Living in Vietnam.

Rent deposits, an agent's fee and the first months up front usually come due before a local account is open, and Vietnam still runs largely on cash. Getting money in cheaply matters early.

Your bank quotes a rate; what lands in the account is a different number. Compare services on that one, and our guide to money in Vietnam goes deeper.

Yes, but the long-stay routes are narrower than the neighbors', and which one fits depends on why you are coming. We cover each in our Vietnam visa guide; the usual ways in are:

• Work permit and residence card, sponsored by an employer, valid up to two years at a time. The standard route for people with a local job.
• Investor visa (DT), tied to a real registered investment that has to stay in place, not a deposit you park. A residence card starts at around VND 3 billion (roughly USD 115,000) and the term rises with the amount, up to ten years at the top tier.
• Marriage to a Vietnamese citizen, which gets the foreign spouse a family (TT) residence card of up to three years, sponsored by the Vietnamese partner.
• 90-day e-visa, open to every nationality since 2023, single or multiple entry. It is what most nomads and long-stayers use, but it does not extend: you exit and re-apply.

Vietnam has no retirement visa and no long-stay route for people living off a foreign pension or savings. That sets it apart from Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, all of which have one.

Retirees who want to base themselves here end up on rolling 90-day e-visas, exiting and re-entering every three months, unless they are married to a Vietnamese citizen and can get a family card. That is a border run every quarter, not settled residency.

Most foreigners in Vietnam hold a temporary residence card (TRC), tied to a work permit, an investment or a Vietnamese family member and renewed every few years. It is stable enough while the reason you qualified holds, but it is not permanent, and losing the job or winding up the company ends it.

Permanent residency exists but is genuinely rare. It runs mainly through a Vietnamese spouse, parent or child, usually after at least three years of continuous temporary residence, with a separate route for people who have done notable service for the country. The card is effectively indefinite, though it is re-issued every ten years.

Citizenship needs five years of continuous residence, the Vietnamese language and proof you can support yourself, and those first two are waived if you are married to a citizen. A 2025 law loosened the old rule that you had to renounce your existing nationality, so dual citizenship is now possible in limited cases, subject to conditions. Becoming a citizen is still slow and approved case by case, with final sign-off from the President.

Vietnam taxes residents on their worldwide income, and the trigger is not your visa but your presence. Spend 183 days or more here in a calendar year or in the 12 months from arrival, or rent a home for that long, and you are a tax resident unless you can prove tax residency somewhere else. From then on, your foreign salary and local pay go into the same progressive brackets, which run up to 35%. Because the day test can be met on tourist e-visas, some people become tax residents without ever holding a residence card.

The rates changed for 2026. Vietnam cut the brackets from seven to five and raised the deductions: a personal deduction of about VND 186 million a year now comes off before the brackets, plus a further allowance per dependent. Investment income is taxed separately and lightly. Bank deposit interest is tax-free for individuals, dividends are taxed at 5%, and share sales carry a 0.1% tax on the sale value rather than the gain, so you pay it whether or not you made money.

Vietnam is not yet exchanging account data under the Common Reporting Standard, though it has committed to it, so that could change. Crypto, meanwhile, stopped being a legal grey area in January 2026: it is now recognized as property, with a regulated pilot market and a 0.1% tax on each transaction.

Almost everyone rents, and it is cheap and low-commitment. Vietnamese landlords generally take a one or two-month deposit plus the month ahead, not a year up front as in Bali, and monthly or six-month terms are normal. Serviced apartments, with cleaning and utilities bundled in, are common and the simplest option for a first few months. Rent is usually paid in person or by local transfer; the country still runs largely on cash.

Most rentals come furnished, but the quality swings from near-new to tired, and listing photos are often years old and heavily filtered, so view in person or on a live video call before you commit. In Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi there is enough turnover that walking the expat blocks and asking around turns up places that never reach a listing.

Your landlord must register your stay with the local police, usually within a day of you moving in. It can be done online now, but it is the landlord's or host's legal duty, not yours; skip it and they risk a fine while you can hit paperwork trouble at visa time. Confirm it has actually been done, especially in a private house or a casual arrangement rather than a managed building.

Because you pay monthly and put down only a small deposit, a landlord who ignores repairs has more to lose than one sitting on a year of your rent, so problems tend to get fixed. Serviced blocks handle maintenance as part of the deal. In a private rental, still write down who covers what; air conditioning and plumbing are the usual sticking points.

Buying is tightly limited. No one owns land in Vietnam, locals included; everyone holds land-use rights rather than the land itself. Foreigners can buy apartments, and in some projects landed homes, under the 2023 Housing Law, but only on a 50-year, renewable-once basis. Quotas cap foreign buyers at 30% of a building and a set number of landed homes per area. You are not locked in for the full term: you can sell or transfer the remaining years to another eligible foreigner, or to a Vietnamese buyer who then holds it with no time limit, paying a 2% transfer tax on the way out. A foreigner married to a Vietnamese citizen can hold property on a firmer footing.

For finding a place, the market is online and word of mouth:

• Facebook groups. The main channel for foreigners, and the groups in Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi are busy. See the place and meet the owner before paying, and never wire a deposit sight unseen.
• Local listings. Chợ Tốt (general classifieds) and Batdongsan (the main property portal) carry far more than the foreigner groups, though mostly in Vietnamese, so translate or bring a local along.
• Agents and walk-arounds. Small agents work over Zalo, and in the expat blocks plenty of buildings just hang a "cho thuê" (for rent) sign. Renting short-term while you scout on the ground works well.

Bringing your life over is manageable. If you hold a work permit and residence card, you get a one-time duty relief on used household goods. Importing a car is another matter: stacked duties and taxes can more than double the price, so almost everyone buys or leases locally. Note too that the dong is not freely convertible, and taking money back out of the country needs proof of where it came from and that tax was paid.

Vietnam is the surprise on this bill. The rest of the cost table makes the country look cheap and the international schools do not follow. Published primary fees in Ho Chi Minh City run from about VND 690 million to VND 840 million a year, which is close to Singapore money.

Saigon South International School is the cheapest of the established names. The International School Ho Chi Minh City costs more and adds an annual development fee of VND 67.5 million on top of tuition. Both charge a non-refundable entry fee in the tens of millions.

Public schools teach in Vietnamese. Bilingual schools are the middle option most families weigh against the full international fee, and they cost far less.

For a year or three, Vietnam is one of the best-value places to live anywhere: cheap rent, extraordinary food, fast internet, and cities with real momentum. Crime is low and the traffic is the main thing to manage, which our is Vietnam safe? guide gets into. That mix, more than any one thing, is what keeps people renewing, whether they land in Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi.

Settling for good is the part it cannot do yet. There is no retirement visa, permanent residency runs almost entirely through a Vietnamese spouse, and you will never own the land under your house.