Seven high-paying jobs will be banned from overseas labor export starting March 1, 2027. (Illustrative image: Center for Overseas Labor)

The regulations specify seven prohibited job categories.

The amended Law on Vietnamese Workers Working Abroad under Contract, recently passed in 2026, specifically stipulates seven prohibited job categories for which Vietnamese workers are not allowed to be sent abroad. These include:

Firstly, there is the issue of massage work. Organizations are also prohibited from recruiting, preparing, or sending Vietnamese workers abroad to perform this job.

Secondly, the work involves frequent exposure to explosives; toxic substances in the smelting of non-ferrous metals (copper, lead, mercury, silver, zinc); and frequent exposure to manganese and mercury dioxide.

Thirdly, jobs involving exposure to open radiation sources and the mining of various radioactive ores; Fourthly, jobs in production and packaging that involve frequent contact with chemicals such as nitric acid, sodium sulfate, carbon dioxide, or highly toxic pesticides, herbicides, rodenticides, disinfectants, and anti-moth agents.

Fifth, the work involves hunting wild animals, crocodiles, and sharks; sixth, it involves working regularly in places with insufficient air and high pressure (underground, at the bottom of the ocean); and seventh, it involves embalming, burying corpses, cremating bodies, and exhuming graves.

For the seven jobs mentioned above, no matter how high the income, sending workers abroad under contract is prohibited.

In addition, regarding other prohibited acts in the field of Vietnamese workers going abroad for employment, the law amends and supplements several clauses of Article 7.

Accordingly, it is strictly prohibited to work abroad or to organize the recruitment, preparation, and sending of Vietnamese workers abroad under contract that violates national security, social order and safety, social ethics, the health of workers and the community, or is not permitted by the receiving country.

At the same time, the law also amends and supplements the prohibition against organizing overseas employment or organizing the selection, preparation of labor resources, and sending Vietnamese workers to work abroad in areas of conflict or areas where competent authorities have advised against or restricted travel.

Businesses whose licenses have been revoked may not be re-issued for 5 years.

The Law on Sending Vietnamese Workers Abroad under Contract (amended) also stipulates a time limit for granting licenses to businesses whose licenses have been revoked.

Accordingly, businesses whose licenses are revoked under the circumstances specified in points a, d, or e of Clause 2, Article 16 shall not be granted licenses for a period of 05 years from the date of the revocation decision.

These cases include: making false declarations in license application documents; violating certain prohibited acts; failing to fully fulfill certain obligations, resulting in serious material or psychological harm to employees.

The legal representative of a business whose license is revoked in the above cases is also "not allowed to be the legal representative of a business that has been granted a license" for a period of 5 years.

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