What is an employer of record, and when should we use it instead of your other hiring services?
An employer of record is a local entity that becomes the contractual employer of your staff while they work for you day to day. Use it when you want to employ someone in Vietnam but hold no legal entity there. If you can already employ directly, our headhunting service places permanent hires into your own entity. If the goal is an entire team plus operating capability that eventually becomes yours, build operate transfer is the right route. If you want engineers delivering your backlog while remaining AgileTech employees, that is our dedicated development team service.
Is this the same as building us an HR or payroll system?
No, and the distinction matters. This service is operational: we act as the legal employer in Vietnam and run payroll for you as an ongoing service, so the work sits with us. Building software is a separate engagement, covered on our HRM development page, where we deliver a system your own HR team operates on your own infrastructure. Some clients use both, with us employing a Vietnam based team while separately building the HR system their head office runs.
Who is the legal employer of the staff?
A Vietnamese legal entity is the contractual employer and carries the statutory employment obligations. You direct the work, set priorities, and manage performance. This split is what makes the arrangement work, and we set out in the service agreement exactly which responsibilities sit on each side before anyone is employed.
What does the arrangement cost?
Cost has three components: the gross salary you agree with the employee, the compulsory employer contributions set by Vietnamese law, and our service fee. We quote them as separate lines so the total employment cost is visible. We do not publish rates here because statutory contribution rates are set by regulation and change, and our fee depends on headcount and scope. You receive a written breakdown at quotation.
Which statutory contributions and taxes are handled?
Personal income tax is withheld and filed, and compulsory social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance contributions are administered for both the employer and employee portions as Vietnamese law requires. Rates and thresholds are applied as they stand at the time of each payroll run.
Do we own the intellectual property created by the employee?
Yes, provided the contract says so, and ours does. Work product does not transfer automatically simply because you are paying for the work, so express intellectual property assignment drafted for Vietnamese law is included in the employment contract and the service agreement. We consider this the single most important clause in the arrangement.
How quickly can someone start?
That depends on the contract terms, the registration steps required, and whether the person is serving notice with a current employer, which for permanent roles in Vietnam commonly runs 30 to 45 days. We do not quote a standard onboarding time because the variation is wide. At scoping we will give you a realistic date for your specific case.
What happens if we later set up our own entity in Vietnam?
We transfer the employees to your entity rather than terminating and rehiring them, which preserves continuity of service and avoids the severance and re-onboarding consequences of a clean break. Establishing this transfer path in advance is one of the questions we recommend asking any provider.
How does termination work?
Vietnamese labour law sets the permitted grounds, the notice required, and any severance due, and those rules apply regardless of what a service agreement says. You make the commercial decision; the employing entity executes it lawfully. We will tell you what a proposed termination requires and costs before it is actioned rather than afterwards.
Is employer of record the same as staff augmentation or outsourcing?
No. Under employer of record you select the person, direct their work, and manage their performance; the arrangement only moves the legal employment relationship. Under our dedicated development team or offshore development services, the engineers are AgileTech employees and we retain management responsibility for delivery. The distinction matters for control, cost structure, and intellectual property, so it is worth being clear which you actually want.
Can you handle payroll only, if we already have an entity?
Yes. Where you hold a Vietnamese entity and employ staff directly, we can administer payroll processing, personal income tax filing, and statutory insurance contributions without acting as the employer of record. Tell us which you need and we will scope accordingly.
How do we get started?
Share the role, the compensation you have in mind, the expected duration, and whether you intend to incorporate in Vietnam later. We will confirm whether employer of record is genuinely the right structure, provide an unbundled cost breakdown, and set out the obligations on each side, at no charge.
