Short answer
Look at the cadastral extract or the back of the land use right certificate. Vietnamese land documents usually list the corner points of the parcel as X and Y values in the VN2000 national grid. Those points are the polygon. You convert them to WGS84 latitude and longitude, which is what the EU system expects, and you are done — no survey team, no equipment rental. A field survey is only needed when the parcel has no document describing its boundary at all.
Where exactly are the coordinates on a Vietnamese land certificate?
On the cadastral map page, or on the cadastral extract issued by the district land office. You are looking for a small table of numbered corner points, each with an X value and a Y value, usually six or seven digits each. Next to it there is normally a note of the projection zone and the central meridian — you need both when converting.
If the certificate only shows a drawing with dimensions and no coordinate table, ask the district land office for the cadastral extract. It is a routine request and the extract does contain the coordinates.
Why can't I just send the VN2000 numbers to my buyer?
Because VN2000 is a national grid built for Vietnam, and the EU information system works in WGS84 latitude and longitude — the same system as GPS and Google Maps. Send raw X and Y values and your buyer's compliance team will either reject them or plot your plantation somewhere in the ocean.
The conversion depends on the zone and central meridian of your province, which is why that note on the extract matters. Get the meridian wrong and the plot lands in the neighbouring province — close enough to look plausible, wrong enough to fail a satellite check.
Point or polygon — which does my buyer need?
The regulation allows a single point for small parcels in some cases, and requires a polygon otherwise. In practice, ask your buyer before choosing. Many EU importers now insist on polygons for everything, because a polygon can be overlaid on forest-cover maps and a single point cannot.
If the corner points are already in the document, building the polygon costs you nothing extra. Choosing a point to save effort when you have the corners is a false economy — you will be asked to redo it.
When do I actually need a field survey?
Three situations. The parcel has no certificate and no cadastral extract. The document exists but describes the boundary only in words, with no coordinate table. Or the parcel has been split, merged or re-shaped since the document was issued, so the recorded boundary no longer matches the ground.
Even then, survey the plots that actually feed your EU shipments first, not your whole supply base. A supplier who sells you two containers a year does not justify the same effort as one who sells you twenty.
Questions buyers ask about this
Is a phone GPS accurate enough?+
For walking the boundary of a smallholding it is usually acceptable, and far better than no coordinates at all. But if the plot already has surveyed corner points on its certificate, use those — they are more accurate and they match the official record your buyer can cross-check.
What if the household refuses to share their land certificate?+
You do not need the certificate itself, only the parcel boundary and evidence of legal use. A copy of the cadastral extract page, or a signed declaration with the parcel number, is usually enough. Explain that the alternative is their harvest being excluded from EU-bound lots — that reframes it from paperwork to income.
How many decimal places do the coordinates need?+
Six decimal places on latitude and longitude puts you at roughly ten centimetres, which is more than enough. The common mistake is the opposite: rounding to three or four places, which can move a corner by tens of metres and distort a small plot badly.
Can LELOI do the conversion for us?+
Yes, and for your first two suppliers it is free. You enter the X and Y values with the zone and meridian from the extract; the platform converts them, draws the polygon, calculates the area and screens it against satellite forest data.
Convert your first plot free
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