Cost of Living in Vietnam
Image credit: Vyacheslav Argenberg
Purchasing Power vs. United States
Based on GDP per capita (PPP). Vietnam: $15,457/capita.
Cities in Vietnam
Income Category
GDP per Capita
Population
How Far Your Money Goes
Prices are 73% lower than the global benchmark (New York City = 100).
Child Education
Public-school quality, expat access, instruction language, and homeschool legality for relocating families.
Public schools
How realistic the local public-school path is for a relocating family in Vietnam.
Quality
Limited public-school fit
Expat access
Possible, rarely the expat path
hardInstruction
Vietnamese
Local-language fluency usually matters.
PISA / outcomes
Qualitative only
Using curated quality notes for now.
Why this quality rating
Vietnam's public system is built for local families and is not the route most expat households choose when they have other options.
Why the expat-access rating looks like this
Resident access can exist, but Vietnamese-medium instruction and a strongly local school culture make the public route a hard fit for most foreign families.
❓ Homeschooling
Not explicitly addressedVietnamese law requires school attendance for citizens, but there is no explicit prohibition or framework for homeschooling. Expat families often homeschool without interference. Vietnamese citizens face more scrutiny. No legal framework exists.
Homeschool legality in Vietnam — check current regulations before committing.
Source: User-curated family relocation research (initial seed) (2026-04-14)
International & private schools
Cities with schools their own websites confirm. Each city page lists its schools with the fees and results they publish. How schools rank by exam results →
- Ho Chi Minh City15 schools · typical fee $29,467/yr · IB, American, British
- Hanoi4 schools · typical fee $23,535/yr · IB, French, American
- Điện Bàn1 school · typical fee $12,460/yr · IB
Childcare & Domestic Help
Current city samples for the family-support costs we track in Vietnam.
Full-time nanny (5 days)
$280-$680
9 tracked cities, not a national average
Live-in / 24-7 nanny
$490-$1,150
9 tracked cities, not a national average
Source: curated family relocation research
Healthcare
System strength, outcome signals, facility coverage, and self-pay visibility in Vietnam.
Method: country metrics come from public system indicators, facility coverage reflects mapped providers we can inventory, direct pricing only reflects observed self-pay pages, and relative care cost can fall back to broad cost-of-living healthcare indices. Sparse pricing does not imply sparse healthcare availability.
Healthcare system
LimitedThis is a broad country-level read based on coverage, staffing, beds, and spending.
Public care
LimitedA visible public hospital footprint help, but public funding looks lighter and patients still shoulder a meaningful share of costs.
Private care
GoodA large tracked hospital and clinic network and visible specialty depth help, but self-pay pricing transparency is still sparse.
UHC coverage
71/100
2023
Physicians
1.11/1k
2021
Hospital beds
2.52/1k
2017
Out of pocket
39%
2023
Outcome signals
Life expectancy
74.7 yrs
2024
Maternal mortality
48/100k
2023
Neonatal mortality
8.8/1k
2024
International patient readiness
MixedMultiple facilities have websites and there is visible specialty depth help, but price transparency is still sparse.
Pricing transparency
LimitedMultiple facilities have crawlable websites help, but published self-pay prices are scarce.
Facility coverage
Self-pay pricing visibility
No verified self-pay prices are published for the tracked facilities in Vietnam yet.
This usually reflects low online price transparency rather than a lack of healthcare providers.
Notable facilities
System metrics: World Bank WDI · Updated 2026-11-01
Safety & Governance
Street Safety
Source: Numbeo where a city row is matched; otherwise World Bank WGI and country-level safety context.
Political Stability
World Bank WGI scale: -2.5 to +2.5.
Wages by Sector
| Sector | Median |
|---|---|
| Administrative & Support Services | — |
| Agriculture & Farming | — |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | — |
| Construction | — |
| Education | — |
| Finance & Insurance | — |
| Healthcare & Social Work | — |
| Hospitality & Food Service | — |
| Information & Technology | — |
| Manufacturing | — |
| Mining & Quarrying | — |
| Other Services | — |
| Professional & Scientific Services | — |
| Public Administration & Defence | — |
| Real Estate | — |
| Retail & Wholesale Trade | — |
| Transport & Logistics | — |
| Utilities | — |
2024 annual wages in Vietnam · Source: ILO ILOSTAT
Visa Information (US passport)
Short-stay entry
US passport holders need advance travel authorization or a visa before entry.
About Vietnam
Vietnam is a lower-middle-income country in East Asia & Pacific, with Hanoi as its capital and a population of about 101 million. For relocators, the headline is cost: it sits well below the regional average, with a comfortable expat lifestyle commonly documented around $800-1,500 per month. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are the practical anchors, offering better private clinics, 50-100 Mbps urban internet, and the widest range of services. The tradeoff is administrative: tourist entry is relatively visa-friendly, but business or resident routes usually need sponsorship, so long stays require planning. Vietnamese is the official language, and daily life is easier if you account for language friction. The climate is hot and humid, tropical to subtropical, with typhoon season from June to September.
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Common questions about Vietnam
Sourced from SortaRich's public-data ranking engine — every figure links to its institutional source.
How much does it cost to live in Vietnam?
The cost of living in Vietnam is about 73% cheaper than the global benchmark (New York City), with an overall cost-of-living index of 27. SortaRich personalizes these numbers to your home city's purchasing power so the comparison is real, not nominal.
Sources: SortaRich Cost of Living, World Bank ICP 2021
How far does $1 go in Vietnam?
$1 goes about 3.7x further in Vietnam than in the baseline market — your home-country income stretches that much more (current PPP ratio: 3.67). The figure adjusts every year as exchange rates and local prices shift. SortaRich uses World Bank ICP 2021 as the anchor and Penn World Tables 11.0 for cross-validation.
Sources: World Bank ICP 2021, Penn World Tables 11.0
What visa do I need to move to Vietnam?
To move to Vietnam you have these visa options: Tourist entry: evisa. Visa rules change frequently — confirm the current terms with the official immigration authority before booking flights.
Source: SortaRich Visa Database
What are the best cities to live in Vietnam?
The best cities to live in Vietnam are Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang — those are the most-searched options among the 3 cities profiled in the SortaRich database. Each city page includes a personalized PPP comparison versus your home city plus subnational price data where available.
Source: SortaRich City Index