Vietnam is a market many of our clients ask about. It is also the one ASEAN market we currently decline. This piece explains the reasoning, in general terms, and what a company interested in Vietnam might do instead.
This is general information, not legal advice. Laws and official guidance change. Check the current position, and take advice on your own circumstances, before acting.
The short answer
Outreach Asia’s rules block cold email to Vietnam, and we do not take clients for Vietnam campaigns. A campaign that researches Vietnamese companies but cannot contact them produces a list nobody can act on. Selling that would be worse than saying no.
Two sets of rules
The first is anti-spam regulation. Decree No. 91/2020/ND-CP on fighting spam messages, spam emails and spam calls, in force since October 2020, requires the recipient’s prior consent before advertising emails, messages or calls are sent. It also sets out how that consent may be given.
The second is personal data protection. Decree No. 13/2023/ND-CP on personal data protection, in force from July 2023, set out a consent-centred framework. It has since been replaced: the Law on Personal Data Protection, Law No. 91/2025/QH15, took effect on 1 January 2026 together with an implementing decree. The law carries forward the consent-centred approach, including for the use of personal data in marketing and advertising.
Why a company inbox does not change the answer
In Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, much of the analysis turns on personal data, which is why a generic company inbox is treated differently from a named person’s address. Vietnam’s anti-spam rule regulates the advertising message itself. Writing to info@ rather than to a person does not remove the consent question, because the consent requirement attaches to the message.
That is the main reason our approach elsewhere, published company inboxes, one relevant question and an immediate opt-out, does not carry over.
What would change our position
We would need a route that starts from the recipient’s own choice, and we would need that route reviewed against the rules before offering it. Until then, the honest position is not to sell a market we cannot serve. Our app treats Vietnam as not served, and a client who selects it is told so at setup.
What we tell clients who ask
Clients sometimes ask whether they could write to Vietnamese companies’ generic inboxes, as they do elsewhere, or whether the rules are applied in practice. Our answer is the same in both cases. We do not build a service on the assumption that a rule will not be applied, and we do not offer a market where our standard method would sit outside the rules as we understand them.
That is also why this article stays general. The detail of Vietnamese law is a matter for qualified local advisers, and a company planning activity in Vietnam should speak to one.
If Vietnam is your market
- Take local legal advice before any campaign, and before buying any contact list.
- Build channels where buyers come to you: your own website, enquiry forms and content in Vietnamese.
- Use trade fairs and industry events, where meetings are arranged with the other side’s agreement.
- Consider a local distributor or agent who already has relationships and knows the rules.
- Keep records of consent for every contact you do make, and honour opt-outs at once.
Rules change, and we will review this position when they do. For now, Vietnam is outside what we offer, and we would rather say that plainly.
Before you move on.
- Vietnam is excluded from cold email campaigns.
- Any Vietnam outreach is based on recorded consent.
- Local advice has been taken before activity at volume.
- Inbound and event channels are considered first.
This is general information, not legal advice. Outreach Asia describes its own rules and practices here; they are not a statement that any particular campaign complies with the law.