On the morning of August 27, 2026, Vietnam's National Assembly Standing Committee (UBTVQH), chaired by Deputy Speaker Nguyen Khac Dinh, gave its opinion on the draft Maritime and Inland Waterways Code of Vietnam. The Ministry of Construction presented a 19-chapter, 156-article text that would merge the 2015 Maritime Code (341 articles) and the 2004 Inland Waterway Navigation Law (111 articles), cutting 296 articles, a 65% reduction. The Government asks the National Assembly for a first reading at Session 2 and adoption at Session 3.
The novelty for operators is not the merger itself, which was already in preliminary panel review, but the Standing Committee's hard warning: a cut of that scale risks legal gaps on rights, obligations and civil liability, and must not push National Assembly-level rules down into Government decrees. Shipowners, inland carriers, port investors and foreign lines calling Vietnam should treat the Session 2 text as still fluid on registration, survey, dual-use ports and river-sea operations.
What did the Standing Committee actually change in the debate?
Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Xuan Sang tabled a draft that expands the statute to cover both maritime and inland waterway activity, modernises management principles, and decentralises inland waterway powers to local authorities. Vessel classification would replace the inland waterway vehicle concept with "river vessel", merge sea and river registration while separating nationality and administrative registration, and move survey toward a unified model with greater socialisation through recognised organisations.
According to the Vietnam Maritime and Waterway Administration account of the session, the Legal and Judicial Committee's preliminary review, presented by Phan Chi Hieu, already flagged that many stable Maritime Code provisions on rights and obligations of organisations and individuals had been dropped without documented enforcement problems. Standing Committee leaders amplified that critique: First Deputy Speaker Do Van Chien said a 65% cut rewrites laws that still work in practice and demanded stronger impact evidence and stakeholder consultation.
Deputy Speaker Nguyen Doan Anh insisted on a substantive river-sea transport continuum, not a formal consolidation, and proposed a three-layer structure: common river-sea rules, maritime-specific rules, and inland-specific rules, with clear criteria at the interface for vessel type, operating area, registration, survey, safety, port authority competence and transitional rules. Deputy Speaker Nguyen Thi Hong pressed for property rights, business rights, civil liability and scope limits to stay in the Code itself, and for green-transition and shipbuilding support to state clear targets, beneficiaries, principles, criteria, levels and durations, with no stacking of overlapping subsidies for the same expenditure.
Who is exposed before Session 2, and what should they watch?
Vietnamese shipowners and operators (including VINALINES and domestic fleets), inland waterway carriers, seaport, inland port and dry-port operators and investors, Vietnam Register and recognised survey organisations, crew managers, and foreign carriers calling Vietnamese ports are all in scope of the redesign.
Concrete watchpoints from the August 27 session include dual-use seaport berths (alignment with defence works law), the inland port definition that "does not include seagoing ships", strategic investor criteria and obligations, whether investment projects can be extended after their operating term ends, and transitional treatment for projects already approved or in operation when the Code takes effect. On safety, Do Van Chien backed a shift from pre-inspection to post-inspection in principle, but carved out passenger vessels, vessels on lakes and hydropower reservoirs, dual-use lakes and cross-river ferries, which should keep tighter pre-inspection.
| Topic | Draft direction (MoC) | Standing Committee pressure (27 Aug 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Article count | 156 articles (65% cut vs 452 in force) | Restore stable rights/obligations; avoid legal gaps |
| Registration / survey | Unified sea-river registration; socialised survey | Clear interface rules; keep NA-level substance in the Code |
| River-sea chain | Formal merger of two statutes | Substantive continuum; three-layer structure |
| Safety oversight | More post-inspection | Keep pre-inspection for passenger, lake and ferry services |
| Legislative calendar | Session 2 opinion, Session 3 adoption | Same calendar, but deepen drafting before Session 2 |
What should compliance and operations teams do now?
Map every procedure that today sits only in the 2015 Maritime Code or the 2004 Inland Waterway Law: nationality vs administrative registration, survey certificates, crew documentation, port/berth licensing, and multimodal or river-sea commercial documents. Flag which of those rules the 156-article draft still states in primary legislation and which would fall to decrees if the cut stands.
Brief legal and operations leadership before Session 2 on three decisions that will move markets: (1) whether rights, civil liability and convention implementation stay in the Code; (2) whether passenger and lake/ferry services keep pre-inspection; (3) how dual-use ports and strategic investor rules are rewritten. Continuous, per-jurisdiction monitoring is how teams catch the next Standing Committee or National Assembly text the day it publishes, rather than after Session 2 closes.
Foreign lines and classification societies should already inventory Vietnam-calling tonnage and recognised-organisation arrangements that assume separate maritime and inland regimes, because a unified registration and survey model will rewrite counterparties and certificate chains even if commercial routes stay unchanged.
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Next steps: verify whether your fleet, ports or calling pattern falls under the river-sea interface rules under debate; track the Session 2 draft for restored rights/obligations language and pre-inspection carve-outs; brief commercial, crew and survey counterparts on the Session 3 adoption window. Obsidian will keep the Vietnam maritime code track visible as each official text lands.
