Many unprecedented incentives on land and taxes, conditions for importing equipment for digital technology projects

The Ministry of Science and Technology has just issued 12 circulars regulating activities related to import, production, investment incentives and development of digital technology industry.

The most prominent point, creating a big push for businesses, is the commitment to the highest level of investment incentives. According to Circular 31/2025, projects producing products and services in the list of key digital technologies - including artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing and especially semiconductor chips (consumer chips, AI chips, IoT chips) will be exempted from all land use fees and land rents. This is the highest and unprecedented incentive policy.

Semiconductor chip designed by Vietnamese digital technology enterprise.

In addition, Circular 32/2025 also applies similar special policies to projects producing raw materials, semiconductor materials (14 types) and equipment, machinery, and tools (18 types) as inputs for the semiconductor industry, aiming to build a comprehensive and complete semiconductor ecosystem.

Regarding corporate income tax (CIT) incentives, Circular 33/2025 stipulates record incentives for electronics manufacturing enterprises: CIT exemption for 4 years and 50% reduction of payable tax for the next 9 years. For projects over 6,000 billion VND, the Prime Minister has decided to extend the tax exemption and reduction period to a maximum of 1.5 times the above period.

Enterprises only need to meet one of four criteria to enjoy this incentive, including: Using semiconductor chips designed, manufactured or packaged, tested in Vietnam; simultaneously meeting the conditions on scientific research, technology development and innovation, including an R&D department with at least 10 employees with university degrees or higher (50% are Vietnamese citizens) and total expenditure on scientific research, technology development and innovation activities of at least 2% of average net revenue.

The remaining two criteria are that the products of the electronic equipment manufacturing project in Vietnam have designs owned by the enterprise itself; at least 30% of Vietnamese enterprises participate in the supply chain and carry out technology transfer to domestic organizations and enterprises.

In order to provide maximum support to businesses in production and research, Circular 30/2025 has amended the regulations on the import of used machinery. Accordingly, the age of equipment serving the production, packaging, and testing of semiconductor chips is extended to a maximum of 20 years, significantly expanding the previous 10-year limit of Decision 18/2019 on the import of used machinery and equipment lines.

In particular, equipment serving training and research and development of digital technology products will not be subject to strict criteria on remaining performance compared to design capacity (85%) or service life.

In addition, Circular 26/2025 also loosens regulations, allowing the import of goods on the prohibited list to serve special purposes (such as operating production lines; directly serving software production activities, outsourcing business processes using information technology, processing data for foreign partners; refurbished products and components for replacement and repair for domestic users that are no longer manufactured).

This Circular also allows the processing of prohibited goods for foreign partners for consumption abroad, helping to promote processing activities.

Circular 34/2025 stipulates digital technology products and services that enjoy incentives in selecting contractors in leasing and purchasing digital technology products and services using state budget capital.

Accordingly, hardware products are given priority if they meet two criteria at the same time: Design and brand belong to Vietnamese enterprises. For software, design and development must belong to Vietnamese enterprises or individuals, or design and development based on open source code owned by Vietnamese organizations, enterprises or individuals.

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/khoa-hoc-cong-nghe/nhieu-uu-dai-chua-tung-co-ve-dat-dai-va-thue-dieu-kien-nhap-khau-thiet-bi-voi-du-an-cong-nghe-so-20251202172637942.htm