State utility Vietnam Electricity (EVN) announced the adjustment late Saturday, with the new rate taking effect on Sunday. The price, which excludes value-added tax, is down by more than VND44 per kWh.

The average retail electricity price serves as the basis for setting specific tariffs for households, manufacturers and businesses.

This is the first cut since the average retail pricing mechanism was introduced in 2007, excluding five rounds of electricity bill reductions and relief measures during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The average price rose from VND842/kWh in 2007 to over VND2,204 (8.55 U.S. cents) in May 2025. Since 2023, it has undergone four increases: 3% in May 2023, 4.5% in November 2023, and 4.8% each in October 2024 and May 2025. The cumulative increase over that period was about 18.2%.

Before the latest changes, electricity prices had remained steady for more than four years, from March 2019 to May 2023.

Nguyen Dinh Phuoc, EVN deputy general director, said the cut reflected the state utility's efforts to support macroeconomic stability and social welfare for people and businesses.

The National Statistics Office under the Ministry of Finance estimates that the 2% cut from November would lower the consumer price index by about 0.08 percentage points.

Speaking at a National Assembly debate on economic and social issues on Saturday, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Van Thang said the government had asked EVN to minimize costs to support a 2% decrease in retail electricity prices through the end of March 2027.

He said the electricity price cut, together with a proposed reduction of the special consumption tax on petrol to zero, would provide an additional 0.07 percentage points of room to contain inflation and help meet the National Assembly's 4.5% inflation target.

Inflationary pressures in Vietnam are mounting as the consumer price index (CPI) in September rose 0.62% from the previous month and 5.08% from a year earlier.

For the first nine months of the year, CPI increased 4.52%, above the 3.27% rise recorded in the same period last year and slightly exceeding the government’s target of controlling inflation at around 4.5% for this year.

This was the highest nine-month average CPI rise recorded during the 2016-2026 period, according to the National Statistics Office (NSO).