The environmental permit is the biggest administrative reform of the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection in operating practice: instead of a stack of separate discharge permits, an enterprise holds one consolidated permit — but for the same reason, lacking it means lacking everything at once.
1. How the environmental permit differs from an EIA
These two instruments are confused constantly despite being fundamentally different. An EIA is a forecast assessment at project preparation, answering “may this project be built here, with this technology”. The environmental permit under Article 39 of the Law on Environmental Protection 72/2020/QH14 is an operating licence, answering “at what levels may the facility discharge, under what monitoring conditions” — it consolidates the contents of wastewater discharge, emissions, hazardous waste management, noise and vibration permits once scattered across many instruments. A project may need both in sequence: EIA before construction, environmental permit before trial operation and official operation of the waste-generating parts.
2. Who must obtain an environmental permit
Permit subjects are group I and group II investment projects generating wastewater, dust or emissions discharged to the environment that must be treated, or generating hazardous waste to be managed as prescribed; together with operating facilities in the corresponding categories when their conversion milestone arrives under the law roadmap and Decree 08/2022/ND-CP. A facility generating only ordinary waste at small scale follows the lighter environmental registration route. The boundary between the two routes lies in waste-generation parameters, so classifying each facility must be done from real operating data (design wastewater flow, emission sources, expected hazardous waste codes), not from a feeling about “large or small”.
3. The file, the authority and the permit content
The application file comprises the request letter, a permit proposal report covering generation sources, waste treatment works and systems, monitoring and incident-response plans, and the approved EIA report for projects in EIA scope. Licensing authority follows the project management level: ministry level for centrally-governed projects, provincial and district levels under the decentralisation in the law and guiding decree. What the enterprise must understand is that permit content becomes the facility compliance standard for the whole permit term: the discharge parameters and flows written in the permit are legal limits, and operating beyond them is a violation even if the treatment system “is still running”.
4. Term and the attached obligations
The environmental permit term is set by project and facility group under Article 40 of the Law on Environmental Protection and guiding instruments — facilities of different impact levels carry different terms — and the enterprise must proactively track renewal and re-issuance milestones when permit content changes (discharge scale, treatment technology, facility owner in statutory cases). Attached to the permit are duties to operate treatment works continuously, to monitor and report periodically, to keep environmental files and to accept inspection. A foreign enterprise should integrate these milestones into the plant EHS compliance system rather than leaving the permit in a file cabinet whose expiry only the legal department knows.
5. Conclusion for investors
For an FDI factory, the environmental permit is the most important operating licence after the construction phase: classify the facility correctly, file on real operating data, and govern the permit as the plant living compliance standard for its whole term. Anyone treating the environmental permit as a one-off formality will meet it again in the first inspection record.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does an environmental permit differ from an EIA?
An EIA is a forecast assessment at project preparation, deciding whether the project may proceed at that site with that technology. The environmental permit is an operating licence under Article 39 of the LEP 72/2020: it sets the levels at which the facility may discharge and the monitoring conditions, consolidating discharge contents once spread over many permits.
Who must apply?
Group I and II projects generating wastewater, dust or emissions requiring treatment, or hazardous waste requiring management, under Article 39 of the LEP 72/2020 and Decree 08/2022/ND-CP; corresponding operating facilities must convert on the roadmap. Small facilities generating only ordinary waste follow environmental registration.
What is the procedure?
File the request with a permit proposal report (generation sources, treatment works, monitoring and incident-response plans) and the approved EIA report where in EIA scope, to the authority matching the project management level; the permit issues after file appraisal and site verification where needed.
What is the term?
The permit term is set by project and facility group under Article 40 of the LEP 72/2020 and guiding instruments — different impact levels carry different terms. The enterprise must track renewal milestones and re-issuance when permit content changes, such as discharge scale or treatment technology.
This article has been quality-reviewed by the FLAW AI Legal Council