On 21 October 2026, at the second session of the 16th National Assembly, the draft Law amending and supplementing several articles of the Law on Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) was submitted to the National Assembly. The National Assembly Standing Committee had commented on the draft on 23 September 2026. The submission expects the law to take effect on 1 March 2027. Until the amendments are adopted and in force, OSH Law No. 84/2015/QH13 and its current implementing regulations continue to apply.
Main changes in the draft
- Scope: amends 35 of the 93 articles of the current law, 18 of which only update ministry and agency names.
- Occupational accidents: reporting, investigation and statistics are adjusted to the two-tier local government model. Receipt of reports on certain fatal accidents, or accidents seriously injuring two or more workers, moves from district-level police to commune-level police. Receipt of reports on accidents involving workers without labour contracts moves from district People's Committees to provincial specialised agencies.
- Simplified procedures: OSH training services are removed from the list of conditional business lines, four procedures for training eligibility certificates are abolished, and declarations of machinery, equipment and materials with strict safety requirements apply only when they are put into use.
- Equipment tracking: the Government is to build an electronic database and identification codes to track machinery and equipment over their life cycle.
- Institutions: state management responsibilities, standard-setting duties and the composition of the national and provincial OSH councils are revised.
In its review, the Standing Committee asked for training principles linked to risk assessment and job position, clear employer responsibility for training quality, and an impact assessment of moving from ex-ante to ex-post control for high-risk work.
Points for project owners and contractors
For projects under construction, training, equipment inspection and accident reporting obligations remain under current rules. Once the amendments are adopted, project OSH plans and labour management procedures (LMP) should update accident reporting contacts and equipment declaration procedures. Financiers' OSH requirements, such as ESS2 and the World Bank Group's General Environmental, Health and Safety Guidelines (EHSGs), continue to apply in parallel.