PROVISIONS ON BUSINESS NAME

Legal basis: provisions on business name

The Enterprise Law 2020 takes effect from January 1, 2021;
Decree No. 01/2021/ND-CP issued on January 4, 2021 on Enterprise Registration;

When naming foreign-owned enterprises, investors should note the following provisions:

1. Name of Enterprise provisions on business name

An enterprise has the following three forms of name:

Name written in Vietnamese
Name written in foreign language
Abbreviations

a. Name written in Vietnamese provisions on business name

The Vietnamese name is the official name used on the legal documents of the enterprise.

The full Vietnamese name structure of an enterprise includes:

type of business + business name

Ex.: Công ty TNHH Ánh Dương

Công ty CP TM&DV Trại Vàng

Type of business :

There are four types of businesses to choose from: provisions on business name

Limited liability company: written as “công ty trách nhiệm hữu hạn” or “công ty TNHH”;
Joint Stock Company: written as “công ty cổ phần” or “công ty CP”;
Partnerships: written as “công ty hợp danh” or “công ty HD”;
Private enterprise: written as “doanh nghiệp tư nhân”, “DNTN” or “doanh nghiệp TN”;

Business name

Written with the letters of the Vietnamese alphabet, the letters F, J, Z, W, numbers and symbols.
The business name must be distinguishable, not identical or confusing with other business names registered nationwide.
Not in the cases of refusal as specified in section 3. provisions on business name

b. Name written in foreign language provisions on business name

The enterprise name in a foreign language is the name translated from the Vietnamese name into one of the Latin script foreign languages (English, French, etc.). When translating into a foreign language, the enterprise’s proper name may remain the same or be translated in the corresponding sense into a foreign language.
In case an enterprise has a name in a foreign language, the name in foreign language of the enterprise shall be printed or written in a font size smaller than the Vietnamese name of the enterprise at the head office, branch, representative office or location. business of the enterprise or on the transaction papers, documents and publications issued by the enterprise.

Ex:

Name written in Vietnamese: Công ty TNHH Ánh Dương

Name written in foreign language: Anh Duong Company Limited

or Sunlight Company Limited

c. Abbreviations

The abbreviated name of the enterprise is abbreviated from the Vietnamese name or the name written in a foreign language and must not be the same as the initial name of the registered enterprise. provisions on business name

Note: do not add other words to the abbreviation other than the above to avoid being rejected by the business registration agency. provisions on business name

Ex:

Name written in Vietnamese: Công ty TNHH Ánh Dương

Name written in foreign language: Anh Duong Company Limited

or Sunlight Company Limited

Abbreviations: Sunlight Co.

or Sunlight

2. Name of branch, representative office, business location

Names of branches, representative offices and business locations must be written in letters of the Vietnamese alphabet, the letters F, J, Z, W, numbers and symbols.
The name of the branch or representative office must bear the name of the enterprise together with the phrase “Branch” in the case of a branch, the phrase “Representative office” in the case of a representative office.

Ex:

Name of Enterprise: Công ty TNHH Ánh Dương

Name of Branch: Chi nhánh – Công ty TNHH Ánh Dương

Name of Representative Office: Văn phòng đại diện – Công ty TNHH Ánh Dương

3. Cases of refusal to grant business names

The enterprise registration authority has the right to refuse to grant the proposed name of an enterprise in the following cases:

Vietnamese name or proper name or foreign language name or abbreviated name identical with the initials of the registered enterprise.
The Vietnamese name sounds the same as the registered business name;
The proper name of an enterprise is only different from the proper name of an enterprise of the same type registered by:
A natural number, an ordinal number or a letter of the Vietnamese alphabet, letters F, J, Z, W written immediately or immediately after the proper name of that enterprise;
Symbols “&” or “and”, “.”, “,”, “+”, “-”, “_”;
The word “tan” immediately before or the word “new” is written immediately or immediately after or before the proper name of the registered enterprise;
Phrases “North”, “South”, “Central”, “Western”, “Eastern”;
Use names of state agencies, units of people’s armed forces, names of political organizations, socio-political organizations, socio-political-professional organizations, social organizations, and organizations. social – profession to do all or part of the proper name of the business, unless approved by that agency, unit or organization.
Using words and signs that violate the historical, cultural, ethical and fine traditions of the nation.

Before registering an enterprise or changing its name, an enterprise needs to do a preliminary lookup of the names of registered enterprises in the national database of business registration to see if there is any overlap or confusion.

Businesslicense.com will support free search in case we carry out business registration procedures for customers.