Thinking of Retiring in Vietnam? Read This Saigon Cost-of-Living Breakdown First

[Thinking of Retiring in Vietnam? Read This Saigon Cost-of-Living Breakdown First]

In late July, Forbes published its annual list of the best places to retire abroad: 96 locations in 24 countries. Vietnam made the list for the first time, with Hanoi, Da Nang, Hội An and Ho Chi Minh City all named, largely because living costs run about a quarter of US levels. Three weeks later, a Vietnamese YouTuber put a much more specific number on it. Văn Vũ runs What The Pho, a channel with 260,000 subscribers. She is a Việt Kiều who moved back from the US and has lived in Ho Chi Minh City for four years, most recently in Thảo Điền, the city's most expat-heavy neighborhood. She itemized a full month of spending and landed on $2,247, or roughly $2,500 with a buffer.

Rent is the biggest line. Her studio has a kitchen and a Saigon River view, and the building comes with a gym, a rooftop pool and twice-weekly cleaning. It costs VND 14 million a month, about $535, plus a flat $20 for water and $40 to $60 for electricity depending on how hard the air conditioning works. She budgets $600 for housing and utilities. That is close to the citywide market: Numbeo puts the average one-bedroom in central Ho Chi Minh City at about VND 15 million, with listings from 12 to 25 million (roughly $460 to $960). High-end Thảo Điền compounds like Masteri Thảo Điền and The Edge are a different world — $1,000 to $1,800 for a two-bedroom, and $3,000 and up for three or four bedrooms. There is room to negotiate: stay six months or longer and landlords will often knock 10 to 15 percent off.

Local food has not moved. Phở, bánh mì and cơm tấm still cost $2 to $5 a meal. What changes in the expat bubble is the menu of options: a bò kho with hand-cut noodles and a drink runs about $10, and international restaurants charge two to three times local prices. She budgets $500 a month for eating out — her own number, not a market average; on Numbeo, a meal at an inexpensive restaurant is still VND 50,000, about $2. Cooking at home is not automatically cheaper. At Thảo Điền's premium supermarkets, a liter of milk is $4, a box of cereal $7, ten eggs $2. Cross the street to An Phú Market or shop at MM Mega Market and the same basket costs 20 to 30 percent less.

Getting around is still cheap. Grab, Be and Xanh SM all operate in the city; moving by motorbike costs less than $5 a day, by car about $10. She budgets $200 a month for rides. Buying a motorbike runs VND 3 million to 50 million, about $115 to $2,000. Phone and subscriptions are pocket change: a Viettel SIM with 4GB a day costs $6 a month, and with streaming and a VPN the total stays in the low twenties.

What if you get sick? A visit to a private clinic or hospital costs $30 to $60, a dental cleaning $20 to $50. Foreigners commonly use Vinmec, Family Medical Practice and FV Hospital. Insurance is the line not to skip. A basic nomad-style plan covering hospital stays, surgery and medication runs about $62 a month; comprehensive international coverage costs around $150, depending on age and scope. She sets aside $200 a month for healthcare and insurance combined.

Entertainment depends on how you play. A regular coffee is $2 to $3. A pickleball group session costs VND 350,000, about $13, and court rental is $12 an hour — the same hour costs $22 in the US. She budgets $300 for fitness and fun, plus $100 for personal care, $80 for miscellaneous, $250 for travel and $17 a month in amortized visa fees. The nine categories add up to $2,247; the twenty-odd dollars of phone and subscriptions sit outside her summary table. Add 10 to 15 percent for surprises and inflation and you get about $2,500.

What does $2,500 mean in context? Numbeo estimates a single person's monthly costs in Ho Chi Minh City at $487 excluding rent — living frugally and living comfortably are five times apart. The sharper comparison: Vietnam's Ministry of Home Affairs puts the average worker's income in 2025 at VND 8.31 million a month, about $318. This budget is nearly eight times the average local wage.

For anyone planning to stay, though, the harder problem is not money but immigration status. Vietnam still has no retirement visa, a point Forbes flagged when it added the country to its list: most foreign retirees string together 90-day e-visas, leaving the country each time one expires. The main legal paths today are four:

➤ E-visa: $25 single entry, $50 multiple entry, up to 90 days, with fees set by a Ministry of Finance regulation that took effect in April 2026
➤ Five-year visa exemption certificate: for overseas Vietnamese and their spouses and children, allowing stays of 6 months per entry, extendable by another 6 months with valid reasons
➤ TT temporary residence card: for spouses of Vietnamese citizens, valid up to 3 years
➤ Investor visas: tiered by capital — under VND 3 billion (about $115,000) gets only 12 months, VND 3 billion and up gets 3 years, VND 50 billion (about $1.9 million) and up gets a maximum of 5 years

The "golden visa" making the rounds online is, for now, only a proposal from the Tourism Advisory Board — a 5-to-10-year residency concept with no decree number and no application channel as of August 2026. Meanwhile, penalties are getting heavier. Decree 282/2025/NĐ-CP, in force since December 2025, replaced the old fine schedule: overstaying can now cost VND 30 to 40 million (about $1,150 to $1,530), with possible deportation on top.

The city itself is changing too. Ho Chi Minh City is planning a low-emission zone in its center. Under the latest proposal, the zone would be drawn in early 2027, with fees for cars below Euro 4 standards; from September 2027, motorbikes below Euro 2 would be banned during rush hours; by 2028, gasoline motorbikes would be banned from the zone entirely. In a city that moves on two wheels, commuting costs will get recalculated. The video opens with a question: is $2,000 a month enough for a good life in Vietnam? Nineteen minutes of line items later, her number comes out at $2,247 — a notch above the question itself. As for $1,000, she is blunt: it can no longer guarantee you a good life in Vietnam.

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