Advertising is a sovereign activity: a foreign shop running ads and hiring KOLs to promote goods into Vietnam is performing advertising activity aimed at the Vietnamese market, and that activity falls within the management scope of Vietnamese advertising law. The shop must comply with advertising content rules, perform the cross-border advertising activity notification as prescribed, and a KOL paid to promote goods bears responsibility for the content portion they convey.
Under what law is a foreign shop advertising into Vietnam managed?
Under Vietnam’s Law on Advertising and its guiding decrees, of which Decree 70/2021/ND-CP amending Decree 181/2013 built a dedicated mechanism for cross-border advertising: foreign organisations and individuals providing services and performing cross-border advertising activity aimed at users in Vietnam must notify their activity to the Vietnamese State management authority and fully comply with Vietnamese advertising law on content, advertising conditions for each product group and prohibited acts.
In practice, the management mechanism runs through platforms: social networks and cross-border advertising platforms operating in Vietnam must have mechanisms to control advertising content, cooperate in verifying advertisers and remove violating advertisements upon management authority request. For a foreign shop, this means an advertising campaign into Vietnam is not outside the legal system merely because the ad budget is paid abroad: violating content — advertising prohibited goods, counterfeits, untruthful claims, products in groups requiring advertising content confirmation not yet confirmed — can all be handled and grounds for the platform to lock the advertising account.
The shop’s specific duties when advertising into Vietnam
First, content duties: advertising in Vietnamese for Vietnamese users must meet rules on language, script and advertising content — no misleading information on quality, uses or origin; no advertising products on the prohibited advertising list; and for product groups subject to prior advertising content confirmation, such as certain foods, cosmetics and medical devices, the advertising content must be confirmed by the competent authority under sector rules. Second, advertiser-subject duties: advertised goods must be goods permitted to circulate — advertising goods unfit for circulation is itself a violation.
Third, duties through the advertising distribution channel: when using cross-border platforms, the shop complies with the platform’s notification and cooperation mechanism with Vietnamese management authorities; when hiring domestic agencies or KOLs, the shop must ensure these partners properly perform advertising conveyance rules. Advertising contracts should therefore allocate clearly: who is responsible for the truthfulness of product content, who performs content confirmation procedures if mandatory, and who handles matters when the advertisement is required to be removed or sanctioned.
What responsibility does a KOL promoting goods for a foreign shop bear?
The advertising conveyor — KOL, KOC, social media influencer — is not an anonymous loudspeaker. Current advertising law, with rules strengthened by the amended Law on Advertising effective from early 2026, places on conveyors the duties to: clearly inform viewers that the content is advertising; convey advertising only for lawful products and goods with sufficient verifiable information; and bear responsibility for the truthfulness of the content portion they convey — especially where the KOL personally experiences and personally asserts product uses before the public.
When advertising is untruthful or promotes violating goods, responsibility does not stop at the shop: the conveyor faces administrative sanctions in the advertising field and civil and professional-reputation consequences. The current sanction framework is Decree 87/2026/ND-CP on administrative sanctions in culture and advertising — the instrument replacing Decree 38/2021/ND-CP — with the base convention at Article 6: fine levels in Chapters II and III of the decree are levels for individuals, and violating organisations are fined twice that level, subject to statutory exceptions; the decree also has dedicated rules on influencer conduct in advertising. Professional KOLs therefore need a product verification process and retained verification evidence before accepting promotions, not merely the brand’s verbal assurances.
Designing a compliant cross-border advertising campaign
A compliant campaign starts from the product, not the budget: confirm the goods may circulate in Vietnam — Vietnamese labels, notification, conformity by goods group — then build advertising content; review content against Vietnamese law’s prohibition lists and advertising conditions; perform advertising content confirmation if the product is in a mandatory group; allocate responsibility in writing with the platform, agency and each KOL; and have a response process when management authorities or the platform require removal or correction of content.
The cost of non-compliance usually arrives from three sides at once: administrative sanctions under Decree 87/2026/ND-CP with the organisation-double convention above; the platform locking the advertising account and shop — immediate sales channel damage; and a reputation crisis when a KOL is publicly handled. For a foreign shop treating Vietnam as a long-term market, advertising compliance is part of market-entry infrastructure, on par with tax and labelling compliance, not an extra task when reminded.
Frequently asked questions
Are foreign shops running Facebook ads in Vietnam regulated?
Yes. Cross-border advertising activity aimed at users in Vietnam falls within the management scope of Vietnamese advertising law: the Law on Advertising and Decree 70/2021/ND-CP amending Decree 181/2013 require foreign subjects performing cross-border advertising into Vietnam to notify their activity to the State management authority and comply with Vietnamese rules on advertising content and conditions. Paying the ad budget abroad does not take the activity outside management scope; violating content may be required to be removed, sanctioned, and grounds for the platform to lock the advertising account.
Is false advertising penalized under Vietnamese law?
Yes. The current administrative sanction framework for violating advertising is Decree 87/2026/ND-CP, replacing Decree 38/2021/ND-CP, with the base convention at clause 3 of Article 6: fine levels in Chapters II and III are levels for individuals, while violating organisations are fined twice those levels, subject to the exceptions prescribed separately in clause 2 of Article 6. Beyond fines there are remedies such as compulsory ad removal and information correction; and on the platform side, the advertising account and shop may be locked — often a greater loss than the fine for a selling shop.
What responsibilities do KOLs advertising cross-border goods have?
A KOL is the advertising conveyor and bears responsibility for their portion: they must clearly disclose that the content is advertising; verify the product’s lawfulness and information before promoting; and bear responsibility for the truthfulness of the content they convey, especially use claims they personally experience and state. Untruthful advertising or advertising violating goods exposes the KOL to administrative sanctions under Decree 87/2026/ND-CP — the current sanctions decree in culture and advertising — alongside the shop’s own responsibility. KOLs therefore need a verification process and retained evidence, not promotions accepted on the brand’s word alone.
This article has been quality-reviewed by the FLAW AI Legal Council