Vietnam travel budget

Dollar bowls of pho, sleeper buses north, and limestone bays at dawn.

How much per day?

Typical daily spend per person, everything included. Local amounts at the latest available rate (1 USD = 25,868.9 VND).

Backpacker

$25–50

VND 647,000–1,293,000

Dorms, street food, buses

Mid-range

$50–120

VND 1,293,000–3,104,000

Private rooms, restaurants, some tours

Comfort

$150–350

VND 3,880,000–9,054,000

Hotels, taxis, nicer dinners

What things cost

Item	USD	VND
Street food meal (pho, banh mi, com tam)	$1–2.5	VND 25,900–64,700
Sit-down local restaurant meal	$2–8	VND 51,700–207,000
Coffee (ca phe sua da to cafe cappuccino)	$0.8–2.5	VND 20,700–64,700
Local beer (bia hoi to bottle in a bar)	$0.3–2	VND 7,760–51,700
Bottled water (500 ml)	$0.2–0.6	VND 5,170–15,500
Grab ride, ~5 km (motorbike to car)	$1–5	VND 25,900–129,000
Intercity sleeper bus or train (e.g. Hanoi to Hue)	$10–45	VND 259,000–1,164,000
Hostel dorm bed	$5–18	VND 129,000–466,000
Private double room (guesthouse)	$15–50	VND 388,000–1,293,000
Mid-range (3-star) hotel	$30–100	VND 776,000–2,587,000
Prepaid SIM or eSIM with data (7-30 days)	$3–15	VND 77,600–388,000
Major site entry (Hue Imperial City, Ha Long Bay)	$5–12	VND 129,000–310,000

Cash or card?

Cash in dong runs everyday life: street food, markets, guesthouses, buses and motorbike rentals. Cards and QR payments work at hotels, malls, chain cafes and upscale restaurants in the big cities.

ATMs

Expect a local fee of roughly 20,000-85,000 VND per withdrawal on top of your bank's charge, with per-transaction caps usually 2-10 million VND; fees vary by bank and change often, so read the screen before confirming. Always choose to be charged in VND, never USD, and withdraw larger amounts less often.

Tipping

Not expected at street stalls or local eateries; rounding up is appreciated. Leave 5-10% at nicer restaurants and spas if no service charge is added, and about 100,000-300,000 VND per day for tour guides.

Watch out for

The 20,000 and 200,000 VND notes are both blue, and the 10,000 and 100,000 are both reddish. Count your change before you walk away, and watch for vendors who 'mistake' one for the other.

Make your VND go further

✓Use Grab or Be instead of street taxis or cyclos; the fare is fixed upfront, and the motorbike option often costs under $2 across town.
✓Take overnight sleeper buses or trains on long legs to save a night's accommodation; book through the operator or 12Go rather than hotel desks with markup.
✓Buy a Viettel or Vinaphone tourist SIM at an official store in town (60,000-150,000 VND) rather than at the airport counter, where it can cost $10-13.
✓Drink bia hoi (fresh draft beer, often under 15,000 VND) and eat where locals queue, a street or two away from Hanoi's Old Quarter and Hoi An's Ancient Town.
✓Avoid Tet (late January to February), the April 30-May 1 holidays and Christmas-New Year, when rooms and transport can jump 15-30% and sell out.

When to go

Spring (March-April) and autumn (September-November) suit most routes, but conditions vary by region: the north is cool from December to February, the south is dry from December to April, and the central coast gets typhoons and floods from about September to November, when beach prices drop.

Where people are heading

Quy Nhon
A quieter central-coast beach city with seafood at local prices.
Ta Xua
Mountain ridges in Son La known for their sea of clouds at sunrise.
Mui Ne
Kitesurfing, red sand dunes and cheap beachfront guesthouses.

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