Your Office Address Changed. What Vietnam’s Administrative Reform Means for Companies in Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam’s 2025 administrative reform removed the district level of government and merged Ho Chi Minh City with two neighbouring provinces. District 1 is now four wards: Sài Gòn, Tân Định, Bến Thành and Cầu Ông Lãnh. Tax codes and existing documents remain valid — only the address format changed. But the office market map is now considerably larger, and the way companies describe their location has changed permanently.

Ask most executives in Ho Chi Minh City what district their office is in, and they will still answer “District 1.”

Legally, that answer stopped being correct on 1 July 2025.

Vietnam carried out the most significant administrative restructuring in decades that day. The district tier of government — quận and huyện — was abolished nationwide, replaced by a two-tier system running from city directly to ward. At the same time, Ho Chi Minh City absorbed the entire provinces of Bình Dương and Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu.

The city that companies are now searching for an office for rent in Ho Chi Minh City within is not the city that existed eighteen months ago. It is substantially larger, structured differently, and addressed differently.

Most companies have treated this as a paperwork nuisance. For anyone signing a lease, registering an entity, or explaining their location to an overseas headquarters, it deserves closer attention than that.

What Actually Changed

Two separate reforms took effect on the same date. They are often confused, and they have different implications.

The district tier was abolished

Under Resolution 1685/NQ-UBTVQH15, passed on 16 June 2025 and effective 1 July 2025, Vietnam moved from a three-tier local government structure to a two-tier one.

Provinces and centrally governed cities sit at the top. Wards and communes sit below them. The district layer that sat between the two is gone — not renamed, not restructured, removed.

This means District 1, District 3, District 7 and Thủ Đức City no longer exist as administrative units. The place names survive in common usage. They carry no legal standing.

The city absorbed two provinces

Separately, under Resolution 202/2025/QH15, Ho Chi Minh City merged with Bình Dương province and Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu province.

The combined entity retained the name Ho Chi Minh City. It now contains 168 commune-level units: 113 wards, 54 communes, and one special administrative unit.

The city operates from three administrative centres. The main one remains at 86 Lê Thánh Tôn. The second sits in the former Bình Dương administrative centre, the third in the former Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu centre.

District 1 Is Now Four Wards

For companies with offices in the traditional central business district, this is the change that matters most day to day.

District 1’s ten wards were consolidated into four. The table below maps the old names to the new ones.

• Bến Nghé → Sài Gòn
• Đa Kao (part) → Sài Gòn
• Nguyễn Thái Bình (part) → Sài Gòn
• Tân Định → Tân Định
• Đa Kao (remainder) → Tân Định
• Bến Thành → Bến Thành
• Phạm Ngũ Lão → Bến Thành
• Nguyễn Thái Bình (remainder) → Bến Thành
• Cầu Ông Lãnh (part) → Bến Thành
• Cầu Kho, Cô Giang, Nguyễn Cư Trinh → Cầu Ông Lãnh

Two things are worth noting here.

First, the new ward names are historically loaded rather than administratively neutral. Sài Gòn, Bến Thành and Tân Định are names with weight. A company headquartered in Phường Sài Gòn has an address that reads differently to a Vietnamese partner than one in a numbered ward ever did.

Second, several former wards were split rather than merged whole. Đa Kao and Nguyễn Thái Bình were each divided between two new wards. If your office sat in either, the correct new ward depends on the specific street address — not on a simple lookup.

What This Means for Your Lease and Registration

The practical implications separate into things you must act on and things you can leave alone.

What stays valid

Your enterprise tax code does not change. Neither does your enterprise registration number, nor the legal validity of contracts signed under the old address format.

Existing land use certificates, lease agreements and business registration certificates showing pre-July 2025 addresses remain legally valid. There is no requirement to reissue documents purely because the ward name changed.

What needs updating

New transactions are where this becomes live. A lease signed in 2026 should carry the current ward name. A business registration amendment filed now will use the new format. Invoices, contracts and official correspondence issued going forward should reflect the current address.

