1. The issue: is the annual home-leave airfare in the package taxable?
Most foreign experts’ assignment packages include one round-trip airfare home each year. This is one of the few benefits Vietnamese tax law expressly excludes from taxable income — but within tight limits: the employee himself, once a year, and grounded in the employment contract or company policy.
2. Legal basis
- Law 109/2025/QH15 and Decree 253/2026/ND-CP — employer payments for foreign workers under internal policies that are not salary in nature; the exclusion for the annual round-trip home-leave airfare is maintained in the current guidance framework.
- A parallel item often found in the same package: school fees for a foreign worker’s children from kindergarten to high school paid by the employer are likewise excluded from taxable income.
3. Conditions for the home-leave airfare exclusion
(1) The ticket is for the foreign employee himself working in Vietnam; (2) the frequency is once a year for home leave; (3) the benefit is stipulated in the labor contract, collective agreement or company policy, and the company pays the airline/agent directly or reimburses against a ticket in the employee’s name. These three conditions draw the line between an excluded benefit and taxable income.
4. Parts that are commonly taxed
Tickets for the spouse and children traveling together — only the expert’s own ticket is excluded; family tickets are a taxable personal benefit (unless a separate prescribed policy applies). A second trip home within the year, or tickets for personal travel that is not the annual home leave, also falls outside the exclusion. A lump-sum cash “ticket budget” the expert spends himself risks taxation because there is no longer a ticket document tied to the employee and the home-leave purpose.
5. Documentation practice for employers
Employers should: state the annual home-leave airfare entitlement in the labor contract or the foreign-staff benefit policy; buy tickets through channels issuing invoices/documents in the expert’s name; and keep the leave approval with the file. Where the overseas parent buys the ticket for a seconded expert, keep the secondment letter or cost-bearing agreement showing the airfare belongs to the Vietnam assignment package, so the Vietnamese tax file is consistent.
6. Key takeaways
The annual home-leave airfare is a benefit the law “names” as excluded from taxable income — but the exclusion is narrow: one person, once a year, genuinely for home leave, and documented. Every extension beyond that frame (family members, extra trips, cash in lieu) returns to the general rule of taxable income.
7. Frequently asked questions
1. The company buys a business-class round trip for the expert’s home leave — is the fare difference taxed?
The exclusion attaches to the cost of the annual home-leave ticket for the employee and is not capped at economy class. Even so, the company should stipulate the fare class in its benefit policy so the expense has a clear basis if the tax authority tests its reasonableness.
2. Are tickets for the expert’s wife and children on the same home-leave trip excluded?
No. The exclusion covers only the foreign employee’s own ticket; family members’ tickets are a benefit paid on the expert’s behalf and enter his taxable income.
3. The expert skips home leave this year — can the company convert the ticket into cash salary?
Cash is no longer the purchase of a home-leave ticket, so it falls outside the exclusion — it is taxed as salary. If the company wishes to support him anyway, that amount must bear tax.
4. The parent buys the ticket abroad for a seconded expert — what does the Vietnam file need?
A secondment letter or agreement showing the airfare is part of the Vietnam assignment package, plus the ticket document in the expert’s name, so the expense aligns with the Vietnamese exclusion.
This article has been quality-reviewed by the FLAW AI Legal Council
