Vietnam overtime pay rules and annual hour limits

Vietnam overtime pay rules are set by the Labor Code, Law No. 10/2012/QH13. Overtime pays at least 150 percent of normal pay on a regular day. On a weekly rest day the minimum is 200 percent, and a public holiday brings 300 percent. Overtime is also capped at 30 hours a month and 200 hours a year in most jobs. Both employers and staff should know these numbers.

What counts as overtime

Overtime is work done beyond the normal hours set by law, by a collective agreement or by the company's work rules. This matters because the rate depends on when the extra hours are worked, not on how long they last.

Normal hours may not pass 8 hours a day or 48 hours a week. An employer may also set hours by the week. In that case normal hours can reach 10 hours a day, but the 48 hour weekly cap still applies. The state encourages a 40 hour week, but the Labor Code does not make it mandatory. For work on the official list of especially heavy, harmful or dangerous jobs, normal hours may not pass 6 hours a day.

Source: Labor Code, Law No. 10/2012/QH13, Articles 104 and 106, Chapter VII, Vietnamese text on Wikisource (vi.wikisource.org).

The three overtime pay rates

Article 97 sets a minimum rate for each kind of day. The rate is applied to the worker's wage unit price or the wage of the job being done.

• Regular working day: at least 150 percent.
• Weekly rest day: at least 200 percent.
• Public holiday or paid leave day: at least 300 percent.

The 300 percent rate does not include the holiday pay itself. A worker paid by the day therefore also keeps the normal holiday pay on top. These are minimums. A company may pay more in a contract or a collective agreement, but never less.

Take a simple case. A worker earns 50,000 dong an hour. Two hours of overtime on a regular evening pay at least 150,000 dong. The same two hours on a Sunday rest day pay at least 200,000 dong.

Source: Labor Code, Law No. 10/2012/QH13, Article 97, clause 1, Chapter VI, Vietnamese text on Wikisource (vi.wikisource.org). The pay example is our own arithmetic.

Night work and night overtime

Night work earns its own extra pay. A worker on a night shift gets at least 30 percent more than the normal day wage. This is separate from overtime.

When overtime falls at night, the worker gets the overtime rate from the list above. The worker also gets an extra 20 percent of the pay rate for a daytime working day. So night overtime pays more than daytime overtime on the same kind of day.

Source: Labor Code, Law No. 10/2012/QH13, Article 97, clauses 2 and 3, Vietnamese text on Wikisource (vi.wikisource.org).

Yearly and monthly hour limits

Article 106 limits how much overtime an employer may ask for. An employer may require overtime only when all of these conditions are met.

• The worker agrees to it.
• Overtime in one day does not pass 50 percent of the normal hours. On an 8 hour day, that is 4 extra hours.
• On a weekly schedule, normal hours plus overtime do not pass 12 hours a day. On a 10 hour normal day, that leaves 2 hours of overtime.
• Overtime does not pass 30 hours a month.
• Overtime does not pass 200 hours a year.

The law allows the Government to name special cases where overtime may reach 300 hours a year. The Labor Code itself does not list those cases. A company that wants to use the higher cap should check the Government's list first and keep a record of it.

Staff should note the first rule. Agreement is part of the legal test, so a request for overtime is not an order that cannot be refused, unless another rule of the Labor Code applies.

Source: Labor Code, Law No. 10/2012/QH13, Article 106, Chapter VII, Vietnamese text on Wikisource (vi.wikisource.org).

Rest days after long overtime runs

Overtime is not only a pay matter. When a worker does overtime on several days in a row within a month, the employer must arrange rest days to make up for the time the worker did not rest. Paying the premium does not remove this duty.

Time off in this way protects workers from long runs of tiring work. It also helps the company, because rested staff make fewer mistakes.

Source: Labor Code, Law No. 10/2012/QH13, Article 106, Chapter VII, Vietnamese text on Wikisource (vi.wikisource.org).

A short checklist for employers and staff

Employers can run through five quick checks each month. Does each overtime hour have the worker's agreement on record? Is the day, week and month total inside the limits? Was the right rate used for a regular day, a rest day or a holiday? Was the night premium added where it applies? Were rest days given after long runs?

Staff can keep a simple log of their own hours. It should show the date, the start and end times and the kind of day. A clear log makes any pay question easier to settle.

This article is general information about the law as written. It is not legal advice. Contracts and company rules can add more rights, so read yours alongside the Labor Code.

Sources: Labor Code, Law No. 10/2012/QH13, adopted by the National Assembly on 18 June 2012 and in force from 1 May 2013, Vietnamese text on Wikisource (vi.wikisource.org).