In Vietnam’s emerging two-tier local government system (province–commune), the provincial level is no longer simply an administrative “upper tier”. It is being reconstructed as a regional governance hub: a system integrator responsible for (i) strategic planning and spatial coordination, (ii) resource allocation and public investment governance, (iii) oversight and steering of commune-level administration, and (iv) integrated delivery of administrative services through standardized processes and digital systems.
This shift is inseparable from the broader territorial reform that reduces the country to 34 provincial-level administrative units (28 provinces and 6 centrally run cities). The National Assembly’s resolution on rearranging provincial-level units explicitly sets the new baseline structure at 34 units, effective from June 12, 2025, thereby increasing the territorial scale and governance complexity that the provincial level must manage.
Under a two-tier model, the removal of the district layer produces a functional “gap” in coordination. Vietnam’s reform logic fills that gap primarily by repositioning provinces as the coordinating center, while also professionalizing and empowering communes as frontline service providers. This chapter explains what that provincial hub role means in practice, why it is central to the reform’s success, and where the main implementation stresses will concentrate.
The abolition of the district level has a predictable institutional consequence: functions that were once performed by districts cannot simply disappear. They must be (a) reassigned to provinces, (b) reassigned to communes, or (c) absorbed by digitalized workflows and standardized administrative processes that reduce the need for intermediate supervision.
Vietnam’s post-2025 reform blueprint is clearly moving in a dual direction:
- Upward consolidation for cross-commune functions (planning coherence, investment coordination, inspection, service quality management).
- Downward operationalization for citizen-facing services (commune-level administrative handling, service delivery, local dispute facilitation where appropriate).
- Systemization through digitization and standard codes to manage scale without recreating a hidden “district-like” bureaucracy.
Government implementation guidance (notably the Government’s plan to implement the two-tier model) emphasizes review and refinement of decentralization/delegation regulations and the overhaul of procedures to keep the new model operating smoothly.
This is why the provincial level becomes pivotal: if provinces cannot coordinate at scale, the system risks either (i) administrative overload at communes, or (ii) a de facto recreation of district-like layers inside provincial departments undermining the reform’s core logic.
The 34-province structure matters because it changes the governing terrain. Fewer provinces generally implies:
- larger administrative territories,
- more diverse socio-economic subregions within one province,
- greater internal inequality in capacity and infrastructure, and
- more complex spatial planning and resource allocation challenges.
The National Assembly resolution on provincial-level rearrangement establishes this nationwide structure; Government communications further operationalize and describe the 34-unit map and the post-merger configuration.
This is not just cartography. It is an explicit policy move toward regional-scale governance, where a province must increasingly function like a coordinated “economic region” rather than a small administrative unit. In effect, the province is expected to become:
- a strategic planning authority,
- a capital allocation manager,
- a territorial regulator for land/infrastructure/environment, and
- a service quality controller for communes.
The Provincial Hub Role in Strategic Planning and Spatial Governance
Vietnam’s planning system gives provinces a central role through “provincial planning” (quy hoạch tỉnh) under the national planning framework. The Planning Law sets the legal architecture for planning, including provincial planning as part of the national planning system and emphasizing long-term horizon and alignment.
In practical terms, the province through its People’s Committee and specialized departments must integrate:
- land use orientation,
- industrial clusters and economic corridors,
- logistics and transport systems,
- urban–rural service networks, and
- environmental/climate resilience priorities.
When districts are removed, cross-commune coordination becomes a provincial responsibility by necessity. Provincial planning is the “master integration tool” that allows provinces to:
- resolve inter-commune conflicts over land use and infrastructure routes,
- sequence projects to match fiscal and capacity constraints,
- reduce contradictory licensing decisions across communes, and
- align local development with national objectives.
A critical reform implication is that provincial planning must become a governance function, not merely a compliance document. Under the two-tier model, provinces cannot rely on districts to perform project-level coordination; provinces must directly orchestrate planning implementation through:
- integrated provincial steering mechanisms,
- standardized decision pathways, and
- data-based monitoring.
This is consistent with the broader reform narrative that the revised local government law aims to remove bottlenecks and unlock resources for development-oriented governance.
Land Governance: Provinces as the Main “Gatekeeper” of Spatial Resource Allocation
Land remains Vietnam’s most politically and economically sensitive governance domain. Under prevailing land regulations, provinces hold central responsibilities in land administration and land-use planning functions; new implementing regulations also continue to professionalize provincial processes for land-use planning and related technical preparation.
For example, post–Land Law 2024 implementation guidance clarifies that the provincial land management agency leads and supports the provincial People’s Committee in developing provincial land-use plans and related instruments.
Additionally, Government communications on amendments to land-law implementing decrees point to continued refinement of requirements and professional standards for consultants and procedures in provincial-level land-use planning (and commune-level planning as well).
In a two-tier system, land governance becomes even more province-centric because:
- inter-commune land allocation conflicts will be more frequent (no district mediation layer),
- commune-level administrative responsibilities increase but must remain bounded and standardized,
- provincial oversight must prevent uneven enforcement that could trigger social grievances.
This also links to specialized policy discussions on land governance under the two-tier local government model, including delineation of responsibilities and the commune’s involvement under provincial direction.
Bottom line: if the province cannot manage land governance coherently, the reform will not achieve its goals because land is the primary channel through which investment, infrastructure, and local development are executed.
