The Vietnam beer market: who holds the share, what the tax path does to prices, and what beer advertising may do

Search for the size of Vietnam’s beer market and the answers differ by hundreds of millions of litres. Search for who leads it and the two largest brewers both describe themselves as the leader. Most of the disagreement comes from definitions, and the rest from the simple fact that the companies concerned do not publish the number.

For a brand considering Vietnam, whether an imported lager, a craft beer or a cider, the leader’s exact share matters less than three things that have changed recently: drink-driving rules that reshaped where beer is drunk, a special consumption tax that rises every January until 2031, and advertising rules that turn on alcohol strength, with the platforms adding limits of their own.

This piece sets out what the official figures show, what can and cannot be said about share, how the tax path works through to a price, and what a beer brand may advertise, where and to whom.

How big is the market: output from the statistics office

Vietnam’s General Statistics Office publishes national beer output every year, in millions of litres. It publishes two series that should not be mixed. Early estimates appear in its monthly and annual socio-economic reports; revised figures appear later in the Statistical Yearbook, and have come out between 2% and 11% lower. For annual levels, the yearbook is the one to use.

The 2025 yearbook prints the same figure, 4,351.8 million litres, for both 2023 and 2024, so growth in 2024 cannot be read from it. The percentage changes are our arithmetic; the yearbook prints levels only.

The current year looks stronger. The office’s early estimate for the first nine months of 2026 is 3,860.3 million litres, up 14.7% on the same period of 2025, against a soft base: the first quarter of 2025 was down 0.5%. That figure belongs to the early-estimate series, so compare it only with other early estimates.

Consumption tells a similar story from the drinker’s side. Kirin’s annual global ranking puts Vietnam eighth in the world in 2024, with 4,577 thousand kilolitres, 2.4% of world beer consumption, after seventh place the year before.

Two consequences for planning. A market of roughly 4.5 billion litres that has only just returned to its 2019 volume is a mature one: a new brand’s volume comes from someone else’s, or from a segment growing faster than the whole. And any market value in dollars published by report sellers is a volume multiplied by an assumed price, which is worth checking against these volumes before it goes into a board pack.

Who holds the share, and why no two figures agree

The most common question, who has the largest share, has no first-hand answer. Sabeco does not publish its sales volume in litres, and at its April 2026 shareholders’ meeting management said the company does not publish market share figures. Its 2024 annual report still calls it Vietnam’s number one brewer. Heineken’s 2025 results describe “acceleration of our leadership position” in Vietnam, and its half-year 2026 release reports “record market share levels across both on- and off-premise channels”, without a percentage. Carlsberg ranks itself fourth in Vietnam, by its own estimate.

What circulates instead:

The rows cannot be reconciled and should not be averaged. They agree on the shape: two groups hold most of the volume, two more hold most of the rest, and the market is concentrated enough that shelf space, cold-chain space and outlet agreements are the scarce resource for anyone else.

For an entrant, segment figures say more than share figures. Heineken reports that its Heineken® brand volume grew “in the forties” in the first half of 2026, led by Heineken® Silver. Carlsberg reported 21% volume growth for its premium portfolio in Vietnam in 2024. Sabeco’s 2025 annual report names premiumisation as a force changing the competitive dynamics. Tết, the Lunar New Year, concentrates that pattern: Heineken credits part of its first-half 2026 growth to a strong festive season in which its premium portfolio outperformed, and Sabeco’s management, as reported by VietnamFinance in May 2025, said its share usually narrows in the first quarter because buyers favour premium brands for drinking and for gifts.

Drink-driving: what changed in 2020, and again in 2025

Since January 2020, Vietnamese law has prohibited driving with any alcohol at all in the blood or breath. The alcohol law, Law 44/2019, wrote zero tolerance into the road traffic rules, and Decree 100/2019 attached the fines. Beer output fell 15.1% that year. COVID-19 arrived at the same time, so the two effects cannot be separated, though contemporary reports from Hanoi beer halls described losing most of their customers within weeks.

The rule was restated in the 2024 Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety and re-priced by Decree 168/2024, both in force since 1 January 2025:

Sabeco’s 2025 annual report says the beer industry in 2026 remains affected by the alcohol law and Decree 168, leaving many companies’ results short of expectations. National output still rose 4.1% in 2025, and Heineken describes a growing market, so the decree is best treated as a headwind the industry cites rather than a measured loss.

What it changes for a new brand is where beer is drunk. Heineken described 2024 as a year in which the off-premise channel led the market back to growth, with on-premise returning to growth only in the last quarter. A plan built on the beer hall and the restaurant as the main stage should test that assumption against current data for its own price band before the budget is split.

Special consumption tax: 65% in 2026, 90% by 2031

Beer pays special consumption tax (SCT) as well as VAT. The rate has been 65% since 2018. The 2025 SCT Law, Law 66/2025/QH15, in force since 1 January 2026, keeps 65% for 2026 and raises it by five points every January:

The tax is charged on the price at which the brewer or importer sells, excluding VAT, with the tax itself taken out of that price: the taxable price is the selling price divided by one plus the rate. Importers also pay SCT at the border on the customs value plus import duty, and credit it against the tax due when they sell. VAT of 10% then applies on top, and beer is excluded from the temporary two-point VAT reduction that runs until the end of 2026.

