Local budget revenue increased by 29.7%: Positive signal from the leading group
The year 2026 is marked by a series of positive signals, including an important boost from the public finance sector when the total state budget revenue in 2025 is estimated at VND 2,650.1 trillion, equal to 134.7% of the estimate and up 29.7% over the previous year. Not only "anceading a lot of revenue" on a national scale, many localities also set records, creating a new group of "budget revenue locomotives".
100,000 billion VND Club
For the first time in Vietnam, there are 5 localities participating in the "100,000 billion VND club", meaning that the budget revenue for the year reached over 100,000 billion VND, of which Ho Chi Minh City continues to affirm itself as the economic locomotive.
According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Finance, the total accumulated state budget revenue in Ho Chi Minh City as of December 31, 2025 has reached VND 800,043 billion, exceeding 19% of the estimate assigned by the Central Government and 15% higher than the estimate assigned by the City People's Council.
Meanwhile, Hanoi, the locality that is not affected much because the merger also has an impressive figure with the first time surpassing the 700,000 billion VND mark. If in 2024, Hanoi's total budget revenue reached VND511 crore, then 2025 has increased by 34%. The increase was incredible. Of which, domestic revenue accounts for 94%, reaching over VND622,000 billion.
In addition to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, in 2025, there will be 3 more localities with a total budget revenue of over VND100,000 billion: Dong Nai, Hung Yen and Hai Phong.
Hai Phong made its mark when total state budget revenue reached VND 190,379 billion, exceeding the estimate by 34.8%; domestic revenue alone reached VND 103,879 billion for the first time, putting Hai Phong in the leading group in terms of domestic revenue scale. Dong Nai also attracted attention with total state budget revenue reaching 101.4 trillion VND (144% of the estimate assigned by the Prime Minister and reaching 136% of the estimate of the Provincial People's Council). This result shows that the industry - production and business ecosystem are the sustainable "revenue engine" of the locality.
Notably, Hung Yen reached VND100,299 billion for the first time, equal to 181% of the estimate; the domestic revenue structure accounts for a very large proportion, reflecting the resilience of the business sector and the effectiveness of revenue management.
Hung Yen's momentum is not created by the merger of Hung Yen and Thai Binh. In particular, before the merger, in 2024, Hung Yen collected 40,114 billion VND in budget, while Thai Binh reached about 12,418 billion VND.
Lessons from Hung Yen show that one of the factors that create a breakthrough is the modernization of tax administration: Exploiting data from electronic invoices, increasing risk inspection, tax debt management, collecting correctly - collecting enough.
Information from Hung Yen Provincial Tax Department said that since the beginning of the year, the provincial tax sector has carefully reviewed each source of revenue, each tax color, each enterprise; tightened tax debt management; coordinated with inter-sectors to effectively exploit land revenue, strengthen inspection of areas with potential risks, and at the same time, promote data exploitation from electronic invoices, bank accounts, e-wallets... Thereby, contributing to increasing budget revenue, while improving transparency and efficiency of tax management.
Can't bet on real estate revenues
Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Dinh Thien - former Director of the Vietnam Economic Institute - spoke to Lao Dong: " Localities that collected over VND100,000 billion all showed the ability to organize space for industrial, service and logistics development. This is a great lesson for other provinces and cities.
When there is an industrial platform for manufacturing and processing, logistics - seaports, urban services, or industrial clusters with FDI. When production and business activities are vibrant, the platform tax also increases.
Typically, Hai Phong not only increased domestic revenue but was also "activated" by import-export and seaport infrastructure; the locality recorded an estimated revenue from the import-export sector of VND 86,500 billion and the collection of seaport infrastructure fees achieved high results.
Another bright spot is the shift in revenue management to " data collection", strongly transferring electronic invoices, preventing losses, and tightening outstanding debts. Not only Hung Yen, in large cities such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, revenue from the digital economy, cross-border services and e-commerce is becoming increasingly clear, showing that the budget is catching up with the shift of the economy.
In the bright picture, there are still challenges. In 2025, land revenue will continue to contribute significantly to the budgets of many localities. For example, Nghe An has a total budget revenue of over VND30,000 billion but real estate revenue accounts for 30%. In reality, this is a cyclical source of income, heavily dependent on the real estate market and policies. The most sustainable localities are places that do not depend on land use fees, but use this resource to invest in infrastructure, creating a foundation for long-term production and business.
Dr. Nguyen Tri Hieu - financial - banking expert - commented: "To increase the budget naturally and sustainably, it is necessary to shift from the mindset of "short-term collection" to "revenue consumption". The locality's breakthrough thanks to land is a good signal about resource exploitation, but if it "bet" on land use fees without real production and service foundation, the risk of revenue loss is real.
The lesson of collecting the budget in 2025 is to "collect a lot" not only because of increasing taxes, but because of creating many added values. Improving procedures, clean land for production, logistics infrastructure, human resources... are the only investments for future revenue.
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