Amendments to the postal law amid rapid growth of e-commerce

The postal market has expanded in parcel volume, service networks, the number of participating companies, and revenue, driven in large part by the rapid growth of e-commerce. In the context of digital transformation, postal services are increasingly viewed as essential infrastructure, supporting the “flow of material goods” alongside the “flow of data” across society.

The Ministry of Justice has released the appraisal dossier for the draft amended Postal Law. The Ministry of Science and Technology, the lead drafting agency, said that after 15 years of implementing the Postal Law of 2010, the market structure has changed: letter mail services have declined rapidly, while parcel and goods delivery services serving e-commerce have become the main growth driver.

Market growth and operational scale

From 2020 to 2025, the postal market recorded explosive growth. Total parcel volume rose more than fourfold, increasing from over 1 billion parcels in 2020 to more than 4.2 billion parcels in 2025. Parcels (packaged goods) account for more than 90% of total parcel volume.

The Ministry of Science and Technology noted that the rapid rise in parcel volume has also created new safety and security issues in postal operations.

In terms of market participation, the number of companies grew more than 19-fold, with participants spanning multiple economic sectors. These include technology-enabled postal enterprises and large revenue firms with 1,000 billion VND or more, with some reporting revenues above 10,000 billion VND.

In 2025, the market’s contribution to the state budget increased 5.8 times compared with 2018, equivalent to about 8,000 billion VND versus 1,371 billion VND.

Network expansion and improved accessibility

By 2025, the total number of postal service points across the market exceeded 23,450. Of these, 13,582 points belong to the public postal network, at an average of approximately 2.89 square kilometers per point.

After 15 years, the average service radius per public postal point was reduced by 4.7 times, improving postal service accessibility for the Vietnamese population.

Purpose of the amended Postal Law

The Ministry of Science and Technology said the proposed revision aims to expand the scope of postal services and broaden universal postal service coverage. This is intended to help people transact in the digital environment and access e-commerce, supporting development of the digital economy.

At the same time, the draft seeks to foster innovation, raise competitiveness, protect consumers’ legal rights, and promote the private sector as a key driver in developing postal services.

Proposed policy groups

The dossier proposes five major policy groups:

• Policy 1: Adjust and expand the scope of postal services to include receiving, transporting, delivering parcels, and related processes directly connected to parcels, such as warehousing, order processing, packaging, returns, and cash-on-delivery, organized on the postal network.
• Policy 2: Adjust and expand the scope and governance mechanism of public-interest postal services, including mail and parcel services, to ensure people can access e-commerce and to support the provision of public services to people.
• Policy 3: Develop postal services into essential national infrastructure and the backbone of the digital economy, especially for e-commerce. Organize postal operations with a clear separation between infrastructure and services, dividing postal enterprises into two types: those operating the postal network and those not operating the postal network.
• Policy 4: Reform postal services into a safe digital postal service based on postal data and sender identification. Each parcel would be linked to a unique identifier linked to sender identity information to ensure traceability across the service chain.
• Policy 5: Establish a sandbox mechanism to pilot new models and technologies in the postal sector.