Thảo Vy sells Bát Tràng and Lái Thiêu ceramics and gift sets through a marketplace store, Facebook and a small website. The stockroom is the ground floor of a rented house in Gia Định ward (formerly Bình Thạnh district), with three staff packing orders and answering messages. Revenue in 2025 was about VND 4.2 billion, around a quarter of it from companies ordering Lunar New Year and event gifts.
Before
The shop was registered as a household business in 2021, and Vy did all the tax paperwork herself. The problem was not tax but customers. In Q4 2025, four companies cancelled New Year gift orders once they learned the shop could only issue a sales invoice, which does not let a business buyer deduct VAT. The four orders were worth about VND 260 million together. In January 2026 she booked a call with one question: what would a company cost?
What Mai did, week by week
January 2026, the first call. Võ Ngọc Mai did not answer “yes” on the spot. She built a comparison from the shop’s own numbers: VAT for the household as a share of revenue, VAT for a company as output minus input; tax on profit; accounting fees; and the business-customer revenue that could be won back. For Vy’s shop, VAT would be higher as a company, but the business orders would more than cover it. Vy decided to convert.
February 2026. Mai checked the three-year corporate income tax exemption under Resolution 198/2025/QH15: the household had operated since 2021, and Vy holds no other company. Mai still advised budgeting as if tax were payable, in case the reading of the conditions changes. The registration was filed on 24 February together with the household’s registration certificate.
First week of March 2026. The enterprise registration certificate was dated 27 February. The seal was made the day the certificate arrived, the digital signature came on 2 March, the bank account on 5 March, and e-invoices were live on 6 March. On 9 March the company issued its first VAT invoice, to an insurance firm ordering 120 gift sets. From filing to first invoice: ten working days, counting the filing day.
March and April 2026. The household’s remaining stock, about VND 410 million, was sold to the company on an invoice from the household, so the company has a cost for those goods when it sells them. The marketplace took five weeks to approve the company’s documents. Meanwhile the household kept selling on the marketplace and declared those sales separately. On 15 April the store moved to the company’s name and the household business was closed.
March to May 2026. The first three months of books are part of the setup package. Mai opened the books from the date of the certificate, filed the company’s first quarterly VAT return, and from June carried on as the company’s accountant. Vy has one person to ask.
What changed
Since March, no order has been lost over invoices. Revenue from business customers was about VND 520 million in Q2 2026, against about VND 300 million a quarter the year before. Vy spends about an hour a month on paperwork: sending bank statements, approving draft returns, reading a one-page report.
What it costs now
The setup package was VND 5,000,000 before 8% VAT, so VND 5,400,000, plus state fees paid at exactly the amount shown on the registration portal. From June 2026 the company is on the bookkeeping and financial statements package at VND 3,000,000 a month. The shop ran at about 110 documents a month in its first three months, above the package’s 80, so when the monthly package started both sides agreed a fixed VND 3,800,000 a month before VAT (VND 400,000 for each 20 documents above the limit). This is a cost Vy did not have before.
What was hard
VAT really is higher. Retail customers will not accept higher prices, so margins on single orders fell. Vy knew this from the comparison, but seeing the Q2 payment was still the worst moment.
The five weeks waiting for the marketplace were the messiest: two legal entities selling side by side, two sets of books, and every order checked for whose it was. If she did it again, Mai would submit to the marketplace the day the certificate arrived rather than waiting for the bank account.
Reconciling with the marketplace still takes work every month. Its payout report nets fees, shipping and refunds on a single line. Mai separates each item so revenue and costs are recorded correctly, and it takes close to a working day a month.
Read more: should a household business become a limited company? and our company setup service.
I thought a company would only cost more in accounting fees; Mai showed me the VAT line before I signed, so nothing since has been a surprise.