Vietnam Construction & Infrastructure Industry Codes 2025: How to Register Under Decision 36/2025 (VSIC 2025)

Vietnam’s construction and infrastructure boom—highways, ports, industrial parks, logistics corridors, and urban redevelopment—continues to attract large-scale FDI and DDI. Yet before a project can scale on the ground, it must be structured correctly on paper. Under Decision No. 36/2025/QĐ-TTg (Decision 36) and the updated Vietnam Standard Industrial Classification (VSIC 2025)—effective November 15, 2025—construction and infrastructure activities are categorized with greater detail, and that changes how companies should register their industry codes.

For investors, EPC contractors, developers, and professional project services firms, industry code selection is not a box-ticking exercise. It determines how authorities interpret business scope, how licensing pathways align with activities, how compliance reviews are framed, and how a company can expand into related services without triggering avoidable administrative friction.

1. Industry Codes Are a Construction Firm’s Legal “Blueprint”

In Vietnam, industry codes define the legal identity of a company’s economic activities. For construction and infrastructure businesses, that legal identity affects how authorities assess activities, how certain permits and licenses are interpreted in practice, and how tax-facing and reporting categories are framed. Because construction firms often operate across multiple functions—execution, subcontracting, installation, project management, design support, and consulting—choosing an accurate set of codes can become a strategic advantage, not just a compliance requirement.

2. What Changed for Construction and Infrastructure Under VSIC 2025

Before 2025: broad groupings created scope uncertainty

Under the older framework, construction-related codes could be broad enough that very different activities were bundled together. Engineering works could sit under umbrella categories, mixed service models were harder to express cleanly, and overlap between construction execution and supporting services created ambiguity for firms that combined consulting or management with delivery.

This mattered most for integrated firms. Companies offering multi-faceted services sometimes needed multiple supplementary codes, yet still ended up with a scope profile that was either too broad to be credible or too generic to clearly describe what the firm actually delivered.

After November 15, 2025: more precise segmentation under Decision 36

VSIC 2025 reorganizes construction and infrastructure activities with clearer separation between building construction and civil infrastructure, and with stronger differentiation between core delivery and supporting services. Specialized activities—such as project management, design and consultancy support, and technical installation—can be represented more cleanly than before. For investors, this typically translates into fewer gray zones when defining the company’s business lines, especially if the firm runs both execution and professional services.

3. Which Construction and Infrastructure Activities Should Be Classified

Construction businesses usually register best when they categorize activities based on what they actually do on projects, not what they might do in the future. Under VSIC 2025 logic, most firms fall into a mix of the following activity families.

Building construction

This generally covers the construction of residential, commercial, and mixed-use buildings, including offices, retail, and development-linked building delivery. Under the updated structure, building-related activities can be expressed with clearer sub-segmentation, which helps firms avoid overly generic “construction” labels when the business is specifically building-focused.

Civil infrastructure and engineering works

This typically includes roads, bridges, ports, rail, airport-linked infrastructure, utilities, and public works. VSIC 2025 supports clearer differentiation across infrastructure activities, which is useful when investors need to distinguish between civil works delivery and building construction in registration scope and project narratives.

Specialty works and technical installation

This generally includes electrical installation, HVAC and mechanical systems, interior finishing, and other specialized construction-related services. The VSIC 2025 structure better supports treating specialty installation and finishing as distinct activity families rather than forcing them under a single general construction umbrella, which improves compliance clarity and contract alignment for firms that sell these services as standalone or repeatable revenue lines.

Project management and professional support services

This commonly includes construction project management, feasibility and planning services, cost management, supervision, and consulting-type support tied to project execution. The updated classification logic recognizes management-centric and advisory functions more clearly, which is valuable for firms that operate as a project manager, PMC, consultant, or hybrid builder-consultant.

4. Registration Strategy: How to Choose Primary vs Supplementary Codes

The most defensible registrations typically follow a simple principle: choose a primary code that matches the company’s main revenue engine, then add supplementary codes only for genuine secondary business lines that the company will regularly deliver.

A contractor whose core revenue comes from building delivery usually uses a building construction activity as the primary scope, then adds installation or finishing codes only if those services are sold as real second lines of business rather than occasional subcontracted tasks. A civil works contractor typically uses civil infrastructure as the primary scope, then adds project management or specialized works only where the company genuinely provides those services.

For integrated EPC models, the practical goal is to represent the “EPC reality” without overloading the registration with unnecessary categories. Many EPC firms anchor their primary scope in construction delivery aligned to their project type, then use supplementary scope for installation, engineering-related support, and management functions that are part of normal operations.

5. Practical Examples Explained Without a Table

An industrial park builder typically positions civil infrastructure construction as the primary scope, then adds project management and consulting support as supplementary activities if it provides feasibility work, supervision, or structured management services as part of its commercial offering.

An office or commercial building developer with delivery responsibilities typically positions commercial building construction as the primary scope, then adds HVAC installation and interior finishing as supplementary scope only if those functions are delivered in-house or sold as structured service lines.

An integrated EPC contractor typically positions construction delivery as the primary scope aligned to its project portfolio, then adds specialized installation and design-related support as supplementary scope when those functions are performed as part of normal EPC execution.

6. Why Decision 36 Makes Code Precision More Valuable for Investors

For FDI and DDI investors, code precision affects speed and defensibility. Clear classification can reduce back-and-forth during registration or amendments, improve consistency when authorities interpret scope, and reduce the risk that the company’s real-world activities appear outside its registered business lines later. In infrastructure-linked sectors where policy, planning, and permitting interact closely, precision also helps investors align project narratives with the legal identity of the project entity.

7. Tools That Make Construction Code Mapping Faster and Safer

Construction and infrastructure companies often have complex scope mixtures, and classification can become time-consuming when done manually. Many teams use ChatIIP — AI-Powered Industry Comparison to reduce ambiguity and speed up mapping. In practice, ChatIIP helps investors compare old vs. new VSIC logic under Decision 36, match real operational functions to best-fit industry code families, and generate structured guidance that supports registration preparation and internal approvals.

Industry code accuracy is necessary, but investment success also depends on where demand and projects concentrate. IIPMap — Visual Investment Insights supports construction and infrastructure investors by helping them evaluate growth zones, industrial corridors, infrastructure readiness, and regional investment momentum. Many firms use IIPMap to inform entry strategy, prioritize provinces for expansion, and align service lines with where construction demand is accelerating.

For ongoing local context on sector policy and market developments, some investors also reference IIP Vietnam to track infrastructure news, industrial development activity, and investment trends.

8. Documentation: The Step Most Firms Skip (and Regret Later)

A strong practice under VSIC 2025 is to document why each code was chosen, how it maps to real activities, and how primary-versus-supplementary logic reflects revenue and delivery reality. Keeping a record of this mapping rationale can reduce friction during audits, amendments, partner due diligence, and compliance reviews—especially for multi-service firms.

Under Decision 36/2025, Vietnam’s construction and infrastructure classification becomes more granular and better suited to modern multi-service delivery models. Companies that choose a primary industry code aligned with their core revenue engine, then add only the necessary supplementary codes for real secondary activities, typically register more smoothly and operate with less compliance ambiguity.

To accelerate the process and reduce misclassification risk, many investors start with ChatIIP for AI-assisted mapping, then strengthen market strategy with IIPMap for location and sector intelligence that supports smarter expansion decisions across Vietnam.