Vietnam Issues Newly Amended Law on Chemicals

By Thuy Dang, senior regulatory specialist, Supply Chain Team, UL Solutions

On Jun. 14, 2025, Vietnam’s National Assembly passed the official new Law on Chemicals, No. 65/2025/QH15 to regulate chemical management, promote chemical industry development and enhance chemical safety requirements. The new Law will be enforced on Jan. 1, 2026, replacing the earlier version of Law No. 06/2007/QH12.

As previously suggested, the Law on Chemicals 2025 was developed to incorporate and center around 4 major policies: sustainable development of the chemical industry into a modern, foundational industry; synchronized chemical management throughout the entire life cycle; management of hazardous chemicals in products and improvement of efficiency in ensuring chemical safety. The new Law introduces tighter requirements on hazardous chemical control with the digital transformation in centralized data management via the national chemical database.

New prohibited chemical-related activities are specified in Article 3, including:

• Seize, produce, trade, transport, store, use, buy, sell, exchange, donate, send, borrow, lend, rent, lease, and mortgage chemicals illegally;
• Seize, buy and sell, exchange, donate, borrow, lend, rent, lease, mortgage, forge, repair or erase official chemical licenses, certificates and certifications;
• Withhold or intentionally provide incomplete, untimely, or incorrect information on the hazardous properties of chemicals, products and goods containing hazardous chemicals, loss or leakage of hazardous chemicals and chemical incidents;
• Use chemicals of unidentified origin or chemicals prohibited for the production, trading, and preservation of food, drugs, pharmaceutical ingredients, cosmetics, animal feed, aquatic feed, veterinary drugs, pesticides, fertilizers and consumer chemical products;
• Produce or import products or goods containing hazardous chemicals that do not comply with the provisions of this Law, causing serious impacts on people, facilities, assets, and the environment;
• Take advantage of one's position, authority, or profession to commit violations of the law on chemical management;
• Produce, trade, or use chemicals that can seriously affect people, facilities, assets, and the environment.

In accordance with the digital transformation on chemical data collection, the management of new chemicals is also expanded.

• New chemicals are defined as “substances not yet included in the National Chemical Inventory and other acknowledged foreign chemical inventories.”
• Registered new chemicals shall be classified and managed as Special Control Chemicals. Within five years from the date of registration, the registrant must annually update the data of related activities on the new chemicals into a Specialized Chemical Database. The data collected will be used to assess the risk levels of chemical safety and competent agencies will propose and recommend proper management methods.

There are several notable transition clauses, as follows:

• Any license of chemical production and trade issued before Jan. 1, 2026, can be used until its expiration date. If the chemicals are subjected to Special Control by the new regulations but are not included in the Restricted Chemical list of the current Law 2007, they must satisfy the provisions of this Law before Dec. 31, 2026.
• Any certificate of eligibility for chemical production and trade issued before Jan. 1, 2026, can be used until Dec. 31, 2027. If the chemicals are classified as Conditional substances by the new regulations but not by the current Law 2007, they must satisfy the provisions of this Law before Dec. 31, 2026.
• Approved chemical incident prevention and response plans and measures issued before Jan. 1, 2026, can be implemented as planned.

Recommended action items

• Check if your companies hold any licenses and certificates that can be affected by the new Law transition clauses.
• Keep an eye out for the guidance regulations from the Government and the Ministry of Industry and Trade regarding the execution of the new Law.

Reference

Law on Chemicals No. 69/2025/QH15 - Approved Draft (in Vietnamese only)