Import duty depends on origin. The most-favoured-nation rate on beer is 35%. Under the EU–Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, EU beer pays 22% in 2026 and 18% in 2027, and the European Commission’s trade portal lists the duty as eliminated by August 2030.

A worked example: the tax path and the price of a can

The figures below are illustrative, set to 100 for simplicity. Three cans of lager reach the seller at the same cost before duty and tax, and each seller adds the same 30 for its own costs and margin. One is brewed in Vietnam, one imported from the EU, one imported from a country without a trade agreement. The EU line assumes duty reaches zero by 2031, as the Commission’s portal lists.

Three things follow. A seller that holds its own margin has to raise its price by about 15% between 2026 and 2031 from tax alone, because 1.90 divided by 1.65 is about 1.15. For an EU beer, the falling import duty roughly cancels the rising SCT, so its price gap to a local beer of the same cost closes from 17% to nothing. And the cost of the can matters less each year: at 90%, SCT is 47% of the price excluding VAT, against 39% at 65%.

Whether those increases reach the shelf in full is a pricing decision, and the large brewers are already making it: Sabeco attributes part of its first-half 2026 revenue growth to price increases in July 2025 and in April and May 2026. How to build a price ladder against established brands is covered in pricing consumer goods in Vietnam.

What beer advertising may do in Vietnam

The general rules, including Vietnamese-language requirements and the duties of creators, are covered in Vietnam’s advertising law in 2026, and the alcohol rules for bars and restaurants in the F&B market piece. For beer itself, Law 44/2019 and Decree 24/2020 draw the main line at 5.5% alcohol:

Advertising on vehicles is banned at every strength, and drinks of 15% or more may not be advertised or promoted at all.

Since 15 May 2026 the fines sit in Decree 90/2026: VND 20–30 million for breaches of content, the evening slot, outdoor distances, the warning or age control, and VND 30–40 million for advertising beer of 5.5% or more at cultural or sports events or outdoors. Organisations pay double.

Selling has its own rules. The licensing articles of the alcohol law cover spirits and wine, and the decree defining them excludes beer, so beer needs no alcohol trading licence. Sellers must display a notice that they do not sell to people under 18, online shops must collect the buyer’s age before showing products and take cashless payment only, and imported beer needs a Vietnamese sub-label under the labelling decree in force since January 2026.

What the platforms add on top of the law

The Google limit is the one that catches imported and craft beer. A 6% pale ale or a strong Belgian ale can lawfully be advertised online in Vietnam, within the rules above, and still cannot run on Google there. A launch plan for a stronger beer that counts on search advertising needs a different channel for the same job.

Approval by a platform is not legal clearance, and the reverse holds too: an ad that meets the law can still be rejected by a platform’s own policy. Both checks belong in the creative brief, not after it.

Where the figures in this article come from

• General Statistics Office of Vietnam: Statistical Yearbooks 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025, table of main industrial products, beer row; socio-economic report for the third quarter and nine months of 2026 (3 October 2026). Percentage changes are our arithmetic.
• Kirin Holdings, “Global Beer Consumption by Country in 2024”, December 2025.
• Company reports: Sabeco annual reports 2024 and 2025, sustainability report 2025 (production by brewery) and explanation of first-half 2026 results; Heineken N.V. full-year 2024 and 2025 results and half-year 2026 release; Carlsberg Group annual reports 2024 and 2025. Sabeco’s statement on share figures is as reported from its April 2026 shareholders’ meeting.
• Share estimates: FPTS, as published by Thị trường Tài chính Tiền tệ, 9 September 2024; Euromonitor, as reported by The Leader, 7 November 2024; Sabeco on Tết, as reported by VietnamFinance, 14 May 2025.
• Tax and trade: Law 66/2025/QH15 on special consumption tax, Article 8; Decree 360/2025/ND-CP, Article 5; VAT Law 48/2024/QH15; Decree 26/2023/ND-CP (most-favoured-nation tariff); Decree 116/2022/ND-CP (EVFTA tariff); European Commission Access2Markets.
• Drink-driving: Law 44/2019/QH14, Article 5; Law 36/2024/QH15, Article 9; Decree 168/2024/ND-CP, Articles 6 and 7.
• Advertising and sales: Law 44/2019/QH14, Articles 5, 12, 13, 16 and 32; Decree 24/2020/ND-CP, Articles 5 and 6; Decree 90/2026/ND-CP, Article 33; Decree 105/2017/ND-CP, Article 3; Decree 37/2026/ND-CP on labelling.
• Platform policies of Meta, Google, TikTok and Shopee, read on 18 October 2026.

The worked example uses invented numbers except for the tax and duty rates.

Where this work stops

MWY does not import, distribute or sell beer, file customs or tax declarations, or give legal or tax advice, and takes no commission from brewers, importers, distributors, platforms or agencies. Tax and regulatory questions belong with counsel in Vietnam.

What we do in Go-to-Market Strategy is put these constraints into the entry plan before money is committed: the segment sized from the volume data rather than from a report seller’s dollar figure, the price ladder run through the tax path to 2031, the channels a beer of that strength can actually use, and the order in which to enter them.

A brand that first needs to know whether its segment is worth entering can start with that question alone: Vietnam Market Research is six weeks on one product line, sizing the segment from the volume data, testing the price band against the tax path, and ending in a written answer on whether Vietnam deserves a budget.