14/02/2025), and the online environment is not outside this perimeter: teachers running paid extra classes outside school must register business, may not charge their own in-school students, and paid extra classes for primary pupils are banned. Online tutoring platforms sit between teachers and learners, pulled into both the education frame and the digital-platform frame.
Three hard boundaries of the extra-class rules
Circular 29/2024 sets three boundaries every extra-class model — in person or online — must respect. First, extra teaching outside school is an organised business activity: teaching individuals and organisations must register business and publish information on subjects, target learners, fees and teachers as regulated. Second, a school teacher may not run paid extra classes for students of the very class they teach at school — the core conflict-of-interest boundary of the policy. Third, no paid extra classes for primary-school pupils, except permitted arts, sports and life-skills enrichment within scope. Aggregating platforms must design products around these boundaries: verify teacher status, block class-matching that breaches the own-student boundary, and control learner age groups.
Platforms, tax and foreign-invested centers
An online tutoring platform operates as a service marketplace: under e-commerce and consumer-protection frames for courses sold to learners, platform tax duties over teacher revenue in withholding or information-provision scope, and responsibility for outcome-commitment advertising in enrolment marketing. A teacher’s tutoring income is taxable and declarable — the off-system cash model is being squeezed by platform data and electronic payments. Foreign-invested language centers face double impact: the education-investment frame for training institutions and the extra-class frame for out-of-curriculum enrichment — exam-prep and supplementary programmes for school pupils at the center must be audited under both frames, not only under the center’s licence.
Recommendations for platforms and teachers
- Platforms: verify business registration and teacher status before opening paid classes.
- Build technical blocking: never match teachers with their own in-school students on the system.
- Publish transparent fees, refund policy and teacher information on course pages.
- Teachers: register business when tutoring outside school and declare income in full.
Frequently asked questions
What do the new extra-teaching rules contain?
Circular 29/2024/TT-BGDDT sets the current frame: extra teaching outside school requires business registration and information publication; teachers may not charge their own directly taught class students; and paid extra classes for primary pupils are barred outside permitted enrichment scope. The rules reach online formats because the activity’s nature does not change with the organising channel.
Must online tutoring platforms register?
A platform is a business subject in the digital environment: it needs legal status and activity registration under e-commerce and related service frames; teachers selling courses through it must still meet their own extra-teaching conditions. The platform does not replace the teacher’s legal status, but answers for operational management on its own system.
How is tutoring income taxed?
It is taxable income of the teacher or teaching organisation, declared by subject status: household/individual business under the current tax administration mechanism, including withholding or information provision through platforms when courses are sold on digital marketplaces. Income through platforms and electronic payments leaves data traces, so the undeclared model is no longer sustainable.
How are foreign-invested language centers affected?
At two layers: center operations under the investment and foreign-invested education institution conditions frame; and enrichment and exam-prep programmes for school pupils under the extra-class frame of Circular 29/2024. Centers should audit out-of-curriculum programmes under both frames, especially the primary-pupil boundary and teachers concurrently teaching at public schools.
This article has been quality-reviewed by the FLAW AI Legal Council