Vietnam waited almost seven years. Since the country’s inclusion on the FTSE Russell watchlist in 2018, the country has steadily reformed its market until, in early April 2026, the long-awaited confirmation finally arrived.
FTSE Russell is a worldwide stock index provider of the London Stock Exchange Group, serving as a benchmark for trillions of dollars in institutional investment funds world wide. When a rustic is classed as an emerging market, funds tracking its indexes are literally required to direct their attention – and infrequently capital – to that market.
On April 7, 2026, FTSE Russell officially confirmed its decision: Vietnam has been raised. Emerging markets status will come into effect on September 21, 2026, when Vietnamese equities will step by step be included within the FTSE global index series by 2027.
This reclassification places Vietnam alongside China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Qatar within the secondary emerging market category, sending a transparent signal that Vietnam’s capital market is not any longer only a peripheral growth area outside the core focus of worldwide investors.
Reforms that opened the door
In November 2024, Vietnam abolished the total pre-financing requirement for foreign investors in equity settlements – a rule that previously required investors to transfer the total amount of funds to domestic accounts before executing a transaction.
Then, in 2025, Decree No. 245/2025 was issued, which abolished the provisions that allowed public corporations to unilaterally set foreign ownership limits below legal thresholds. This is a structurally expanded venue for foreign participation within the Vietnam stock exchange.
In the identical period, the Ministry of Finance issued Decision 2014/2025, which identified three important pillars of the reform: regulated short selling, securities borrowing and lending (SBL) and same-day trading (T+0), that are scheduled to be implemented in 2026–2028.
The Investment Act 2025, coming in 2026, in force from March 1, 2026, allows foreign investors to determine business entities before submitting an application for an investment registration certificate, significantly limiting bureaucratic activities which have thus far slowed down the inflow of capital.
In December 2025, the National Assembly of Vietnam also adopted amendments to the Investment Law, removing 38 contingent business lines and revising 20 others, reducing the whole variety of contingent sectors from 234 to 196, with the changes taking effect on July 1, 2026.
What capital inflow are you able to expect?
In an October 2025 research note, VinaCapital estimated that this modernization could inject roughly $5-6 billion of foreign capital into the Vietnamese market. The World Bank predicts that if Vietnam also manages to hitch MSCI indexes, total net foreign inflows could reach as much as $25 billion by 2030.
The list published by FTSE Russell as of December 31, 2025 includes 32 Vietnamese stocks that meet the standards for inclusion within the FTSE Global All Cap Index, with Vietnam’s share estimated at roughly 0.35% within the FTSE Emerging All Cap basket and 0.227% within the FTSE Emerging Index.
The list includes corporations from the banking sector resembling BIDV, technology corporations resembling FPT and energy corporations resembling Binh Son Refining.
What else needs attention
However, the capital inflow is not going to occur immediately. Analysts expect passive inflows to be phased in over 12 to 18 months from the September 21, 2026 effective date.
One of the remaining concerns of enormous institutional investors is access to global brokers. While this shouldn’t be a compulsory requirement to take care of emerging market secondary status, FTSE Russell continues to focus on this issue as essential to index users and expects it to be monitored in the longer term.
In an October 2025 report, Maybank Securities described the FTSE index update as a part of Vietnam’s broader technique to deepen its capital markets. The report also notes that achieving an investment-grade sovereign credit standing – which could occur as early as 2028 – can have a fair greater impact than simply increasing the index.
