Filing a Family Case in Vietnam Under the New Court Structure
If you are getting ready to file for divorce, or to bring any other family matter to court in Vietnam, one of the first things you need to know is simply which court to go to. That answer changed in 2025, and a lot of the guidance still floating around online, some of it on law firm sites, points people to a court that has since closed its doors.
Vietnam reorganised its whole court system on 1 July 2025, and the district-level People’s Courts, where family cases used to begin, are no longer part of it. Knowing which court took their place matters more than it might sound, because filing in the right one is what stands between an application that gets accepted and one that comes straight back to you.
What the Reform Actually Did
This was not just a change of signage. Two whole tiers of court were removed, and a new one was built in their place.
The district-level People’s Courts, close to seven hundred of them, were dissolved. So were the High People’s Courts, which had heard certain appeals. In their place came the regional-level People’s Courts, several hundred nationwide, and these now hold the first-instance jurisdiction that the district courts used to exercise. The provincial-level courts survive, fewer in number after the provinces themselves were consolidated, and they have taken over the appeals that the High Courts once handled. The Supreme People’s Court sits at the top, unchanged.
For a family case, it comes down to one thing. You no longer start at the district court; you start at the regional-level People’s Court.
Which Court Do You File a Divorce or Family Case In Now?
A first-instance family matter, whether a divorce, a custody dispute, a claim for child support, or an application over property, now begins at the regional-level People’s Court that covers the relevant party, in most cases the place where the respondent lives or works.
The underlying rule has not moved: a divorce petition still goes to the court for the area where the other spouse lives, and it is only the court answering to that description that has changed its name and its boundaries. Where you would once have filed at that person’s district court, you now file at the regional court whose territory takes in their address.
It is the boundaries that tend to catch people out, because the regional courts were drawn out of the old districts but not one for one. Ho Chi Minh City’s thirty-eight former district courts became nineteen regional courts; Hanoi’s thirty became twelve. A single regional court now covers ground that two or three district courts used to share, so pinning down the correct one for a given address takes a little care, and the old courthouse is no longer a safe assumption.
The Foreign-Element Cases Still Sit Higher
One thing from the old system did carry over. A family case with a foreign element, a foreign spouse, a party living abroad, or property held outside Vietnam, has always been heard at a higher level than a purely domestic dispute, at the provincial court rather than the district one.
That has not changed, even as the levels around it have been renamed. If your case has an international dimension, the court that hears it and the level it sits at may not match those for a divorce between two people who both live in Vietnam. It is one of the clearer reasons to confirm the forum before filing rather than after, since a case lodged in the wrong court loses time it did not need to.
If Your Case Was Already Under Way in 2025
The reform also came with transitional rules, which matter to anyone whose case was caught in the middle of the change.
If your case had already been filed before 1 July 2025, it was moved across to the regional court that inherited its jurisdiction rather than dismissed or sent back to square one. In other words, a live case simply followed its jurisdiction to the new court.
There was one sensible carve-out at the far end of the process. Where a mediation or dialogue session had already finished and the parties only wanted the result formally recognised, the case stayed where it was. A couple who reached agreement through how mediation works just before the changeover did not have their agreement unsettled by it.
Does the Court Reform Slow a Divorce Down?
This is the question we hear most, and the honest answer is a reassuring one. What the reform changed is where a case is filed and heard, not the law the court applies or the steps the case goes through. The grounds for divorce, the approach to custody and property, the mediation stage, the timelines for each phase: none of that was touched. A mutual divorce is no slower than it was, and a contested one runs the same course it did before.
Where the change can cost time is at the very start, and only if it is handled carelessly. An application sent to the wrong court, because someone followed old guidance or assumed the former courthouse still had jurisdiction, has to be redirected, and that is time lost for no reason. Filed correctly the first time, a case moves at the same pace it always did. This is really the only way the reform touches how long a divorce takes, and it is entirely within a filer’s control.
What the Change Means in Practice
For most people this is less a hurdle than a matter of aiming at the right place under the new names, though a few practical points are worth keeping in mind.
Some courthouses have physically moved. When several district courts folded into a single regional court, the building that serves a given area sometimes moved with them, and the office you or a relative once attended may not be where the regional court now sits.
Older instructions have quietly gone stale, and any article, form, or template that still directs you to the district-level People’s Court is out of date however recent it looks. That is worth remembering with anything found online, including pages that have not caught up with the change. Getting the forum right at the outset is what protects the timeline, and it rewards checking the correct court before a divorce petition is submitted rather than after.
Speak With Our Family Lawyers
The court reform of 2025 was among the largest in Vietnam’s recent legal history. The substance of family law came through it untouched; what moved was the structure around it. Filing in the correct regional court, checking the forum where a case carries a foreign element, and doing both without surrendering time to a misdirected application, is a straightforward matter with current guidance and an awkward one without. If you are getting ready to bring a family matter to court, the family lawyers at Family Lawyers Vietnam can see that it starts in the right place. You can reach us for a confidential consultation at [email protected].
