Living in Vietnam long-term
Thousands of people a month search for a Vietnamese nomad visa or retirement visa. Neither exists. The pages ranking for those searches are agencies selling a different product under the name, and the honest answer — that there is nothing to apply for — is the one nobody wants to publish because it sells nothing. Here is what long-stay in Vietnam actually is, and the two ways it goes wrong.
There is nothing to apply for. Vietnam has no nomad visa and no retirement visa, and the golden visa proposed in 2025 has not been enacted, so staying here means chaining tourist or business entries and knowing where that stops being legal. The record says what exists instead, and what does not.
What Vietnam offers instead →Where to base yourself in Vietnam
These are not interchangeable. Costs are a monthly total for one person living normally, not a survival floor.
Da Nang
Flat, cheap, and the beach is a weekday rather than a trip.
Ho Chi Minh City
Where the clients are. Also where the traffic is.
Hanoi
Cheaper than Saigon, and colder than anyone expects.
Side by side, on the things that actually differ:
| Axis | Da Nang | Ho Chi Minh City | Hanoi |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost, relative | Lowest of the three | Highest, driven by rent | Below Saigon |
| Air | Best of the three | Poor, traffic-driven | Worst Nov–Mar |
| Getting around | Scooter, but flat and small | Grab, scooter, or Metro Line 1 | Scooter or Grab |
| Who is there | Remote workers, Korean expats | Business expats, largest scene | Diplomats, teachers, long-stayers |
| The catch | Quiet in a way that becomes a problem after a few months — a thin professional scene, and typhoon season runs September to November. | Relentless. Noise, traffic and almost no green space, and the city does not have a quiet season to recover in. | Winter is cold, damp and grey in a way nobody expects of Vietnam, and it arrives at the same time as the worst air of the year. |
Cost is relative on purpose. Sourced monthly figures live on each city page, dated and attributed — and left blank where we have not sourced one rather than estimated.
How Vietnam compares in Asia
Ranked against every country in the region we hold a record for. Countries that publish no figure are excluded from the count rather than treated as zero.
- Routes
- No long-stay route to apply for, while 8 other countries in the region publish one.
The visa everyone is searching for was never enacted
Vietnam's Tourism Advisory Board put a proposal to the Prime Minister in 2025 for a set of long-stay visas — a five-to-ten-year golden visa, a ten-year investor visa, and a five-year talent visa. It was covered widely enough that a lot of people now believe it exists.
It is still a proposal. There is no decree number, no application channel and no confirmed timetable. A proposal that has been reported on is not a visa you can apply for, and the gap between those two things is where the visa agencies operate.
We will publish the route the day it is enacted and date it against the decree that creates it. Until then this page says no, because saying maybe would be more useful to us than to you.
Staying is not residing, and the difference costs you everything
What people actually do is live here on rolling 90-day e-visas, applied for online before travelling. It is cheap, it is legal, and it works — a lot of people have run this for years.
What it is not is residence. Time on an e-visa accrues no status: no permanent residency clock, no path to citizenship, no right to work for anyone in Vietnam, and no protection if the entry rules tighten while you are mid-life-here. A Temporary Residence Card is the only route to actual residence and it is granted on a separate basis — employment with a work permit, investment, or marriage to a Vietnamese citizen. Remote work for foreign clients is not one of those bases.
Working remotely for a foreign employer while on an e-visa sits in a grey area Vietnam has not formally addressed. It is very widely done and it is not clearly permitted. We are not going to tell you it is fine when the government has not said so.
Vietnam's tax clock does not reset in January — Thailand's does
This is the detail that catches people moving across the region, because the two countries look similar and are not. Thailand's threshold is 180 days in a calendar year, so the count starts again every January. Vietnam's is 183 days in a calendar year OR in any rolling twelve months from the date you arrived. Leaving on 31 December resets nothing.
There is a second trigger with no day count attached at all: holding a permanent residence in Vietnam, which includes a registered address or a rented place on a lease with a definite term. Sign a year on an apartment and the day-counting may be beside the point.
Cross the line and Vietnam taxes residents on worldwide income at progressive rates topping out at 35%; non-residents pay a flat 20% on Vietnam-sourced income only. Note also that the rules themselves are mid-change — a new Personal Income Tax Law, 109/2025/QH15, was passed in December 2025, with the employment-income provisions applying from the 2026 tax year and the full law in force from 1 July 2026. Take advice against the current text rather than a guide written before it passed.
Before you go
On rolling e-visas you are a tourist in law however long you have been here, which means no residency and no entitlement to anything the state health system offers residents. Private care in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi is good and is billed upfront in full.
Compare long-stay health coverCommon questions
Does Vietnam have a digital nomad visa?
No. As of 2026 Vietnam operates no digital nomad visa and no remote-worker visa, and there is no application to make. A package of long-stay visas including a ten-year golden visa was proposed in 2025 but has not been enacted — no decree, no application channel, no timetable. Anyone offering you a Vietnamese nomad visa today is selling a different product under that name.
Is there a Vietnamese retirement visa?
No, and this is the search that gets exploited most. Vietnam has no retirement visa category at all. Retirees who live in Vietnam do it on repeated 90-day e-visas, or hold a Temporary Residence Card obtained on some other basis such as marriage to a Vietnamese citizen. There is no route where age plus income gets you residence, the way there is in Thailand or Malaysia.
How long can I stay in Vietnam?
Ninety days per e-visa, single or multiple entry, applied for online at the government portal — roughly USD 25 single-entry and USD 50 multiple-entry, issued in about three to five working days. People chain these indefinitely and it generally works, but each entry is at a border officer's discretion and nothing about repeated entry creates a right to be admitted.
Will I pay tax in Vietnam if I live there?
Possibly, and sooner than people expect. You are a Vietnamese tax resident if you spend 183 days or more in Vietnam in a calendar year or in any rolling twelve months from arrival — unlike Thailand's 180-day count, this does not reset in January. You can also be resident by holding a permanent residence, which includes a rented place on a lease with a definite term, with no day count involved. Residents are taxed on worldwide income at progressive rates up to 35%; non-residents pay a flat 20% on Vietnam-sourced income. The law changed in December 2025, so get advice against the current text.
The regional comparison on this page is read from our verified dataset, whose records carry the date each was last checked against its government source. How we check them: our method.