Vietnam Company Lookup: The Seal Is in the Free Record

A Vietnam company lookup runs through the Cổng thông tin quốc gia về đăng ký doanh nghiệp — the National Business Registration Portal — at dangkykinhdoanh.gov.vn. Registration itself is handled by the Phòng đăng ký kinh doanh, the business registration offices. This guide covers what the portal provides free of charge, a field in that free tier most registers do not hold at all, and what the portal says about the standing of its own free information. If you need the Vietnamese population rather than one company at a time, the Vietnam company directory covers the same registered enterprises with industry, size and contact breakdowns attached, and the Vietnam business database is the same file described as a dataset.

Vietnam company lookup: the short version

• Thông tin cơ bản — basic information — is provided free of charge on the national portal, and the portal enumerates exactly what it contains.
• Among those fields is Mẫu dấu (nếu có) — the seal specimen, if any.
• The portal states this free basic information provides reliable information, has legal value, and gives the enterprise's current operating status.
• The free record also carries the list of electronic announcements the enterprise has published.

The free record includes the seal

The portal sets out its free tier field by field:

"Thông tin cơ bản là những thông tin cơ bản của doanh nghiệp được cung cấp miễn phí trên Cổng thông tin quốc gia về đăng ký doanh nghiệp, bao gồm các thông tin cơ bản của doanh nghiệp: tên doanh nghiệp, mã số doanh nghiệp, tình trạng hoạt động, loại hình pháp lý, ngày bắt đầu thành lập, tên người đại diện theo pháp luật, Địa chỉ trụ sở chính, Mẫu dấu (nếu có), ngành, nghề kinh doanh; Danh sách các bố cáo điện tử đã đăng."

Basic information is the enterprise's basic information provided free of charge on the National Business Registration Portal, comprising: tên doanh nghiệp (enterprise name), mã số doanh nghiệp (enterprise code), tình trạng hoạt động (operating status), loại hình pháp lý (legal form), ngày bắt đầu thành lập (establishment date), tên người đại diện theo pháp luật (name of the legal representative), Địa chỉ trụ sở chính (head office address), Mẫu dấu (nếu có) — the seal specimen, if any — ngành, nghề kinh doanh (business lines), and the Danh sách các bố cáo điện tử đã đăng (list of electronic announcements published).

Mẫu dấu is the field worth stopping on. In a legal culture where the seal carries authority on documents, the register publishes the specimen itself, in the tier that costs nothing.

The qualifier is the portal's own and matters: nếu có — if any. This page does not claim every Vietnamese enterprise has a seal on its record, and nothing sourced here says so.

What this page also does not do is explain what a Vietnamese company seal does legally, what it authenticates, or how it should be checked against a document. None of that was sourced, and it is precisely the territory where an invented sentence would do real damage — somebody would use it to decide whether a contract was validly executed.

One neighbouring jurisdiction in this series takes a different position on seals, and the contrast is worth exactly one sentence. The Taiwan company lookup guide covers an administration stating that a registration form issued from an online filing, bearing no seal, has the same legal effect as the sealed paper form. Taiwan says the absence of a seal changes nothing about a document's effect; Vietnam publishes the seal specimen in its free record. Two jurisdictions, two positions on the seal, and this page generalises no further than the two.

"Có giá trị pháp lý"

The second thing the portal says about its free tier is a claim about its standing:

"Thông tin cơ bản của doanh nghiệp cung cấp thông tin đáng tin cậy, có giá trị pháp lý, cung cấp thông tin về tình trạng hoạt động hiện tại của doanh nghiệp."

The enterprise's basic information provides reliable information, has legal value, and provides information on the current operating status of the enterprise.

That is an assertion about the free tier, which is unusual. Across this series, the free layer is more often the one a register hedges about — described as informative, as merely indicative, or as carrying no legal effect at all.

Four other registers in this programme make a statement about what their output is worth, and the four attach it to four different things. The Spain company lookup guide covers a register whose content is presumed exact and valid. The Austria company lookup guide covers one granting statutory reliance on a query, which is chargeable. The Italy company lookup guide covers one separating the informative document from the certifying one. The Switzerland company lookup guide covers a national index that warrants nothing at all. Vietnam asserts legal value for the free tier.

These are five jurisdictions' own statements, and they are not equivalent in law. Each means what its own legal system makes it mean, and this page neither ranks them nor treats them as interchangeable. What the comparison establishes is narrower and still useful: "can I rely on this?" is answered differently, and about different objects, in every one of them.