Public Investment and Budget Governance: The Province as Capital Allocator and Delivery Controller
The provincial level is structurally positioned to become the primary “capital allocator” for local development because:
- it is the level where development priorities are consolidated,
- it is responsible for aligning investments with planning,
- it must manage disbursement discipline and project governance.
Vietnam’s Public Investment Law explicitly assigns tasks and powers to provincial People’s Committees in managing public investment within their territory, including submitting key contents to provincial People’s Councils and implementing state management responsibilities in public investment.
Under the two-tier model, provinces face a higher governance burden in public investment because district project management roles are reduced or removed. Provinces must therefore strengthen:
- project appraisal and prioritization capacity,
- procurement oversight and audit readiness,
- implementation supervision (especially across many communes),
- coordination between provincial departments (construction, transport, land, environment).
This is where the “regional hub” concept becomes operational: provinces must govern not only what gets built, but how implementation is synchronized across communes and aligned with national and provincial strategies.
Administrative Service Delivery at Scale: Provincial One-Stop Centers and Standardized Workflows
One of the most important operational instruments enabling the province-as-hub is the “one-stop shop” administrative service model. The Government’s decree on one-stop and interlinked one-stop mechanisms establishes institutional arrangements such as provincial public administration service centers and staffing/management mechanisms under provincial authority.
In a two-tier system, this matters more because citizens and enterprises will expect:
- fewer “handoffs” across layers,
- clearer responsibility points,
- trackable administrative timelines.
Provincial service centers and unified administrative workflows can reduce the need for intermediate layers by:
- standardizing dossier reception and tracking,
- integrating sectoral review steps,
- enabling digital monitoring of delays and bottlenecks.
This aligns with the Government’s stated objective through its implementation plan for the two-tier model to overhaul regulations, cut procedural delays, and strengthen coordination to deliver faster and more efficient services.
Oversight and Steering of Communes: Provinces as the Direct Managerial Authority
A two-tier model creates a more direct oversight relationship between provinces and communes. Vietnam’s revised legal framework reinforces this direct vertical relationship by enabling provincial authorities to exercise personnel and institutional control mechanisms relevant to commune-level operations.
For example, the English text of the Law on Organization of Local Government (2025) shows explicit provisions where the Chairperson of the provincial-level People’s Committee can decide to dispatch or remove the Chairperson/Vice Chairperson of the commune-level People’s Committee in defined circumstances.
This illustrates an important institutional design choice: communes are empowered for frontline service delivery, but provinces retain strong steering tools to ensure:
- compliance with law and policy,
- performance discipline,
- administrative integrity.
This is consistent with Vietnam’s unitary-state governance logic: decentralization is paired with control instruments to prevent fragmentation and ensure consistency.
Digital Governance and Data Standardization: The Hub Cannot Work Without Systems
As territorial scale increases (34 provinces) and vertical oversight becomes direct (province–commune), system capacity becomes the substitute for missing administrative layers.
A major operational enabler is the national standardization of administrative unit codes. The Prime Minister’s decision on the list and codes of administrative units provides a unified coding system for 34 provincial units and 3,321 commune-level units from July 1, 2025 establishing unique identifiers and rules for how codes change when units merge or split.
This is not a technical detail. It is foundational infrastructure for:
- interoperable databases,
- integrated public service portals,
- cross-agency data sharing,
- statistical governance and performance dashboards,
- continuity in records when territorial units are reorganized.
In short: the province can only function as a governance hub if it can see, track, and coordinate commune-level operations through standardized data and workflow systems otherwise, the reform simply shifts bottlenecks upward.
Key Implementation Stresses for the Provincial Hub Role
The province-as-hub model has clear benefits but also concentrates risks. The main stress points include:
- Provincial overload risk: Provinces must supervise many more communes directly. Without redesigned workflows and digital systems, provinces can become the new bottleneck.
- Intra-provincial inequality risk: Post-merger provinces contain communes with very different capacity levels; a hub model must include differentiated support, not uniform expectations.
- Planning–investment mismatch risk: If provincial planning becomes formalistic, investment decisions will fragment again just without districts.
- Land governance integrity risk: Land disputes and inconsistent enforcement can expand quickly in a two-tier environment unless provincial oversight is disciplined and predictable.
- Service delivery trust risk: If communes cannot deliver services reliably and provinces cannot intervene effectively, the citizen-facing legitimacy of the reform will be undermined.
These are not theoretical concerns; they are the natural governance risks that arise when a system removes an intermediate tier while simultaneously scaling up provincial territories.
Conclusion
Vietnam’s two-tier local government model and the 34-province restructuring jointly reposition provinces as regional governance hubs the operating system that integrates planning, land, investment, service delivery, oversight, and digital coordination.
The province’s hub role is supported by:
- the nationwide adoption of the two-tier model and associated implementation planning by the Government,
- the formal restructuring to 34 provincial units,
- standardized administrative codes enabling data integration,
- legal mechanisms that strengthen provincial steering over communes,
- and the legal frameworks for planning, land, and public investment that inherently rely on provincial coordination.
The success of the two-tier system therefore hinges on whether provinces can evolve from being administrators of procedures into governors of systems capable of strategic coordination, disciplined oversight, and digitally enabled service quality at scale.
Read more: Abolishing the District Tier: The Governance Philosophy Behind This Reform
