What a DICA actually does
Under the State Bank of Vietnam's (SBV) foreign exchange management framework (Circular No. 06/2019/TT-NHNN), a DICA is the single, mandatory channel through which a foreign-invested enterprise must route four categories of transaction: inbound capital contributions from the foreign investor, capital transfers between related entities, profit repatriation abroad, and other FDI-related receipts. An enterprise may hold only one DICA per foreign currency, and all capital contributions must move by bank transfer — cash injection of charter capital is not accepted. This channel exists so that the SBV can supervise foreign capital flows in and out of the country through a single, transparent point, rather than through untracked ad hoc transfers.
Any enterprise with foreign investors holding 51% or more of charter capital is required to open one, as are PPP project enterprises and foreign parties to business cooperation contracts.
The sequencing problem this creates today
Historically, a DICA can only be opened after both the IRC and ERC are in hand — meaning a foreign investor's capital sits outside Vietnam, untouchable, for the full 20–25 working days the licensing process takes (see our companion article on setup timelines), even for costs that arise before the entity is legally established: office lease deposits, legal and advisory fees, and initial project set-up costs. In practice, this has meant investors either fund these early costs personally and reimburse later, or accept the delay as a fixed cost of doing business in Vietnam.
What is changing: pre-licensing capital accounts
Vietnam's revised Law on Investment, which took effect 1 March 2026, permits an economic organisation to be established first, with Investment Registration Certificate procedures completed afterward — a reversal of the prior sequencing. In line with this, the State Bank of Vietnam is preparing a draft circular to replace Circular 06/2019/TT-NHNN that would, for the first time, allow foreign investors to open an investment capital account and execute selected payment transactions before the IRC is issued. The draft also introduces a 50% foreign-ownership threshold to distinguish "direct" from "indirect" investment for account-opening purposes.
This is a genuinely practical change for investors, not a cosmetic one: it would allow project-formation costs to be funded through a supervised, bank-held account from the outset, rather than through personal funds or informal arrangements, while keeping the SBV's transparency and monitoring objective intact. As of this writing the replacement circular has not yet been finalised or assigned a number — worth confirming current status before relying on it for transaction planning.
Documentation and timeline once the entity is licensed
Once the IRC and ERC are issued, opening the DICA itself is a bank-side KYC process rather than a further government licensing step. Banks in Vietnam typically request: the ERC and IRC, the company's charter/articles of incorporation, identification documents for directors and legal representatives, proof of address for the company and its owners, and Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) documentation, in addition to the bank's own KYC forms.
Timelines vary by bank and by how quickly documentation is complete: Vietnamese domestic banks typically process a DICA application in 1–2 weeks, while international/foreign banks operating in Vietnam typically take 2–3 weeks, reflecting stricter internal compliance review. As with company registration itself, the practical bottleneck is usually the completeness of the documentation package on first submission, not the bank's processing capacity.