For companies completing a new entity registration — a scenario common among FDI entrants — the address on the application must match the current administrative structure. An application listing “District 1” will need correcting.

What to check before signing an office lease

Three specific items are worth confirming when reviewing any office for rent in Ho Chi Minh City in 2026:

• The address on the lease matches current administrative naming. A landlord using outdated ward names in a 2026 contract signals loose administration generally.
• The building’s address is confirmed for business registration purposes. Serviced office operators should be able to state which ward the property now sits in and confirm other companies have registered there successfully post-reform.
• Any address-change costs are clarified. If your entity needs a registration amendment because of the move, understand who handles the filing.

The Office Market Map Is Now Much Larger

The merger changed something less discussed but arguably more consequential: what “Ho Chi Minh City” means as a real estate market.

The city now includes the entire former Bình Dương province — Vietnam’s most concentrated manufacturing and industrial base — and the entire former Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu province, home to the Cái Mép – Thị Vải deep-water port complex.

For a manufacturing company, this means factory operations in the former Bình Dương and a commercial office in the traditional centre now sit within one administrative jurisdiction. Filings, permits and administrative procedures that previously crossed provincial boundaries no longer do.

For logistics and shipping companies, port operations at Cái Mép and a city office are now the same city.

This has not yet changed office demand patterns dramatically. But it removes friction that shaped location decisions for years, and it expands the definition of a Ho Chi Minh City address considerably. Companies choosing an office for rent in Ho Chi Minh City now have a legitimately wider field than the phrase implied two years ago.

Why the Central Wards Still Matter Most

None of this diminishes the case for a central address. If anything, consolidation sharpened it.

The traditional financial and commercial core — now Phường Sài Gòn and Phường Bến Thành — remains where the banks, law firms, consulates and corporate headquarters are. Concentrating the former ten wards into four has made the central business district easier to describe, not less prestigious.

There is a practical benefit for foreign companies specifically. Explaining “Bến Nghé Ward, District 1” to an overseas head office was always awkward. “Phường Sài Gòn, Ho Chi Minh City” is cleaner, and the name carries recognition internationally that a numbered ward never did.

Dreamplex operates two locations in this central area — Nguyễn Trung Ngạn in the Sài Gòn ward area and Trần Quang Khải in Tân Định — alongside locations in the former District 3 and Thủ Đức areas, and one in Hanoi.

A Practical Checklist

For a company operating in Ho Chi Minh City in 2026, these are the items worth working through:

• Confirm your current ward. If your office sat in a ward that was split — Đa Kao or Nguyễn Thái Bình in the former District 1 — verify which new ward your specific street address falls into.
• Update templates, not archives. Correct your invoice templates, contract templates, letterhead and website. Leave historical documents alone.
• Check your business registration. No urgent action is required, but confirm what format your registration currently shows and when it will next need amending.
• Brief your overseas headquarters. If a regional or global head office maintains an address database, it will show an address that no longer exists administratively.
• Verify with your bank and tax authority. Both should have your record updated automatically. Confirming takes minutes and avoids surprises later.
• Apply new naming to any lease under negotiation. A 2026 lease should not reference an administrative unit that was abolished in 2025.

What This Doesn’t Change

It is worth being clear about the limits of this reform, because some coverage has overstated it.

Property rights are unaffected. Lease terms are unaffected. Tax obligations, licensing requirements and foreign ownership rules are unchanged by the administrative restructuring itself.

Streets did not move. Buildings did not move. The commute did not change. What changed is the administrative label attached to a location, and the boundaries of the city that contains it.

For most companies, this is a documentation exercise rather than a strategic one. But for a company entering the market, looking for an office for rent in Ho Chi Minh City, negotiating a lease, or registering an entity in 2026, getting the address structure right the first time avoids a correction cycle later — and signals to Vietnamese counterparties that the company is paying attention.

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