On August 20, 2026, the Standing Committee of Vietnam's National Assembly Law and Judicial Committee opened a preliminary review of the draft Maritime and Inland Waterways Code, the first consolidated statute to merge the 2015 Maritime Code with the Inland Waterway Law into one instrument. Chaired by Phan Chí Hiếu at the National Assembly House, the session sets the file toward the Government's proposed calendar: comments at the second NA session and adoption at the third.
The draft runs to 19 chapters and 156 articles and rewrites the regulatory perimeter to cover both seagoing and inland waterway activity, from port infrastructure and vessel registration to crew, safety, security, environmental protection and the shipbuilding industry. Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyễn Xuân Sang, presenting the text, framed the overhaul as a shift to modern, sustainable and internationally integrated management, with sweeping decentralization of inland waterway powers to local authorities.
What does the Code consolidate, and how does the scope expand?
The defining change is consolidation. Vietnam currently splits maritime and inland waterway rules across the 2015 Maritime Code (Bộ luật Hàng hải Việt Nam) and the Inland Waterway Law (Luật Đường thủy nội địa). The draft abolishes that split, extending one perimeter over both domains and over auxiliary activities that use vessels for economic, cultural, sporting or research purposes. For operators, that means a single registration, classification and safety architecture instead of two parallel ones, plus a restructured infrastructure regime that adds detailed national sector planning on top of existing sector plans.
The Committee broadly endorsed the expanded scope but flagged two areas for further scrutiny: ports serving only national defense and security, and fishing ports (cảng cá). Practitioners with assets in those niches should expect refined rules before the text reaches the floor.
Who is exposed, and what must they prepare?
The Code binds the full Vietnamese maritime and inland waterway value chain. Exposed actors include Vietnamese-flagged shipping companies, inland waterway operators, seaport and inland port operators, and the shipbuilding and classification sector. Foreign shipping lines calling at Vietnamese ports are affected indirectly through port infrastructure rules, green-port incentives and security provisions, even though their flag-state obligations sit elsewhere.
The Committee asked the drafting body to add a list of investment-encouraged projects and concrete, sector-specific incentives, with explicit legal hooks for green and smart ports (cảng biển, cảng thủy nội địa xanh, thông minh). Operators planning terminal upgrades or new berths should track these provisions, as they will condition access to non-budget capital for channel and port development under the redesigned socialization mechanism.
How do vessel registration and classification change?
Two technical rewrites matter directly for fleet operators. First, the draft replaces the concept of an inland waterway vehicle (phương tiện thủy nội địa) with river vessel (tàu sông), and merges the registration of seagoing and river vessels into one system that separates nationality registration from administrative registration. Second, inspection (đăng kiểm) moves to a unified approach with greater socialization, allowing recognized classification organizations to carry out inspections.
For owners of mixed fleets, this signals a future single registration pathway and broader reliance on recognized class bodies, narrowing the gap between seagoing and river-vessel compliance. The implementing detail will land in successor circulars from the line ministry, but the direction, converged registration and socialized inspection, is now fixed at statute level.
What is the timeline to adoption?
The Government has asked the National Assembly to discuss the draft at its second session and to consider and pass it at the third. The expected-watch registry, citing Resolution 77/NQ-CP, the drafting plan under Ministry of Construction Decision 652, and the VIMAWA and NA Legal and Judicial Committee survey, targets adoption in the October 2026 sitting. As a Bộ luật, the Code must be adopted by the National Assembly and promulgated by Presidential Order before publication in the Official Gazette (Công báo) and an effective date.
| Milestone | Stage | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution 77/NQ-CP | Government policy approval | Completed |
| MoC Decision 652 | Drafting plan | Completed |
| August 20, 2026 preliminary review | NA Standing Committee scrutiny | Completed |
| Second NA session | Discussion | Scheduled |
| Third NA session (October 2026 target) | Adoption | Scheduled |
| Presidential Order | Promulgation | Pending |
Continuous, per-jurisdiction real-time monitoring surfaces a draft like this the moment a supervising authority publishes it, weeks before it reaches the floor for a vote.
Take advantage of this real-time watch
Verify whether your fleet or terminal falls under the merged scope, map your registration and classification pathway against the new nationality and administrative split, and brief your compliance and government-affairs team ahead of the October sitting. Obsidian tracks this file as it moves from committee review to adopted Code.
