Who Gets Việt Nam’s 5-Million-Đồng Digital Transformation Allowance? New Rules From 5 December

Since 15 August 2025, Vietnamese public servants who work full-time on digital transformation, information security or cybersecurity have received an extra 5,000,000 đồng a month under Nghị định 179/2025/NĐ-CP. The decree set the amount. It did not say exactly which jobs count, and that question has caused trouble in local offices for a year. The Ministry of Science and Technology has now answered it a second time. Thông tư 62/2026/TT-BKHCN, signed by Minister Vũ Hải Quân on 20 October 2026 and published on the ministry’s portal on 21 October, takes effect on 5 December 2026. On that date it replaces Thông tư 23/2025/TT-BKHCN of 20 October 2025, the first guidance, which lasted exactly one year.

The circular has 8 articles and two annexes that describe the work done in each eligible position. It covers only the digital-transformation positions within the science ministry’s remit. Positions in information security and cybersecurity, which the same decree also funds, are outside its scope.

Why a second circular so soon

Thông tư 23/2025 listed eligible positions in two annexes, one for civil servants and one for public employees. It already required a written assignment and excluded part-time duties. It ran into trouble almost at once. After the 2025 restructuring, many public employees ended up in administrative bodies rather than public service units, and the circular’s definition did not cover them. The Ministry of Home Affairs had to answer complaints about this case by case. Meanwhile the Government rebuilt the whole job-position system for the public sector. Nghị định 361/2025/NĐ-CP now governs positions for civil servants (công chức), and Nghị định 232/2026/NĐ-CP governs positions for public employees (viên chức). Thông tư 62 moves the allowance onto those two new lists, so the names in an agency’s approved staffing plan and the names in the allowance rules match again.

Which positions qualify

For civil servants, Article 3 lists nine groups drawn from the annexes to Nghị định 361/2025:

senior, principal and ordinary specialists in digital technology industry management, IT application and digital transformation management, digital economy management, digital society management and electronic transactions management;
the IT and digital-transformation specialist in the offices of provincial National Assembly delegations and People’s Councils;
at commune level: the specialist in IT application and digital transformation; the specialist covering broadcasting, press, grassroots information, postal services, IT, e-transactions, digital government, digital economy and digital society; and the specialist handling administrative-procedure control and e-government.

For public employees, Article 4 lists two tracks from Nghị định 232/2026: IT application and digital transformation (grades 1 to 5) and electronic-transactions management (grades 3 to 5).

Annex I shows how broadly “digital transformation” is now read. The duties it lists for the digital-technology-industry track include running the one-stop AI portal and the national database of AI systems, and coordinating national AI infrastructure. Semiconductors also appear on the list. These were not part of the job a year ago.

The tests: written, primary, direct, regular

Holding a qualifying title is not enough. Article 6 sets cumulative conditions:

Specialists (Article 3 groups a to g, and the Article 4 tracks) must hold a position that appears in their unit’s approved job-position decision. They must also have been assigned to it in writing. Staff who handle digital tasks part-time alongside another main job (kiêm nhiệm) are expressly excluded.
Managers (Article 5) qualify only if their unit has been formally designated, in writing, as dedicated to digital transformation. They must also be assigned in writing to oversee a digital field directly, and that field must be their main, direct and regular duty. A director with only “general management” responsibility, or with digital work as one item among several, does not qualify.
Commune officials in the two broad commune-level groups must meet three conditions: the position is approved, it is assigned in writing, and they are separately assigned in writing to dedicated digital work.
The one-person commune office. Many communes have a single official covering several fields. Article 6(4) lets that person qualify if their job description names digital transformation as the main task group and the work is main, direct and regular.

Responsibility is set at two levels. The head of the employing unit must identify and propose eligible staff and review the list whenever someone’s position changes. The head of the managing agency signs off the final list and is accountable for it.

Transition

Under Article 7, civil servants who received the allowance under Thông tư 23/2025 keep receiving it if they are reassigned to a position that qualifies under the new rules. Public employees on the old Annex II list keep the allowance until their unit’s new job-position plan under Nghị định 232/2026 is approved. After that, the new tests apply.

What it means in practice

Provincial and commune HR offices will need to recheck their allowance lists before 5 December against the new position names and the written-assignment requirement. Verbal assignments and informal “IT person” roles will not pass an audit.
Staff who cover IT part-time, a common arrangement in small communes after the 2025 merger of administrative units, will find the line drawn clearly. Only the documented one-person-office route in Article 6(4) helps them.
Vendors and integrators selling to government agencies should note the subtext. The state is paying a premium to keep in-house people who can define requirements, appraise projects and run national platforms. Those are the people who will sign off on their contracts.

Open questions

The allowance still runs only “until salary reform”, which has no fixed date. The circular also leaves it to each agency to designate its “dedicated” digital units. That could produce very different lists from one province to the next. Finally, the ministry’s portal shows an effective date of 05/10/2026 in its metadata panel, while the signed text (Article 8) and the Government document system both say 5 December 2026. The signed text prevails.

Sources

This post is general information, not legal advice.