Vietnam · Southeast Asia · care layer opened 2026-08-14
Provincial Sở Lao động — Thương binh và Xã hội, and district Phòng — issue the operating licence under Art 28
Vietnam is one of the destinations on this site where we have opened a primary source on elder-care regulation with our own eyes. The cells below are not price estimates: each one is a publisher we can name, with the month we read it. The retirement visa most people start from here is No dedicated retiree visa (90-day e-visa cycles).
Opened the Government Portal's signed PDF of Decree 103/2017/NĐ-CP (datafiles.chinhphu.vn; the listing page is vanban.chinhphu.vn docid 191096). Article 28 splits licensing: Sở Lao động — Thương binh và Xã hội for provincial-level and central-agency facilities with a local seat; Phòng Lao động — Thương binh và Xã hội for other locally founded facilities. The same article names the licensor as the body that suspends or withdraws the licence. The 2017 office titles are what the PDF prints — Vietnam's later ministry transfer moved social-assistance functions in ways that may rename the desk that still holds those files — so this cell files the decree's licensing split, not a clickable national directory of who answers the phone tomorrow.
Same signed PDF. Article 5 lists seven establishment types; the first is cơ sở bảo trợ xã hội chăm sóc người cao tuổi — a social-protection establishment caring for older persons. Article 6.4 also admits đối tượng tự nguyện — people who pay, or whose relatives pay, for assistance without falling into the statutory protection categories. A draft decree to replace 103/2017 was discussed under Bộ Y tế in early 2026; this cell files the instrument still published as the live signed text, not the draft.
No national public register of licensed elderly-care facilities could be opened. Article 31 requires a newly licensed facility to publish its licence facts in three consecutive issues of a local newspaper — name, address, facility type, tasks, service area — which is a local notice, not a searchable national list. Naming the provincial licensor under Article 28 is not the same as being able to check whether a particular home holds a live licence from abroad, and only the first of those two things is published here. Stay paperwork and BHYT contract gates for foreigners live on ThonExpat; this layer stays on elder-care regulation.
Why Vietnam shows up in retirement searches
Vietnam is the value king — $1,400 a month lives well, and the food, coastline and energy are unmatched at the price. The tax case is weaker than it looks: the exemption for a foreign-paid pension sat in a circular that was replaced this July, and the new personal income tax law lists only Vietnamese fund pensions as exempt. And there is no retirement visa: life runs on 90-day e-visa cycles, banking and property rights punish tourist status, and none of it is designed for you to stay. Elder-care homes are a named facility type under Decree 103/2017, licensed provincially — there is no national searchable register. An extraordinary place to spend seasons; a hard place to build an estate.
That context matters for care because the same decision that picks Vietnam for cost or climate is the one that later has to find a licensed facility — and whether a public register even exists is the part of that decision that can be checked before anyone flies.
Stay and cover on ThonExpat
Temporary residence, housing ownership caps, and the BHYT contract gate for foreigners are procedure pages on ThonExpat — sibling product, same parent. This care layer stays on elder-care regulation and does not invent a retirement visa.
Contract clauses that exclude custodial care — quoted with page numbers — live once on the care hub, not on each country page, so the wording is not pasted 14 times.