Multimodal transport with a cross-border rail leg stands on three overlapping legal layers: the international multimodal transport business license of Decree 87/2009/ND-CP, the international rail through-transport framework between Vietnam and China, and customs procedure at the border station. The first layer was just amended by Decree 14/2026/ND-CP on licensing procedure — but its core financial conditions remain fully in force, and that is the hot point to read correctly.
The international multimodal license: conditions intact, procedure just changed
An enterprise organising international multimodal transport — including a journey containing a cross-border rail leg — must hold an international multimodal transport business license under Decree 87/2009/ND-CP. The core conditions in Article 5 of that Decree remain fully in force today: the enterprise must hold assets or a guarantee equivalent to at least 80,000 SDR and carry multimodal transport professional liability insurance. Decree 14/2026/ND-CP does not abolish these conditions; asserting otherwise is wrong. The sector’s overall licensing framework is presented in FDI-LC-0828 and the deposit and financial security question in FDI-LC-0844 — this article digs into the cross-border rail leg.
What Decree 14/2026/ND-CP actually changed is the procedural mechanism in Articles 6 and 7: the license dossier is handled one-stop at the Ministry of Construction with an issuance time of 03 working days, the license runs 05 years, and re-issuance is resolved within 02 working days. In other words, the 2026 reform shortens and simplifies the dossier’s path, but does not lower the financial and insurance thresholds the enterprise must prove within that dossier in any way. An investor planning capital for this model must still lock two items: assets or guarantee equivalent to 80,000 SDR, and the professional liability insurance contract.
How the Vietnam-China rail leg runs: through transport, border stations, gauges
Rail freight between Vietnam and China operates within the international rail through-transport agreement framework (the SMGS framework both countries participate in) and bilateral border railway arrangements: goods pass through the main border stations Dong Dang — Pingxiang on the Hanoi — Dong Dang line and Lao Cai — Hekou on the western line. The transport document used in through transport is the international through waybill applied uniformly to the whole journey, and customs procedures for through goods are performed at the border station, where customs stations controls for rail exports and imports.
The technical feature deciding real-world procedure is gauge: China’s rail network uses the 1,435 mm standard gauge, while most of Vietnam’s network is 1,000 mm, with some border lines having mixed or standard gauge. Where gauges do not connect, goods or wagons must be transloaded or re-wagoned at the border station — an operation pulling re-inspection, re-sealing and document adjustment at the station itself, and the reason border-station waiting time must be counted into the through schedule as a real leg rather than an incident. An enterprise organising a multimodal journey with a rail leg must work directly with the railway infrastructure and transport enterprise to lock train schedules, transloading capacity at the border station and the clearance window before committing delivery times to customers.
How rail freight is set, and the journey organiser’s liability
Freight for the rail leg of a multimodal journey has no single statutory formula for all routes: through rail freight is built on the rail freight tariff tables applied to the corresponding through route (the international through tariff and each country’s domestic tariff for the portion on its territory), plus station charges, transloading and re-wagoning fees at the border station and related service fees, then packaged by the multimodal operator into the through rate quoted to the customer under contract. Two journeys between the same origin-destination pair can therefore carry different rail freight if they use different border stations or different transloading conditions; asking for quotations separating the rail freight and border station fees is the shipper’s correct cost-control move.
On liability, the multimodal operator holding the Decree 87/2009/ND-CP license is the single party answerable to the shipper for the whole journey from receipt to delivery, even where the loss occurs on the rail leg performed by the railway enterprise — that is the essence of the one-contract, one-waybill, one-liability-point model. The mandatory professional liability insurance in Article 5 exists precisely to ensure that single liability point has the financial capacity to compensate when the rail leg — or any leg — suffers a major incident.
Frequently asked questions
What license is needed to transport goods by cross-border rail?
An international multimodal transport business license under Decree 87/2009/ND-CP is required: the Article 5 conditions remain in force — assets or a guarantee equivalent to at least 80,000 SDR plus professional liability insurance. Decree 14/2026/ND-CP changed only the procedure (new Article 6: one-stop at the Ministry of Construction, issued in 03 working days, license term 05 years; new Article 7: re-issuance in 02 working days); it does not abolish those financial and insurance conditions.
How are Vietnam-China rail connections procedurally handled?
Vietnam-China through rail freight runs under the international rail through-transport agreement framework (SMGS) and border railway arrangements, via Dong Dang — Pingxiang and Lao Cai — Hekou stations, using a uniform through waybill and clearing customs at the border station. Gauge differences (China 1,435 mm, most of Vietnam 1,000 mm) force transloading, re-wagoning and re-sealing at the border station on many routes — time that must be scheduled as a real leg.
How is rail freight calculated?
There is no single statutory formula: through rail freight is built from the international through tariff and each country’s domestic tariff for its own territory, plus station and border transloading fees, then packaged by the multimodal operator into a through rate under contract. Shippers should ask for quotations separating rail freight and border station fees to control cost.
This article has been quality-reviewed by the FLAW AI Legal Council