Are Roof Rats Legal in Vietnam? Keeping, Breeding & Selling

Keeping / owning   Unregulated / unclear

Confidence: Medium · Last verified 2026-06-08

R. rattus is absent from every Vietnamese list: not in Group IB/IIB of Decree 06/2019 (am. 84/2021), not in Decree 160/2013, not CITES. The Law on Forestry Art. 9 keeping prohibitions are keyed to listed species, so they don’t bite; Decree 06/2019 Art. 23’s 3-working-day notification for ‘ordinary forest animals’ is not applied by rangers to commensal urban rats (they aren’t treated as ‘forest animals’). Result: personal possession is a pure regulatory void, neither prohibited nor affirmatively authorized as a ‘pet.’ Currently unprosecuted (an open hobby market exists), but with no statutory protection; the state retains discretionary biosecurity/sanitation power to confiscate. ‘Unregulated_unclear,’ tending tolerated-but-unprotected.

Sources: Government of Vietnam, Government of Vietnam, National Assembly of Vietnam (via FAOLEX), Ministry of Agriculture & Environment (Vietnam)

Breeding   Unregulated / unclear

Confidence: Medium · Last verified 2026-06-08

Under the positive-list paradigm, commercial breeding of any species not on the permitted-husbandry list is unauthorized/illicit. Circular 66/2025/TT-BNNMT (effective 5 Jan 2026) sets the exhaustive ‘List of other animals permitted for animal husbandry’ (earthworms, black soldier flies, crickets, scorpions, wild ducks, etc.), and ALL rodents, R. rattus and R. norvegicus alike, are excluded. A would-be breeder therefore cannot obtain the business registration / facility-hygiene / biosecurity clearances required by Decree 13/2020. No hobbyist or small-breeder exemption exists. Hobby breeding is currently ignored but unprotected; any profit-making breeding operates in the black market and is exposed to the 2008-hamster-style enforcement (fines to 30M VND + culling). ‘Unregulated_unclear’ for the tolerated hobbyist; effectively illicit at commercial scale.

Sources: Ministry of Agriculture & Environment (Vietnam), National Assembly of Vietnam (via FAOLEX), Government of Vietnam

Selling or giving away   Unregulated / unclear

Confidence: Low · Last verified 2026-06-08

Commercial trade of an unlisted animal species is legally unsupported and exposed to discretionary enforcement. The direct proxy is the 2008 nationwide hamster crackdown: authorities used the pre-existing positive-list mechanism (hamsters ‘not on the list of animals permitted for import/husbandry’) to declare all trading/transport/keeping unauthorized, threatening administrative fines of 20–30 million VND plus forced culling/re-export, the exact same legal logic applies to R. rattus. Open Facebook-group and pet-shop sales currently proceed only on enforcement apathy. Free/non-commercial transfer has fewer hooks but no affirmative protection. Low confidence: highly volatile, subject to competitor reporting and localized biosecurity directives.

Sources: National Assembly of Vietnam (via FAOLEX), Government of Vietnam, Dept of Livestock Production (reported, CAND)

Transport & import   Restricted

Confidence: High · Last verified 2026-06-08

DOMESTIC (inter-provincial): the Law on Animal Health 79/2015 + Circular 25/2016/TT-BNNPTNT require a veterinary health certificate + quarantine clearance to move terrestrial animals between provinces, but provincial vets have no protocol/health parameters to inspect an unlisted species, so the required certificate can’t readily be issued; formal shipping risks confiscation at veterinary checkpoints. IMPORT (practically prohibited): (1) Directive 29/CT-TTg (23 Jul 2020) suspends imports of live WILD animals, and at customs R. rattus, not defined as a domestic husbandry animal, defaults to the ‘wild animal’ classification, so even a captive-bred specimen is rejected/re-exported; (2) rodents are absent from the permitted-import list (Circular 14/2023/TT-BNNPTNT), and importing unlisted terrestrial animals needs a prior biosecurity risk analysis + import permit the MAE does not issue for pet rodents (same rationale as the 2008 hamster import ban). Not CITES. Never release. Net: ‘restricted’ (high), import operationally impossible, domestic formal transport blocked by the unlisted-species paperwork gap.

Sources: Prime Minister of Vietnam, Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (Vietnam), Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (Vietnam), National Assembly of Vietnam

• Understand there is currently NO legal pathway to commercially breed/sell/import R. rattus in Vietnam (it’s on no permitted list)
• For any movement, expect that a veterinary health certificate cannot readily be issued for an unlisted species
• Constructive long game: petition the MAE to add captive-bred pet rodents to the Circular 66/2025 permitted-husbandry list

Where: Ministry of Agriculture & Environment (MAE), Dept of Livestock Production / Dept of Animal Health

Source: Ministry of Agriculture & Environment (Vietnam), Prime Minister of Vietnam, Dept of Livestock Production (reported, CAND)