What fees are allowed in Ho Chi Minh City schools in the 2025-2026 school year?

Students at all levels in Ho Chi Minh City are about to finish the first month of the 2025-2026 school year. In many places, parents are still upset about unreasonable fees that are not included in the regulations of the Department of Education and Training.

Many parents also sent pictures of the collection section, messages calling for payments for shopping, gift donations, construction, and repair of classroom equipment... to the Thanh Nien Newspaper's editorial office and wondered whether these collections were in accordance with the regulations of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training. Are schools and parents allowed to solicit contributions?

Having children going to school, parents have a headache at the beginning of the year with enough income.

PHOTO: TN CREATED BY AI

Below is a list of fees that are allowed to be collected in schools in Ho Chi Minh City for the 2025-2026 school year, according to document 1888, guiding the collection and use of tuition fees and other fees; implementing the tuition exemption, reduction, and support regime and support for study costs for the 2025-2026 school year of public educational and training institutions in Ho Chi Minh City by the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City and included in Resolution 18 of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council.

Parents can use this as a basis to monitor whether school fees for this school year in Ho Chi Minh City for their children are in accordance with regulations or not.

First is tuition fees.

Regarding tuition fees, preschool children from 3 months old to high school students, from the 2025-2026 school year, are 100% exempt from tuition fees, in all 34 provinces and cities. Therefore, public schools, from preschool, primary, secondary, high school and continuing education facilities in Ho Chi Minh City do not collect tuition fees.

Second, revenue from services serving and supporting educational activities according to Resolution No. 18/2025/NQ-HDND

These revenues are shown in the following table:

STT	Service content	Unit of measure	Maximum for Group 1				Maximum for Group 2
			Kindergarten	Elementary	Junior high school	High school	Kindergarten	Elementary	Junior high school	High school
1	Boarding service organization, management and cleaning services	VND/Student/Month	550,000	350,000	300,000	250,000	500,000	320,000	280,000	230,000
2	Breakfast service	VND/Student/Month	220,000	60,000			200,000	50,000
3	After-school care and nurturing services (care before and after school hours, meals not included)	VND/Student/Hour	12,000				11,000
4	After-hours care and nurturing services (care during holidays, excluding holidays, meals not included)	VND/Student/Day	128,000				120,000
5	Initial student health check-up service (including school dental check-up)	VND/Student/Year	70,000	60,000	50,000	50,000	65,000	55,000	45,000	45,000
6	Air conditioning service for classrooms with air conditioning (electricity bill, air conditioning maintenance cost, air conditioning rental cost if any)
6.1	For classes already equipped with air conditioning	VND/Student/Month	50,000	45,000	35,000	35,000	50,000	45,000	35,000	35,000
6.2	For classes that need to use air conditioning but do not have it, they must rent it.	VND/Student/Month	110,000	110,000	95,000	95,000	100,000	100,000	90,000	90,000
7	Utility services applying information technology and digital transformation	VND/Student/Month	110,000	110,000	110,000	110,000	110,000	110,000	110,000	110,000
8	Student shuttle service by car
8.1	Routes under 5km	VND/Student/km	10,000	10,000	10,000	10,000	10,000	10,000	10,000	10,000
8.2	Routes of 5km or more	VND/Student/km	8,000	8,000	8,000	8,000	8,000	8,000	8,000	8,000
9	Dormitory services at general education institutions with organized boarding	VND/Student/Month				150,000

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training notes: The collection rates specified in Resolution No. 18/2025/NQ-HDND above are the maximum collection rates. Based on the actual situation of the educational institution and the needs of the students, the educational institution shall agree with the parents on the specific collection rate, but not exceeding the collection rate specified in this resolution and not being 15% higher than the collection rate implemented in the 2024-2025 school year.

The contents and collection levels must be inherited and implemented according to the regulations from the 2024-2025 school year. In case the educational institution has a plan to organize the provision of additional services to serve and support new educational activities (not yet arising in the 2024-2025 school year), these collections must be surveyed and agreed upon with parents before implementation. The head of the unit will proactively develop a revenue and expenditure estimate to calculate specific collection levels, ensuring cost compensation within the collection level framework prescribed by the City People's Council. The collection level for services to serve and support educational activities must be commensurate with the quality of services provided to learners and must be consistent with the basis, principles, and methods of pricing goods and services according to the law on prices.

Parents in Ho Chi Minh City pick up their children after school.

PHOTO: NGOC DUONG

Third, are the revenues from organizing extracurricular school programs (abbreviated as school programs)

The list of fees for organizing subjects in the school program is in Appendix 2 of Document 1888 of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City.

PHOTO: SCREENSHOT

The list of fees for organizing school subjects and programs is in Appendix 2 of Document 1888 of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City.

PHOTO: SCREENSHOT

The Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City noted: "The plan to implement educational activities of the school program and the list of organizations and service providers qualified to coordinate the organization must be informed and deployed to parents, and agreed upon with parents to choose educational activities that meet the needs of learners on a voluntary basis."

Fourth, is the revenue from organizing other services for individual students.

The list of other service organization fees for individual students is specified in Appendix 2 of Document 1888 of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City.

PHOTO: SCREENSHOT

Do not change the name of the revenue item, do not create revenue content.

The Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City requests that public educational institutions not change their names or create any additional fees outside the categories specified in Official Dispatch 1888.

Regarding revenue and expenditure estimates for service revenues, educational support and other service revenues (excluding tuition fees): The estimates must be prepared before publicly announcing the collection levels to parents. These revenues must be agreed upon with parents before implementation.

The unit issues receipts and invoices to students when collecting money and should note to spread out the collection time, and not collect multiple payments at the same time.

The collection time must ensure the principle of the actual number of months of study but not exceed the time frame prescribed by the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City on the school year schedule of preschool education, general education and continuing education in Ho Chi Minh City.

Schools are not authorized to authorize parent representatives to preside over fundraising organizations.

On September 26, 2025, the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City continued to issue an official dispatch providing additional guidance on the implementation of Circular No. 55/2011/TT-BGDDT and Circular No. 16/2018/TT-BGDDT. The Department's leaders requested that facilities in the national education system pay attention to many notable points:

• Do not authorize the Parents' Representative Committee to preside over the organization of fundraising. Do not take advantage of fundraising to force parents to contribute and do not consider fundraising as a condition for providing educational and training services; Implementation can only be carried out after receiving approval from the Department of Education and Training;
  
• Do not focus on mobilizing parents of students whose children are studying at school, expand the target of mobilizing sponsorship, such as: businesses, corporations, economic organizations at home and abroad; agencies, political-social organizations, non-governmental organizations; individuals, philanthropists with a spirit of volunteerism;
  
• No average funding level specified, no minimum funding level specified;
  
• Financial sponsorships: Educational institutions must approve the sponsorship receipt record with a list of signatures from parents of students whose children are studying at the school at the time of sponsorship receipt, and at the same time create a receipt, open a detailed accounting book to separately track the sponsored amount and record it in the accounting system according to regulations;
  
• Do not mobilize funding for purchasing items and repair works that educational institutions can budget for, use state capital, career revenue, and career development funds for annual purchasing and repair according to regulations;
  
• The operating budget of the Parents' Association is managed and used by the Parents' Association and only serves the direct activities of the Parents' Association.
  

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/khoan-thu-nao-duoc-phep-trong-truong-hoc-tphcm-nam-hoc-2025-2026-185250927155900245.htm