Under the National Assembly (NA)'s Resolution No. 202/2025/QH15 of June 12, 2025, provincial-level administrative units throughout Vietnam has been restructured since July 1, 2025.
Subsequently, according to 34 resolutions issued on June 16, 2025 by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, commune-level administrative units in 34 provinces and cities have also been reorganized since then.
As a result, the country now comprises 34 provincial-level administrative units (including 6 cities and 28 provinces) and 3,321 commune-level administrative units (consisting of 2,621 communes, 687 wards, and 13 special zones). Meanwhile, 696 district-level administrative units have been dismantled since July 1, 2025. This reorganization has fundamentally transformed the local political system from a three-tier local government model (province - district - commune) to a two-tier model (province - commune).
The reorganization of administrative units in the periods 2019-2021 and 2023-2025 has achieved certain advantages in gathering voter opinions. However, there remain some challenges and inconsistencies.
In response, the Ministry of Home Affairs has developed a new draft decree to guide the process of gathering public opinion in directly affected commune-level administrative units regarding the establishment, dissolution, merger, division, boundary adjustment, and renaming of administrative units.
According to the draft decree, any proposal for establishing, dissolving, merging, dividing, adjusting boundaries, or renaming administrative units must include a process for collecting household opinions in accordance with the Law on Implementing Democracy at the Grassroots Level.
For provincial-level changes, the provincial People’s Committee will organize opinion gathering across all commune-level units, while for commune-level changes, it will be conducted within the affected commune.
After preparing the proposal, the provincial People’s Committee will send official documents and opinion forms to commune People’s Committees, which will collect opinions from households.
The commune People’s Committee must complete this process within 60 working days and report results within five days. If over 50 per cent of households agree, the proposal will proceed to higher-level review. If approval is below 50 per cent, the provincial authorities will conduct further advocacy and revisions to meet the required consensus.
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