Scenario: a project in an incentivised sector in a disadvantaged area — eligible for 7 years of land-rent exemption after basic construction — yet every year’s land rent notice arrives at 100%. A review finds the cause: the project never filed for land-rent exemption confirmation. Land-rent incentives in Vietnam exist on two levels: statutory eligibility and a confirmation procedure. Without the second level, the first never turns into money. This article sets out the exemption/reduction confirmation procedure under Decree 103/2024/ND-CP.
Eligibility and procedure are two different things
Article 157 of the Land Law 31/2024/QH15 lists the land-rent exemption and reduction cases; Decree 103/2024/ND-CP details them in Article 39 (exemptions: during basic construction for up to 3 years, and after basic construction 3/7/11/15 years by incentivised sector and area) and Article 40 (reduction cases, including 50% reductions for policy projects and for disaster/fire/force-majeure suspensions). But those provisions are only “eligibility”. For the incentive to appear in a land rent notice, the land user must run the determination procedure under Article 48 of Decree 103/2024/ND-CP: file the request dossier, have the competent authority examine and determine the amount and period, and have the tax authority record it into collection management. Project audits show this missed procedure among the costliest errors of the initial investment phase — because it produces no penalty document to raise the alarm, only silent overpayments year after year.
The execution sequence and dossier chokepoints
Step one, self-identify the incentive case: map the project against Articles 39 and 40 on three axes — timing (in basic construction or completed), sector (on the incentivised/specially incentivised investment list or not), area (located in a disadvantaged or specially disadvantaged socio-economic area under the current list). Step two, build the dossier for the identified case (detail in the Q&A); the common chokepoint is sector/area proof not matching the project content on the Investment Registration Certificate — amend the certificate first if the content diverges. Step three, file with the receiving agency per decentralisation (provincial land/finance authority coordinating with the area tax authority) and track supplementation requests. Step four, verify the outcome: the exemption/reduction determination must reflect the right number of years and phases, and the next land rent notice must deduct exactly the exempted part — check both documents instead of merely filing the incentive decision away.
Where this procedure sits in long-term project governance
Three governance notes. One, the golden moment is when the project first becomes liable for land rent (after the lease decision): file early and the incentive applies from the first period; file late and paid periods are nearly unrecoverable. Two, incentives have an end clock: the basic-construction exemption runs at most 3 years from the land lease decision — if construction drags for the investor’s own reasons, elapsed time still counts against the exemption window, so construction schedule and incentive procedure must be managed as a pair. Three, when the project changes (sector adjustment, area expansion, investor change), the incentive status must be reviewed and re-confirmed accordingly — an incentive confirmed for the old project configuration does not automatically cover the new one. Writing these three notes into the legal–finance operating manual is the only way paper incentives become budget incentives.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the steps to confirm land-rent exemption or reduction for an investment project?
Under Decree 103/2024/ND-CP, the core sequence is: (1) determine which exemption/reduction case the project falls into (Article 157 of the Land Law 31/2024/QH15, Article 39 on exemptions and Article 40 on reductions of the decree — by basic construction period, incentivised sector, or disadvantaged area); (2) the land user prepares and files the exemption/reduction request dossier through the receiving agency under the procedure in Article 48 of Decree 103/2024/ND-CP (request letter, land lease decision, Investment Registration Certificate and documents proving incentive eligibility); (3) the competent land/finance authority determines the exact exempted/reduced amount and applicable period, and the tax authority issues the notice/decision grounding subsequent rent payments. The practical point: land incentives do not activate merely because a project sits on an incentive list — they must pass this confirmation procedure to become numbers in a tax notice.
Is the exemption/reduction dossier filed with the tax authority or the natural resources and environment agency?
The dossier requesting land-rent exemption/reduction determination is filed with the state land-management authority under the decentralisation in Article 48 of Decree 103/2024/ND-CP — in practice the provincial one-stop receiving point, where the land-management department (the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, now the Department of Agriculture and Environment) leads the appraisal together with the finance authority. The tax authority does not issue the exemption/reduction decision: its role is to record the determination result into land-rent payment notices and manage collection. Filing directly with the tax authority is a common addressing error — the dossier gets circulated or sits waiting while land-rent notices keep issuing in full. Before filing, the enterprise should confirm the specific receiving point of the province hosting the project, because one-stop arrangements differ between localities.
How long does the exemption/reduction confirmation actually take in practice?
Decree 103/2024/ND-CP does not set one uniform number of processing days for every exemption/reduction determination under Article 48 — and the enterprise should be wary of any hard time promise that cannot cite a provision. Actual timing depends on three variables: the dossier’s completeness at filing (supplementation requests are the most common delay cause), the volume of inter-agency appraisal among the land, finance and tax authorities, and the locality’s land-rent notice cycle. Practice experience shows a complete dossier filed right after the land lease decision is usually determined in time for the incentive to enter the next land-rent notice. The only timing control on the enterprise’s side: file early in the project’s life, keep the dated receipt, and follow up actively instead of discovering from a payment notice that the incentive was never applied.
If the exemption/reduction is refused, how can the enterprise complain?
The first step is demanding a written refusal decision or letter stating the reasons — a verbal refusal or silence creates nothing to complain against. If the reason is missing eligibility proof, the right path is completing the dossier and re-filing rather than complaining. If the enterprise believes it qualifies yet was refused, the complaint sequence follows the Law on Complaints 02/2011/QH13: a first complaint to the person or authority that issued the refusal within the statutory time limit; if dissatisfied with the outcome, a second complaint to the directly superior authority, or an administrative lawsuit at the People’s Court under the Law on Administrative Procedures. Note the financial duty during the complaint: land-rent notices must still be paid on time (pay first at the non-incentivised amount) — winning the complaint gets the overpaid amount offset or refunded as prescribed, while paying late pending the complaint accrues avoidable late-payment interest.
