Vietnam’s customs allowances page lists 200 cigarettes and says nothing about vapes. That silence does not make them legal. The ban sits in other texts, from the National Assembly and the Government, and three government decrees on the subject have been signed since 31 December 2025. This page reads those texts directly.
What the National Assembly banned
On 30 November 2024 the National Assembly passed Resolution 173/2024/QH15, formally a resolution on the Assembly’s question sessions. The Government’s news portal reports that the Assembly agreed to “ban the production, trade, import, storage, transport and use of e-cigarettes” (our translation of the Vietnamese), and that the same list was extended to heated tobacco. The portal’s headline gives the start date, 1 January 2025.
The resolution set no fine. A Government news report of 14 January 2025 said there was no administrative penalty yet for storing or using these products, and that the Ministry of Health was drafting one.
What counts as an e-cigarette
Decree 371/2025/ND-CP, signed on 31 December 2025, wrote the definitions into the tobacco-control rules. An e-cigarette is the device, the pod or cartridge that holds the liquid, and the liquid itself, whether or not it contains nicotine. Heated tobacco is an electronic device used with a purpose-made tobacco product, and the decree names several device designs that heat it without burning it.
So the ban reaches a nicotine-free disposable and a loose bottle of e-liquid, as well as a branded kit.
Using one is fined, and the device is destroyed
Article 26 of Decree 90/2026/ND-CP, signed 30 March 2026 and in force since 15 May 2026, sets the penalties. Our translation of its first two clauses:
- VND 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 for using an e-cigarette or heated tobacco.
- VND 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 for letting another person use one in a place you own or manage, unless that person is your grandparent, parent, child, grandchild, sibling or spouse.
For using one, the device is also ordered destroyed. The decree repeals Decree 117/2020/ND-CP and Article 2 of Decree 371/2025/ND-CP, which had carried the same figures from 31 December 2025, so the amounts are unchanged and only their home moved.
The text says “using”, with no exception for visitors or for particular places, and it does not say where the use has to happen. A host or hotel owner faces the second clause.
Importing one is on the prohibited list
Customs lists were rewritten this summer. Decree 292/2026/ND-CP, signed 22 July 2026, took effect on 5 September 2026 and replaced Decree 69/2018/ND-CP, the instrument our customs allowances guide quotes for its list of prohibited imports. Appendix I of the new decree lists “Thuốc lá điện tử, thuốc lá nung nóng”, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco, at item 5 of the import ban list and at item 10 of the export ban list, both under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Article 5 of the same decree lets a trader apply for a permit to import or export a prohibited good, with a decision due within 5 working days of a complete file and a storage limit of two years. That route is written for businesses filing a use and disposal plan. Nothing on those pages gives a traveller a personal allowance or treats a single device in a suitcase differently from a shipment.
The Prime Minister’s implementation plan, Decision 1665/QD-TTg of 5 August 2025, shows where border enforcement sits. It tells the Ministry of Finance to step up checks and tight control of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco smuggled in through border gates, on a continuing basis.
If you are only passing through
The plan also tells the Ministry of Industry and Trade to issue guidance on temporary import, re-export, transfer and transit of these products. We did not find that guidance. It concerns goods under customs control, and none of the texts above says how a passenger changing planes at Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi with a device in a carry-on is treated.
Compared with Hong Kong and Singapore
Hong Kong publishes a ladder of fines that starts with import and now reaches public possession. Singapore treats possession itself as an offence. Vietnam’s published structure is a flat ban on import, a fine for use and a higher fine for hosting. Read Hong Kong’s rules and Singapore’s rules separately, because the figures are not interchangeable.
What the sources do not say
- A penalty for arriving with a device. Article 26 covers using one and letting others use one. The import ban is in Decree 292/2026, but the pages we read carry no fine for breaching it, and a January 2025 Government news report points to separate decrees on prohibited goods that we did not read. We cannot tell you what a device found at the border costs, or whether it is simply seized.
- Quantities and parts. They do not say how many devices turns possession into trading, or whether a refill pod or a bottle of liquid is handled differently from the device. Article 5 of Decree 292/2026 requires the Ministry of Industry and Trade to publish the detailed list of goods with customs tariff codes, and we have not seen it.
- Practice. We do not know how consistently the rules are applied to visitors. Anecdotes of airport payments circulate online, and we have built nothing on them because no source we could check describes them.