The General Department of Taxation has just issued Official Dispatch No. 6369 to 100 banks and payment intermediary service providers operating in Vietnam, announcing a list of 4 foreign suppliers that have not yet registered and declared tax payments in Vietnam.

Specifically, they are Agoda International Pte.Ltd (website https://www.agoda.com); Paypal PteLtd (https://www.paypal.com); AirBnb Ireland Unlimited (https://www.Airbnb.com); Booking.com BV (https://www.Booking.com).

The General Department of Taxation requests the head offices of banks and payment intermediary service providers to notify the list of these four foreign suppliers to their branches so that the branches can declare, deduct, and pay tax obligations on their behalf when making payments for transactions with foreign suppliers according to regulations.

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Four foreign suppliers including Agoda, AirBnb, Booking.com, and PayPal have not yet registered and declared taxes in Vietnam.

Talking to VietNamNet about the above "tough" move of the General Department of Taxation, e-commerce expert Bui Quang Cuong said: There is currently no exact information on the market share of Agoda, AirBnb, Booking.com, PayPal in Vietnam, but these are online travel and cross-border payment platforms that lead the market in the world as well as in Vietnam.

“For many Vietnamese, whenever they book a room online, they immediately think of Booking, Agoda, just like Southerners often call motorbikes Honda. I have also met and talked with many hotels and homestays, and most foreign guests, if they are individual guests, come from Agoda, Booking, AirBnb. That means a large number of foreign customers coming to Vietnam book rooms through these platforms,” Mr. Cuong shared.

The e-commerce expert analyzed that, if viewed from a general perspective, the above foreign platforms have contributed to promoting the development of Vietnam's tourism industry as well as cross-border e-commerce payment activities.

These platforms themselves also benefit a lot from charging users. On average, online booking platforms charge about 15-30% in transaction fees. If calculated as a percentage of hotel and homestay revenue, the number will be quite large. The fee that Paypal charges is mostly currency conversion fees. Although it is only a few percent, the amount of money that goes through this platform into Vietnam is not small.

According to Mr. Cuong, at this stage, these platforms need to better fulfill their tax obligations to create a win-win mechanism. The State also needs to collect taxes to have a budget to promote the economy and society. When people are rich and businesses develop, they will continue to travel more and pay more, so the market "pie" of the above platforms will also increase.

“In addition, this tax collection also creates a fair playing field for tax-compliant platforms, especially Vietnamese platforms, so that businesses can develop together according to market mechanisms,” said Mr. Cuong.

According to statistics from the General Department of Taxation, there are currently 123 foreign suppliers registered, declared and paid taxes, with the total tax declared and paid directly by foreign suppliers via the Electronic Information Portal for Foreign Suppliers in 2024 reaching VND 8,687 billion, an increase of 26% compared to 2023, exceeding 74% of the estimate.

Accumulated from March 2022 (when the Electronic Information Portal for Foreign Suppliers was put into operation), foreign enterprises have paid VND 20,261 billion.

Of which, Meta group (Facebook), Google, Microsoft, TikTok, Netflix, Apple... account for about 90% of the market share of cross-border e-commerce service revenue in Vietnam.