Electronic labor contracts under Decree 337: the national platform goes live

Electronic labor contracts are no longer just a convenience. From 1 July 2026, Vietnam's national electronic-labor-contract platform goes live, and Decree 337/2025/ND-CP has given this type of contract a clear legal framework. For HR teams, this is the moment to standardize how contracts are signed and stored.

What Decree 337/2025 provides

Per EFY's analysis, Decree 337/2025/ND-CP (issued 24 December 2025, effective 1 January 2026) formally legalizes electronic labor contracts. The essentials:

• Legal value equal to paper. A labor contract concluded electronically as a data message has the same legal value as a written paper labor contract.
• It must comply with several laws at once. Creating, concluding and storing an electronic labor contract must follow the Labor Code, the Law on Electronic Transactions and the Law on Personal Data Protection (PDPL).
• Strict technical requirements. The contract must have the signing parties' identities authenticated, be digitally signed and time-stamped.

The most important change: the national platform

This is the big operational shift. Per EFY, within 24 hours of the last party signing, the electronic-contract service provider (eCONTRACT) must send the electronic labor contract to the Ministry of Home Affairs' electronic-contract platform to be assigned an identifier (ID).

In other words, an electronic labor contract does not merely sit on the company's or provider's system — it is also registered centrally on the national platform. An eCONTRACT provider must meet conditions: authenticate the contract before sending, be able to convert between electronic and paper forms, and connect to the platform via an application programming interface (API).

What businesses and HR teams should do

1. Review your current signing process. Identify what's still on paper and what can move to electronic form to standard.
2. Choose a qualified eCONTRACT provider. Favor providers that meet Decree 337's requirements: authentication, ID registration to the national platform, electronic–paper conversion, and API connectivity.
3. Ensure digital signing and identity. Signing parties must be identity-authenticated; digital signatures and time-stamps are required for the contract to hold legal value.
4. Comply with the PDPL when storing. Labor contracts contain a lot of personal data — control access, retention periods and security under the personal-data protection law.
5. Integrate with HR systems. Connect the electronic-contract flow with your HRMS/eOffice so personnel records, timekeeping and payroll are linked rather than siloed.

Why do it early

Signing contracts electronically to standard is not only about compliance. It cuts signing time from days to minutes, removes printing and courier costs, and reduces the risk of losing paper files — especially for businesses with many employees or branches. When contract records are linked to the HR system, the whole employment lifecycle from hiring to offboarding is neatly digitized.

One caveat: an electronic contract's value depends on doing it to standard — identity, digital signature, time-stamp and ID registration on the national platform. Cutting corners risks a contract not being recognized in a dispute.

Conclusion

Decree 337/2025 and the national electronic-labor-contract platform move electronic labor contracts from "convenient" to "official". Businesses that standardize their process early both comply and benefit from a fully digitized HR lifecycle.

If you want to digitize labor contracts and integrate them with your HR system, book a consultation to align with your actual process.