Guides / Sourcing Guide

Wood Products From Vietnam: What the Factories Actually Make

September 21, 2026

Vietnam is now one of the largest wood product exporters in the world, and most of what leaves the country is not what buyers expect. It is not tropical rainforest timber. It is plantation acacia and rubberwood, imported panel, and a very large amount of hand finishing.

If you are sourcing here for the first time, the useful question is not “can Vietnam make this” but “which of the six things Vietnam is set up to make does my product belong to”. This guide answers that, then covers the species, the regions and the paperwork you will be asked for.

The six categories that carry the volume

Almost every export order fits one of these.

Category	What it covers	Typical MOQ	Typical lead time
Indoor furniture	Dining, bedroom and living room pieces	100 to 300 pcs per model	45 to 75 days
Outdoor furniture	Garden sets, loungers, folding chairs, decking tiles	200 to 500 pcs per model	50 to 80 days
Furniture components	Legs, frames, drawer parts, edge glued panels	1 to 3 containers	35 to 60 days
Flooring and decking	Engineered flooring, solid strip, decking boards	1 container	45 to 70 days
Plywood and panels	Commercial plywood, film faced, blockboard, veneered MDF	1 container	30 to 50 days
Kitchenware and houseware	Cutting boards, trays, bowls, utensils, small storage	1,000 to 5,000 pcs	35 to 60 days

These are typical ranges from mid size factories, not promises. A factory with spare capacity will take less and a factory running a large retail program will take more.

The two categories buyers underuse are components and houseware. If you already have an assembly line or a brand in another country, buying legs, frames and edge glued panels from Vietnam is often a faster win than buying finished furniture, because the quality risk is concentrated in a simpler part.

Project work sits slightly outside this list. Hotel, restaurant and office packages are built by the same factories but run to a different set of rules, covered in the hospitality and contract furniture guide. And if you have no design of your own, the OEM and ODM guide covers buying a factory’s existing range instead.

The species behind it

Four woods cover most of what you will be offered.

Acacia is the workhorse. It is plantation grown across the centre and north of the country, harvested young, and it is dense enough for outdoor use once it is oiled. It is warm mid brown with strong figure and genuine colour variation between boards. That variation is the thing to settle before you approve a sample: some buyers want it and some reject the container over it.

Rubberwood comes from latex plantations at the end of their productive life, which is why it is cheap and why supply is steady. It is pale, close to even in colour and it takes stain well, so it is often finished to look like something else. It will not survive outdoors, even with a coating.

Eucalyptus shows up when acacia supply tightens. Pinkish brown, straighter grain, used for outdoor furniture, decking and plywood core.

Pine in Vietnam is imported, usually from Chile, New Zealand or Europe, then machined locally. It is very pale with visible knots, so it is nearly always painted or heavily stained.

Oak, walnut and ash are all imported too. You can buy them here, but you are paying international log prices plus freight plus Vietnamese machining, so the saving is only on labour.

The two plantation species are not interchangeable, and picking the wrong one is the most common reason a first order disappoints. The acacia versus rubberwood comparison covers which suits which product, and the construction guide covers when to use solid wood and when a panel is the better answer.

Where the factories are

Three clusters matter. Binh Duong and Dong Nai, just north and east of Ho Chi Minh City, hold the largest concentration of export furniture factories and the deepest bench of subcontractors for metal, glass and upholstery. Around Quy Nhon in Binh Dinh province you find outdoor furniture and the acacia supply chain close to the plantations. In the north, around Bac Ninh and Hai Duong, the work is more panel, plywood and components.

This matters for lead time more than for price. A factory in Binh Duong can subcontract a metal frame and get it back in a week. A factory far from a cluster cannot. The regions guide covers what each cluster does well and which port it ships from.

What Vietnam is good at, and what it is not

Good at: plantation hardwood grown and sawn in country, large kiln capacity, hand sanding and finishing at a labour cost that still works, long practice at export packing and drop testing for US and EU retail, and flat pack.

Not good at: very small runs, exotic or imported species where the wood dominates the cost, heavy metal fabrication inside the same plant, and anything that needs a tight tolerance on a machined part rather than on a wood part.

Be honest about which side your product sits on before you send it out. A buyer who asks for 60 pieces of a walnut sideboard will get quotes, and every one of them will be disappointing.

What a first order actually looks like

The sequence rarely changes.

1. You send a specification and a drawing or a reference photo.
2. The factory quotes a price per piece on an Incoterm, usually FOB Ho Chi Minh City or FOB Hai Phong.
3. You pay for a sample and wait two to four weeks. This is where colour, finish and hardware get settled.
4. You approve the sample, pay a deposit, and the lead time clock starts.
5. An inspection happens before the container is sealed, either your own agent or a third party.

The step buyers skip is the written sample approval. Sign off on a physical piece, keep it, and reference it in the contract. Every later argument about colour variation goes back to that piece.

For the full sequence with realistic timings, see the step by step sourcing guide and the lead time guide. Before the container seals, the inspection and loading guide covers what to check and when.

The paperwork that follows the wood

Wood is one of the few categories where documents can stop a container at the border, so decide this before you order rather than after.

For the EU you need an EUDR due diligence pack: geolocation of the harvest plot, species, quantity and a risk assessment. The factory has to hand you that file. A statement that the wood is legal is not the same thing.

For the US you need a Lacey Act declaration with species, country of harvest and value. The usual failure is a vague or wrong species name copied from an old document.

FSC chain of custody is optional unless your customer asks for it, and it is worth checking yourself. A factory can hold a valid certificate and still ship you uncertified stock unless you order the certified line and write it into the contract. The certificate number is public and takes a minute to verify.

Panel products for the US also need CARB and TSCA Title VI compliant boards. Ask for the panel supplier certificate, because the factory is rarely the panel maker.

Each of these has its own guide: legality documents for the overview, EUDR in practice for the European file, CARB and TSCA Title VI for panels going to the US and FSC certified wood if your customer asks for a claim.

How to start without wasting a month

Write the specification down before you contact anyone. Product and dimensions, species or a note that it is open, construction, finish, quantity, target market and Incoterm. Attach a drawing or a photo of a piece you want to copy. That single page is the difference between quotes you can compare and quotes you cannot.

Then send it to a small number of factories that already build that category, rather than to everyone. Three serious quotes on a clear spec tell you more than fifteen quotes on a vague one. The factory vetting guide has the questions that separate a real producer from a trader, and the MOQ guide explains why the first number you are quoted is what it is.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

• Bedroom Furniture From Vietnam: Beds and Casegoods
• Sourcing Furniture From Vietnam, Start to First Container