Electronic Proceedings and Online Filing in Vietnamese Courts: Technical Conditions and Digital Signatures for Foreign Parties

The 2015 Civil Procedure Code opened the door to electronic proceedings in its provisions on sending and receiving statements of claim, documents and evidence and on issuing and serving procedural documents by electronic means, and the Supreme People’s Court operates an electronic portal where litigants register an e-transaction account with the court. For a foreign party, the practical question is not whether online filing is allowed, but the chain of technical conditions attached: how the transaction account is issued, which digital signature is accepted, how foreign documents are consular-legalised when moved into the electronic environment, and how much evidentiary weight electronic data carries at the hearing.

The e-transaction account with the court: opening conditions and scope of use

A litigant wishing to transact electronically with the court must register an e-transaction account following the guidance on the Supreme People’s Court’s electronic portal and be issued and authenticated by the competent court, tied to the identification information of the individual or the lawful representative of the organisation. From this account the litigant files the statement of claim and accompanying documents in electronic form, receives acceptance notices, summonses and procedural documents served electronically by the court, and tracks the file’s processing status. Registering the account is a commitment to use the registered email address as the official channel for receiving documents, so the enterprise must designate an administrator and a dedicated litigation mailbox, avoiding the situation where a court notice lands in the personal mailbox of an employee who has left.

The scope of procedures available through the electronic channel depends on each court’s infrastructure and each case type. In practice, the large courts in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and provinces with high economic caseloads accept electronic files steadily for civil and business-commercial cases, while some procedures still require paper originals for comparison at acceptance or before the hearing. An enterprise should not read online filing as a complete replacement of the paper file: the court may require production of originals or certified copies of important documents for comparison, and the litigant must still pay the fee advance through the instructed payment channel before the file completes acceptance conditions. Checking in advance with the court clerk which documents must be filed in paper for the specific case is the cheapest step to avoid the file being returned on formal grounds.

Digital signatures for foreign parties: the bottleneck and how to unblock it

Statements of claim and electronic documents sent to the court must be signed with a digital signature or another accepted electronic authentication form under the law on electronic transactions, currently the Electronic Transactions Law 20/2023/QH15 effective from 1 July 2024. For a Vietnamese organisation, an organisational digital signature issued by a domestic certification service provider is the standard choice. For a foreign organisation with no presence in Vietnam, the difficulty is that the enterprise has no domestic tax code, seal or digital certificate account, while a foreign electronic signature is recognised in Vietnam only when the conditions for recognising foreign electronic signatures and signature certificates under the 2023 law and guiding documents are met, a procedure that cannot be completed in a few days while the limitation period is running.

The practical unblocking route is to go through a representative in Vietnam. The foreign party authorises a lawyer or law firm in Vietnam by a consular-legalised power of attorney, and the authorised person uses their representative capacity and their own digital signature to transact electronically with the court within the authorised scope. This route solves electronic authentication and at the same time handles service receipt and communication with the court in Vietnamese. A foreign enterprise filing by itself from overseas should keep a fallback plan of filing paper documents by international post or through the representative, because if just one electronic authentication link is not accepted, the online file will not record a filing date, while the limitation period still runs to the date the court receives a valid claim.

Electronic documents and evidence: legal value and how to file them properly

The 2023 Electronic Transactions Law affirms that a data message is not denied legal value merely because it exists in electronic form, and the Civil Procedure Code treats electronic data as a source of evidence when the litigant submits it with an explanation of how it was created, its origin and its integrity. In a real case, emails, electronically signed contracts, transaction data from management systems, call recordings and camera images can all be filed electronically, but evidentiary weight depends on the ability to prove the data has not been altered and is tied to the correct transacting subject. An enterprise should file original metadata and system logs alongside, and for key documents a certified statement of facts drawn by an enforcement officer or an independent record of the data’s state at collection time.

Documents issued by foreign agencies and organisations, such as the foreign plaintiff’s business licence, the representative appointment decision and the power of attorney, must be consular-legalised and translated into Vietnamese under procedural rules before they can be used at a Vietnamese court, including when filed through the electronic channel as scans. A scan of a document that has not been legalised does not cure the defect of the original, and the court will request supplementation during trial preparation. For high-volume electronic evidence such as several years of accounting data, the enterprise should agree early with the court on format, storage medium and how to extract the relevant portion, avoiding dumping the entire raw database, which leaves the trial panel unable to exploit it and gives the counterparty grounds to object on commercial information disclosure scope.

Managing risk when running cross-border electronic proceedings

The first risk is that procedural deadlines run from the date the court receives a valid electronic document, while the system may reject files exceeding size limits, in the wrong format or with an unverifiable signature. The responsible team should test-submit large files at least one working day before the deadline and keep the electronic receipt with the system’s timestamp after every successful filing. The second risk is security: the enterprise’s e-transaction account holds the entire case file and dispute strategy, so access rights must be person-based, use strong authentication and be revoked immediately when the responsible staff changes, under the same personal data protection standard in Decree 356/2025/ND-CP for sensitive information in the file. The third risk is the parallel existence of paper and electronic files during the transition period: the enterprise must keep one unified file index stating which documents were filed electronically and which the court required in paper, so that at the hearing no key evidence exists in only one of the two systems.

Frequently Asked Questions

What technical conditions are needed to file a claim online at a Vietnamese court?

The litigant must register and be issued an e-transaction account with the court through the Supreme People’s Court’s electronic portal, tied to the identity of the individual or the lawful representative of the organisation; prepare a valid digital signature or electronic authentication method to sign the claim and documents sent to the court; file in electronic formats the system accepts and be ready to produce originals or certified copies when the court requires comparison. The litigant must also complete payment of the fee advance as instructed before the file is accepted, and designate an account administrator to receive electronically served documents.

Which procedures do electronic proceedings apply to?

Electronic proceedings apply to the chain of sending and receiving statements of claim, appeals, documents and evidence; issuing, serving and notifying the court’s procedural documents by electronic means; and tracking case processing status through the transaction account, on the basis of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code and each court’s system. The actual degree of application varies with each court’s infrastructure: large courts steadily accept electronic files for civil and business-commercial cases, while some stages still require paper originals for comparison at the accepting court’s request.

What is the legal value of electronic files and evidence when filing a claim online?

Electronic data is a source of evidence recognised by the Civil Procedure Code, and the Electronic Transactions Law 20/2023/QH15 affirms that a data message is not denied value merely for being electronic, provided the litigant proves the data’s origin, method of creation and integrity. When filing, include an explanation of provenance, metadata and system logs; foreign documents must still be consular-legalised and translated into Vietnamese even when filed as scans through the electronic channel. For key data, the enterprise should reinforce it with a certified statement of facts or an independent record of the data’s state.

Reviewed by the Legal Practice Group – FLAT LAW FIRM

This legal analysis has been verified against current Vietnamese regulations and cross-border FDI transaction practices by the attorneys at FLAT LAW FIRM.

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