Vietnam MOIT Circular 04/2026/TT-BCT: 2026 raw-tobacco import tariff-rate quota set at 79,199 tonnes

Background

Vietnam has bound raw-tobacco imports under a WTO tariff-rate-quota (TRQ) mechanism since accession: a limited in-quota volume enters at a lower tariff rate, with the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) publishing the following year's quota volume via an annual circular, then allocating it to licensed importers (predominantly the state-linked cigarette manufacturing sector, which relies on imported leaf blended with domestic tobacco). Circular 04/2026/TT-BCT is this year's instalment.

What changed

• 2026 raw-tobacco TRQ volume: 79,199 tonnes, up from 75,427 tonnes in

2025 — an increase of roughly 5%, consistent with the incremental growth path Vietnam committed to at WTO accession rather than a new discretionary decision.

• Quota period: 15 March 2026 – 31 December 2026.
• Administration: licences allocated per the general import-licensing

framework (Decree 69/2018/NĐ-CP, Circular 12/2018/TT-BCT), which in practice channels most volume to Vietnam's state and joint-venture cigarette producers (e.g. Vinataba group affiliates) that blend imported leaf (chiefly from Brazil, China, and Pakistan/Zimbabwe-origin supply chains) with domestic tobacco.

• Out-of-quota imports remain subject to Vietnam's standard MFN tariff

rate on HS 2401, which is materially higher than the in-quota rate.

Downstream implications

• Routine, WTO-schedule-driven volume update — low severity and not an

escalation or liberalisation signal; included on the register for completeness of Vietnam's annual trade-instrument cycle and because TRQ administration is a recurring instrument worth tracking alongside similar EM tariff-quota resets (cf. EAEU–Kyrgyzstan poultry TRQ, already on the register).

• Modestly eases import-cost pressure on Vietnamese cigarette

manufacturers' leaf-blending input costs versus a flat or reduced quota, at the margin.

Open questions

• The primary Circular's full quota-volume text is contained in an

attached PDF (04-bct.pdf) not independently re-extracted for this filing; the 79,199-tonne and 75,427-tonne figures are sourced from Vietnamese trade-press secondary reporting (Tạp chí Công Thương) cross- checked against the GTA intervention record, not read directly off the primary PDF.

• No stated country-specific sub-allocation within the aggregate quota —

Brazil/China/Pakistan are GTA's listed "affected" countries (likely Vietnam's principal raw-tobacco leaf suppliers) rather than confirmed from the primary text.