What a Vietnamese company register entry contains

A self-contained summary. Vietnam's business registration runs through the Cổng thông tin quốc gia về đăng ký doanh nghiệp, the National Business Registration Portal, at dangkykinhdoanh.gov.vn, with registration handled by the Phòng đăng ký kinh doanh, the business registration offices. The portal is an electronic portal used by organisations and individuals to register enterprises online, to access business registration information, and to serve the issuance of the Giấy chứng nhận đăng ký doanh nghiệp by the business registration authority. Its online public services include đăng ký doanh nghiệp qua mạng điện tử (online enterprise registration), dịch vụ thông tin đăng ký doanh nghiệp (business registration information services), công bố nội dung đăng ký doanh nghiệp, that is bố cáo điện tử (publication of registration content as electronic announcements), and thông tin về doanh nghiệp có vốn đầu tư nước ngoài (information on foreign-invested enterprises). Thông tin cơ bản, the basic information provided free of charge on the portal, comprises the enterprise name, the enterprise code, the operating status, the legal form, the establishment date, the name of the legal representative, the head office address, the seal specimen if any, the business lines, and the list of electronic announcements published. The portal states that this basic information provides reliable information, has legal value, and provides information on the enterprise's current operating status. This summary does not describe what information lies beyond the free tier or what it costs, because neither was established from the portal's own pages on the date shown.

Current state and publication history together

The last field in the free list is easy to read past and is genuinely practical: Danh sách các bố cáo điện tử đã đăng — the list of electronic announcements the enterprise has published.

So the free record carries the current state and the publication history in the same place. A reader does not have to establish that a company exists in one query and then go somewhere else to find out what it has announced.

What those announcements contain is not described here, because the source lists the field without describing its contents.

Where a Vietnam lookup stops

The portal describes itself as an electronic portal used to register enterprises online, to access business registration information, and to serve the issuance of the Giấy chứng nhận đăng ký doanh nghiệp — the enterprise registration certificate — by the business registration authority. Its named online public services are đăng ký doanh nghiệp qua mạng điện tử, dịch vụ thông tin đăng ký doanh nghiệp, công bố nội dung đăng ký doanh nghiệp (bố cáo điện tử), and thông tin về doanh nghiệp có vốn đầu tư nước ngoài — information on foreign-invested enterprises, which is a service of its own.

This page stops at the edge of the free tier. What lies beyond it, and what that costs, is not described here — the source defines the free tier precisely and says nothing about what is available past it. That is the reader's obvious next question and it is VIETNAM_REPORT.md's first flag.

Where the question is a population rather than a company, a firmographic directory covers the same registered enterprises with classification, size and contact data attached and queryable as a set; the Asia company directory breaks the regional file down by market.

Data quality pitfalls to avoid in Vietnam

Assuming every record carries a seal specimen. The portal's own qualifier is nếu có — if any.

Reading legal significance into the seal from this page. What a Vietnamese company seal does legally, and how it should be checked, is not described here.

Assuming the free tier is indicative only. The portal states that basic information provides reliable information, has legal value, and gives the current operating status.

Treating another jurisdiction's position on seals as transferable. At least one neighbouring administration states that an unsealed online-issued form has the same legal effect as a sealed one.

Looking elsewhere for a company's announcements. The free record carries the list of electronic announcements the enterprise has published.

Assuming what lies beyond the free tier. Neither its contents nor its cost is established here.

A repeatable Vietnam company lookup workflow

1. Take the free basic information first, and read all ten fields it is defined to contain.
2. Record whether a seal specimen is present, and treat its absence as within the portal's own "if any".
3. Read the announcement list alongside the current state, since both sit in the free record.
4. Check foreign-invested enterprises through the service named for them.
5. Note the operating status as the portal's own statement of current standing.
6. Confirm independently what lies beyond the free tier before planning work that depends on it.

Frequently asked questions

What does Vietnam's free company record contain?

The enterprise name, enterprise code, operating status, legal form, establishment date, legal representative's name, head office address, seal specimen if any, business lines, and the list of electronic announcements published.

Is the company seal really in the free record?

The portal lists Mẫu dấu — the seal specimen — among the basic information provided free of charge, with the qualifier nếu có, if any.

What does the seal mean legally?

Not something this page states. What a Vietnamese company seal authenticates, and how it should be checked, was not established from the sources read.

Is the free information reliable?

The portal states that basic information provides reliable information, has legal value, and provides information on the enterprise's current operating status. That is the portal's own claim about its own tier.

Can I see what a company has announced?

Yes. The free record includes the list of electronic announcements the enterprise has published. What those announcements contain is not described here.

Is there information on foreign-invested enterprises?

Yes — the portal names it as one of its online public services.

What is available beyond the free tier?

This page does not say. The source defines the free tier precisely and says nothing about what lies beyond it.

Source Register

Every Vietnamese passage above is the portal's own wording, read on the date shown, with its tone marks and diacritics reproduced as written and an English gloss beside it rather than in place of it. No amount appears anywhere in this page's prose.

This page rests on one portal page, which defines the free tier precisely and says nothing about what lies beyond it. The Decree and Law article numbers cited by legal-information sites, VNeID login, the bố cáo search filters and the portal's history are all absent for the same reason — none was read from the portal itself. VIETNAM_REPORT.md flags the free/paid boundary first, because it is the reader's next question.

The readings that are InfobelPRO's rather than the portal's: that publishing the seal specimen in the free tier is worth noticing in a legal culture where the seal carries authority on documents; that asserting legal value for the free tier is unusual against a series in which the free layer is more often the hedged one; and that carrying the current state and the publication history in one record saves a reader a second query. Those are ours. The comparison with Taiwan is limited to the two jurisdictions named, and the five-country comparison on what a register's output is worth states explicitly that the five claims are not equivalent in law.