EMPLOYEE'S RESPONSIBILITY TO REIMBURSE TRAINING COSTS UPON UNILATERAL TERMINATION OF THE EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT

Luật sư: Nguyễn Bá Tùng

Cập nhật: 13:39, Thứ Năm 13/08/2026

During the recruitment and employment process, to enhance the skills and professional expertise of employees ("Employees"), aiming to increase production and business efficiency and create a foundation for the enterprise's development, many employers ("Employers") are willing to proactively invest in training and vocational development costs for Employees. To secure the benefits from this investment, Employers often require Employees to commit to continuing to work for them for a certain period of time after completing the training course.

However, in reality, there are many cases where Employees unilaterally terminate their labor contracts ("LC") before the committed term, leading to the Employer's loss of investment costs and other benefits they should have enjoyed from training the Employees.

In this context, determining the basis for the obligation to reimburse training costs, the scope of reimbursable training costs, as well as the rights and obligations of the parties becomes a matter of significant importance in protecting the legitimate rights and interests of Employees and Employers.

1. Vocational training agreement between the Employee and the Employer

The Employer and the Employee establish a vocational training agreement in cases where the Employee is trained to improve their qualifications and occupational skills, or retrained domestically/overseas using the Employer's funds (including funds sponsored by partners for the Employer).

According to the provisions of Article 62 of the 2019 Labor Code, the vocational training agreement must be made in writing in the form of a training contract with the following main contents:

2. Conditions for the Employer to be entitled to request the Employee to reimburse training costs

For the Employer to have a valid legal basis to request the Employee to reimburse training costs, according to current legal regulations and trial practice, the following mandatory conditions must be concurrently satisfied:

3. The Employee's obligation to reimburse training costs when unilaterally terminating the LC

3.1. Cases where the Employee unilaterally terminates the LC lawfully

3.1.1. Cases of lawful unilateral termination of the LC by the Employee

(i) The Employee resigns and has given advance notice to the Employer within the following time limits:

• At least 45 days if working under an indefinite-term LC;
• At least 30 days if working under a definite-term LC with a term of between 12 and 36 months;
• At least 03 working days if working under a definite-term LC with a term of under 12 months.

(ii) The Employee performing specialized occupations, trades, or jobs (1) resigns and has given advance notice to the Employer within the following time limits:

• At least 120 days if working under an indefinite-term LC or a definite-term LC of 12 months or more;
• At least equal to 1/4 of the LC's term if working under a LC with a term of under 12 months.

(iii) The Employee resigns for the following reasons:

• Not being assigned the exact work or workplace as agreed (except for cases where the Employee is transferred to do other work compared to the LC as prescribed in Article 29 of the 2019 Labor Code);
• Not being provided with agreed working conditions;
• Not being paid in full or on time (except for force majeure reasons);
• Being maltreated or beaten by the Employer / being subjected to insulting words, behaviors, or acts that affect health, dignity, and honor;
• Being subjected to forced labor;
• Being sexually harassed in the workplace;
• Continuing to work would adversely affect the fetus (provided there is a certification from a competent medical examination and treatment facility);
• Reaching retirement age;
• The Employer provides untruthful information (2) affecting the performance of the LC.

Note:

(1) Specialized occupations, trades, and jobs include:

(2) Including information about the work, workplace, working conditions, working hours, rest times, occupational safety and hygiene, salary, form of salary payment, social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance, regulations on protecting business secrets, protecting technological secrets, and other issues directly related to the conclusion of the LC requested by the Employee.

3.1.2. Responsibility to reimburse training costs

The 2019 Labor Code does not contain any regulations forcing Employees to reimburse training costs to Employers when they lawfully unilaterally terminate the LC.

However, in trial practice, Courts still accept requests compelling Employees to reimburse training costs to Employers even when they lawfully unilaterally terminate the LC, if there is a lawful agreement on this content in the training contract between the parties. Specifically:

Judgment No. 01/2019/LD-ST dated July 29, 2019 of the People's Court of Thu Dau Mot City, Binh Duong Province regarding "Dispute over LC, training contract, claims for salary, social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance, and compensation for damages due to LC termination" between the plaintiff, Ms. D, and the defendant, Company Y, has the following contents:

Ms. D worked at Company Y from September 1, 2015 to August 31, 2017 with the expertise of a Medical Doctor. Ms. D signed 2 LCs with Company Y:

During the working process, Company Y sent Ms. D to a radiation safety training for medical equipment operators for 03 days under Training Contract No. 150/HDDT dated July 12, 2016 ("Contract"), with an agreement in Article 2 of the Contract as follows: "After training, she must work for Company Y for at least 03 years. If she does not work/does not work for the full committed time according to the training contract, she must compensate 300% of the total training costs".

On July 28, 2017, Ms. D sent a notice to Company Y regarding not continuing to work at Company Y from September 1, 2017, when the second LC ended on August 31, 2017.

In this case, Company Y filed a counterclaim requesting Ms. D to reimburse and compensate the training costs according to the agreement in the Contract for unilaterally terminating the LC.

Regarding the above request of Company Y, the Court judged as follows: Ms. D's termination of the LC with Company Y was completely lawful. However, Ms. D's resignation violated the commitment on working time under the Contract, therefore, Ms. D must compensate the training costs to the company as agreed in Article 2 of the Contract.

From the above case, it can be affirmed: The Employee's lawful termination of the LC does not mean being exempt from the obligation to reimburse training costs.

3.2. Cases where the Employee unilaterally terminates the LC unlawfully

Employees unilaterally terminate the LC unlawfully when they resign non-compliantly with the contents stated in Section 3.1.1 of this article.

According to the provisions of Clause 3, Article 40 of the 2019 Labor Code, if the Employee unilaterally terminates the LC unlawfully, they must reimburse the training costs to the Employer.

4. Reimbursable training costs

Based on Clause 3, Article 62 of the 2019 Labor Code, the training costs that the Employee must reimburse to the Employer are the expenses with valid documents for:

Thus, the responsibility to reimburse training costs is an obligation that may arise when an Employee unilaterally terminates the LC before the committed working term after training. In the case where the Employee unilaterally terminates the LC unlawfully, the obligation to reimburse training costs is clearly prescribed by law in Clause 3, Article 40 of the 2019 Labor Code. Meanwhile, in the case where the Employee unilaterally terminates the LC lawfully, the reimbursement of training costs can still be raised based on the agreement between the parties in the training contract and considered and recognized by the Court in certain specific cases of trial practice.

Therefore, to accurately determine the Employee's obligation to reimburse training costs upon unilaterally terminating the LC, it is necessary to comprehensively consider factors such as: The legality of the unilateral termination of the LC, the commitment contents in the training contract, the actual working time of the Employee after training, as well as the documents proving the training costs incurred by the Employer.

DL PINNACLE LAW FIRM LLC