What buying a home costs on top of the price: fees, taxes and the 2% fund

A bank lending 2.4 billion dong against a 3.5 billion dong home expects the buyer to find the other 1.1 billion. It does not mention that the purchase itself generates a further set of taxes and fees, some paid to the state, some to a notary, some to the building, and that most of them fall due in the same few weeks as the down payment. None of them is large on its own. Together they are a month or more of household income that has to be in cash.

The registration fee: 0.5%

Registering ownership of a house or land carries a registration fee, lệ phí trước bạ, of 0.5% under Decree 10/2022/NĐ-CP. By law it is paid by the person registering, which in a purchase is the buyer, though the parties can agree otherwise.

The base used to be the price set by the provincial authorities, which was often well below the market. Since 1 July 2025, under Decree 175/2025/NĐ-CP, where the contract price is higher than the provincial price, the contract price is used. In practice the fee is 0.5% of whichever is higher. On a 3.5 billion dong purchase that is 17,500,000 dong. For a new apartment, the 2% maintenance fund is excluded from the base provided the contract shows it separately.

A temporary discount exists. Government Resolution 66.22/2026/NQ-CP reduces the fee by 10% for house and land transfers filed electronically through a level-2 VNeID account between 15 August 2026 and 28 February 2027, capped at five times the base salary, about 12.65 million dong. On the example the saving is 1,750,000 dong. The implementing guidance was still in draft in August 2026, so ask the tax office whether it is being applied before relying on it.

Personal income tax: 2% of the price, paid by the seller

When an individual sells a home, the income is taxed at 2% of the transfer price. That rule survived the new Law on Personal Income Tax No. 109/2025/QH15, in force since 1 July 2026: drafts in 2025 proposed taxing the gain at 20%, or a rate falling with the holding period, and both were dropped. As before, the price used cannot be lower than the provincial land price table.

By law the seller pays. In practice it is negotiated, and a “net price” deal usually moves the tax and the registration fee to the buyer. On 3.5 billion the tax is 70,000,000 dong, which is why it matters who carries it. A seller who owns only that one home, has held it for at least 183 days and sells the whole of it is exempt.

Buying a new unit from a developer involves no personal income tax: the seller is a company.

Notary fees

A sale between individuals, and every mortgage of a house or land, must be notarised. The fee is set on a sliding scale by Circular 257/2016/TT-BTC as amended, based on the value of the contract, or for a mortgage on the loan amount where the contract states one.

On the example the sale contract costs 2,450,000 dong and the 2.4 billion mortgage contract 1,840,000 dong. Drafting and copying are charged separately, within provincial maximums. A purchase from a developer is notarised only if the parties want it, but the bank’s mortgage still is.

Registering the mortgage and the certificate

The mortgage must be registered with the land registration office, and the transfer of the ownership certificate must be registered too. Both fees are set by each province and are small: in Ho Chi Minh City, for example, a mortgage registration costs individuals up to about a million dong per file, and the appraisal fee for a transfer, as set in 2023, between 1.01 and 1.4 million. Since January 2026 the original certificate no longer has to be handed in to register a mortgage, because the office reads the data from the land database.

New apartments: the 2% maintenance fund

Article 152 of the Housing Law 2023 requires a buyer purchasing an apartment from the developer to pay 2% of the unit’s value into the building’s maintenance fund. It is calculated separately from the price and must be stated in the contract, and it is usually paid on or before handover. On 3.5 billion it is 70,000,000 dong, the single largest item for a new flat. A buyer of a resale apartment does not pay it again; the fund belongs to the building.

Insurance: what is compulsory and what is not

Two kinds of insurance turn up at a mortgage signing, and the law treats them very differently.

• Fire and explosion insurance is compulsory for apartment buildings of five floors or more, or 1,000 square metres or more of floor area, under the list in Decree 105/2025/NĐ-CP. Once a unit is handed over, its owner is responsible for insuring it. The premium is modest.
• Life, credit protection and investment-linked insurance is not compulsory. Article 15 of the Law on Credit Institutions 2024 forbids banks and their staff from tying the sale of non-compulsory insurance to a banking product “in any form”. Circular 67/2023/TT-BTC goes further for investment-linked policies: a bank may not advise on or arrange one within 60 days before or after a loan is fully disbursed.

These rules followed a 2023 inspection by the Ministry of Finance of insurers selling through banks, which found widespread mis-selling and first-year lapse rates of 32% to 57%. A bank may still offer insurance, and may lawfully offer a lower rate to a customer who takes it. What it may not do is make the loan conditional on it. What a 6% premium does to the real price of the loan is in insurance sold with the mortgage.

Putting it together

Two versions of the same 3.5 billion dong purchase, each with a 2.4 billion dong loan. The bank’s own fees, valuation and arrangement, have no legal tariff; the 15,000,000 dong used for them below is the figure in the site’s worked example.

So the cash needed at signing is not 1.1 billion but roughly 1.14 to 1.21 billion dong, and on a resale bought on a net-price basis it is closer to 1.21 billion as well. Of those totals only the bank’s fees affect the loan’s effective rate; the rest are costs of owning the property, not of borrowing. The 15 million in bank fees moves the effective rate of the worked example by about 0.12 of a point, which is set out in one number for the whole loan.

After you move in

Two recurring costs follow. Non-agricultural land use tax on residential land is progressive from 0.03% of the land’s table value, and for an apartment it is calculated on a small allocated share of the land, so it is usually trivial. The apartment management fee is not: it is agreed between owners and the operator within a provincial frame. In Hanoi the 2026 frame for buildings with lifts runs from 1,200 to 16,500 dong per square metre per month; on a 75 square metre flat at 12,000 dong that is 900,000 dong a month, or 10.8 million a year, before parking. Count it alongside the instalment when testing affordability in the loan inspector, as part of monthly expenses.

Before you sign

1. Agree in writing who pays the registration fee and the seller’s income tax.
2. Check the 2% maintenance fund is shown separately in a developer’s contract.
3. Ask the bank for its fees as a single total, before you accept the offer.
4. Decline any insurance you did not ask for, and ask for the rate without it in writing.
5. Keep a reserve for the first year’s management fees and fire insurance.