Vietnam Decree 199/2025/NĐ-CP raises yellow-phosphorus export tax, amends import tariff schedule

Mechanism

Decree 199/2025/NĐ-CP amends Decree 26/2023/NĐ-CP, Vietnam's consolidated Export Tariff / Preferential Import Tariff Schedule. The most consequential line item is a phased export-duty increase on yellow phosphorus (HS 2804.70): 5% today, rising to 10% from 1 January 2026 and 15% from 1 January 2027. Yellow phosphorus is a feedstock for phosphoric acid, flame retardants, and agrochemical production; taxing the raw export more heavily pushes processing margin toward domestic downstream users rather than foreign buyers — the same upstream-capture logic seen in Indonesia's nickel and Egypt's mineral-export duty programmes, applied here to a chemical input rather than a metal ore.

Separately, the decree tightens the preferential (0%) import tariff for tin-mill blackplate steel to a hard end-August 2025 cutoff, and revises the minimum-production-volume thresholds automakers must hit to qualify for reduced import duty on auto parts under the domestic-manufacturing incentive programme — extending eligibility language to cover battery-electric, hybrid, and fuel-cell vehicle lines.

Downstream implications

• Yellow-phosphorus exporters (Vietnam is a mid-tier global producer) face a

3x tax escalation over 18 months, incentivizing on-shore phosphoric-acid and downstream-chemical capacity build-out.

• TMBP steel importers lose the 0% duty window after August 2025, raising

input costs for tin-plate/packaging steel processors.

• EV/hybrid/fuel-cell assemblers get clearer (and reportedly eased) volume

thresholds to access the auto-parts tariff-incentive programme, consistent with Vietnam's broader EV industrial-policy push (see 2024-09-21-vietnam-decision-1018-semiconductor-strategy and related green-industry decrees).

Open questions

• Full HS-line detail of the preferential import-tariff changes beyond

TMBP steel and auto parts was not confirmed from the primary source in this pass — Vietnamese-language decree annexes may specify further lines.

• Whether the yellow-phosphorus export-tax path is aimed at a specific

export destination (e.g. China) is not stated in the decree text surfaced so far.