Compilation of the Latest Wastewater Treatment Standards 2026

Date public: 15-05-2026||View: 27522

Wastewater treatment standards are an important basis for controlling wastewater quality before discharge into the environment. During the 2025–2026 period, many environmental regulations for domestic, industrial, and medical wastewater have been updated. Therefore, businesses need to regularly monitor and apply the correct regulations to ensure treated wastewater meets standards, minimize legal risks, and maintain stable operation of wastewater treatment systems.

1. What Are Wastewater Treatment Standards?

Wastewater treatment standards are the allowable limits of pollutant parameters in wastewater before discharge into the environment. Depending on the type of wastewater such as domestic, industrial, medical, or livestock wastewater, different technical standards will apply.

These standards usually regulate many parameters such as pH, TSS, Ammonia, Total Nitrogen, Coliform, and other specific pollutants. Applying the correct standards helps businesses control effluent quality, maintain environmental compliance records, and reduce the risk of violating current discharge regulations.

2. QCVN 40:2025/BTNMT – Industrial Wastewater Standard

QCVN 40:2025/BTNMT is the new national technical regulation on industrial wastewater, issued together with Circular 06/2025/TT-BTNMT and officially effective from September 1, 2025. This regulation applies to facilities discharging industrial wastewater into the environment.

No.	Parameter	Unit	Column A	Column B	Column C
1	pH	-	6 – 9	6 – 9	6 – 9
2	BOD5 (20°C)	mg/L	≤ 40	≤ 60	≤ 80
3	COD	mg/L	≤ 65	≤ 90	≤ 130
4	TOC	mg/L	≤ 35	≤ 50	≤ 75
5	TSS	mg/L	≤ 40	≤ 80	≤ 120
6	Total Nitrogen(T-N)	mg/L	≤ 20	≤ 40	≤ 60
7	Total Phosphorus(T-P)	mg/L	≤ 4	≤ 6	≤ 10
8	Total Coliform	MPN/100mL	≤ 3,000x	≤ 5,000	≤ 5,000
9	Ammonia	(NH4+-N)mg/L	≤ 5	≤ 10	≤ 12
10	Mineral Oil and Grease	mg/L	≤ 1	≤ 5	≤ 5
11	Animal and Vegetable Oil and Grease	mg/L	≤ 5	≤ 30	≤ 30
12	AOX	mg/L	≤ 7.5	≤ 15	≤ 15
13	Dioxin/Furan	pgTEQ/L	≤ 10	≤ 10	≤ 10

Where:

Column A: Applies to water sources requiring strict protection or used for domestic water supply.
Column B: Applies to conventional receiving water sources.
Column C: Applies to receiving water sources with lower water quality requirements.

In addition to basic parameters, QCVN 40:2025/BTNMT also specifies characteristic pollutant parameters for industries such as textile dyeing, paper, electroplating, chemicals, seafood processing, hospitals, waste treatment, steel production, and centralized wastewater treatment systems.

3. QCVN 14:2025/BTNMT – Domestic Wastewater

QCVN 14:2025/BTNMT is the national technical regulation on domestic wastewater and urban wastewater for centralized residential areas. This regulation replaces QCVN 14:2008/BTNMT and officially takes effect from September 1, 2025.

The regulation applies to organizations and individuals discharging domestic wastewater, urban wastewater, and centralized residential wastewater into receiving water sources.

No.	Pollutant Parameter	Unit	Column A	Column B	Column C
1	pH	-	5 – 9	5 – 9	5 – 9
2	BOD5 (20°C)	mg/L	≤ 30	≤ 35	≤ 40
3	COD	mg/L	≤ 80	≤ 90	≤ 100
4	TOC	mg/L	≤ 40	≤ 45	≤ 50
5	TSS	mg/L	≤ 50	≤ 60	≤ 70
6	Ammonia (N-NH4+)	mg/L	≤ 6	≤ 8	≤ 10
7	Total Nitrogen (T-N)	mg/L	≤ 25	≤ 30	≤ 40
8	Total Phosphorus (T-P) – lake receiving sources	mg/L	≤ 2.0	≤ 2.5	≤ 3.0
9	Total Phosphorus (T-P) – other receiving sources	mg/L	≤ 4.0	≤ 6.0	≤ 10
10	Total Coliform	MPN or CFU/100mL	≤ 3,000	≤ 5,000	≤ 5,000
11	Sulfide (S2-)	≤ 0.2	≤ 0.2	≤ 0.5	≤ 0.5
12	Animal and Vegetable Oil and Grease	mg/L	≤ 10	≤ 15	≤ 20
13	Anionic Surfactants	mg/L	≤ 3.0	≤ 5.0	≤ 10

Where:

Column A: Applies to receiving sources used for domestic water supply or requiring strict protection.
Column B: Applies to receiving sources with moderate water quality management requirements.
Column C: Applies to other receiving sources.

The allowable limits of pollutant parameters depend not only on Columns A, B, and C but also on the wastewater discharge flow rate of the system. For urban wastewater and centralized residential areas, the regulation is divided according to daily discharge levels.

4. QCVN 40:2025/BTNMT – Medical Wastewater

Currently, medical wastewater is no longer separately regulated under QCVN 28:2010/BTNMT as before. Under QCVN 40:2025/BTNMT, hospital and medical facility wastewater has been integrated into the general industrial wastewater regulation and officially applies from September 1, 2025.

In addition, for systems with medical waste incinerators, wastewater generated from exhaust gas treatment processes must also control:

Dioxin/Furan
Sulfite

No.	Parameter	Unit	Column A	Column B	Column C
1	pH	-	6 – 9	6 – 9	6 – 9
2	BOD5 (20°C)	mg/L	≤ 40	≤ 60	≤ 80
3	COD	mg/L	≤ 90	≤ 90	≤130
4	TSS	mg/L	≤ 40	≤ 80	≤ 120
5	Total Nitrogen (T-N)	mg/L	≤ 20	≤ 40	≤ 60
6	Total Phosphorus (T-P)	mg/L	≤ 4	≤ 6	≤ 10
7	Ammonia (N-NH4+)	mg/L	≤ 5	≤ 10	≤ 12
8	Total Coliform	MPN/100mL	≤ 3,000	≤ 5,000	≤ 5,000
9	Anionic Surfactants	mg/L	≤ 3	≤ 5	≤ 5
10	Animal and Vegetable Oil and Grease	mg/L	≤ 5	≤ 30	≤ 30
11	Dioxin/Furan	pgTEQ/L	≤ 10	≤ 10	≤ 10
12	Sulfite (calculated as SO₃²⁻)	mg/L	≤ 5	≤ 10	≤ 15

Similar to other industrial wastewater types, the allowable limits in QCVN 40:2025/BTNMT also depend on:

Receiving water source classification (Columns A, B, C)
Wastewater discharge flow rate of the system

5. Common Wastewater Standards by Industry

In addition to domestic and medical wastewater, many industries today also have characteristic pollutant groups that must be controlled under QCVN 40:2025/BTNMT. Depending on production characteristics, wastewater treatment systems are designed with different technologies and operational requirements.

Textile dyeing wastewater: Usually contains color, chemicals, alkalinity, and high surfactant concentrations. Treatment systems must effectively control color, COD, and difficult-to-degrade compounds.
Paper wastewater: Contains large amounts of suspended solids, fibers, and organic compounds. Some factories also generate AOX during paper bleaching processes.
Seafood wastewater: Has high organic loads, grease, and Nitrogen. Treatment systems often combine biological treatment and grease separation to stabilize effluent quality.
Livestock wastewater: Generates high Ammonia, Total Nitrogen, microorganisms, and odors. Current systems often use anaerobic combined with aerobic biological treatment technologies.
Rubber wastewater: Characterized by odor, color, and high organic content. Treatment processes must effectively control odors and stabilize microorganisms in biological tanks.
Cassava starch wastewater: Contains extremely high organic concentrations and easily generates odors during storage. Treatment technologies usually combine UASB, Anoxic, and aerobic processes to improve treatment efficiency.

6. Penalties for Wastewater Not Meeting Standards

According to Decree 45/2022/ND-CP, businesses discharging wastewater exceeding standards may be fined from tens of millions to billions of VND depending on the violation level and discharge flow rate.

Violation Level	Reference Penalty
Exceeding standards below 1.1 times	From 5 – 20 million VND
Exceeding from 1.1 – below 1.5 times	From 20 – 100 million VND
Exceeding from 1.5 – below 3 times	From 100 – 500 million VND
Exceeding over 5 times or large discharge flow	Up to 1 – 2 billion VND

In addition to administrative penalties, businesses may also:

Be suspended from wastewater discharge activities for 3 – 12 months
Be required to renovate or upgrade wastewater treatment systems
Be required to pay environmental pollution remediation costs

Updating the latest wastewater treatment standards helps businesses proactively control effluent quality, reduce environmental violation risks, and ensure long-term stable operation of wastewater treatment systems. As new standards such as QCVN 40:2025/BTNMT and QCVN 14:2025/BTNMT begin to apply, businesses need to regularly review treatment technologies, monitoring systems, and environmental records to comply with current regulations.

Dai Nam Environmental Solutions Co., Ltd specializes in consulting, designing, constructing, renovating, and upgrading domestic, industrial, medical, and livestock wastewater treatment systems. In addition, Dai Nam supports environmental permits, EIA reports, and environmental documentation in accordance with current regulations.