Southeast Asia · verified July 2026
Retire in Vietnam
Vietnam has no dedicated retiree visa. Stay runs on 90-day e-visa cycles. About $1,400/mo. US Social Security is restricted in Vietnam — payments need an exception and embassy check-ins. Original Medicare does not pay abroad.
Vietnam is the value king — $1,400 a month lives well1, 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 July2, and the new personal income tax law lists only Vietnamese fund pensions as exempt. And there is no retirement visa1: life runs on 90-day e-visa cycles1, banking and property rights punish tourist status1, 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.
Superscripts link to the source below. Dotted underline marks Thon's own read, not a fact.
What each claim rests on
- Vietnam e-visa / temporary residence practice — no dedicated retiree visa
- PIT Law 109/2025/QH15 — in force 1 Jul 2026, replaces the 2007 law
Forbes list · 31 July 2026 · American readers
Forbes put Vietnam on a retirement list. The list does not include a visa.
On 31 July 2026 Forbes added Vietnam to The Best Places To Retire Abroad In 2026, a first appearance, alongside Mauritius. The places it names are Hanoi, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City and Hội An. Living cost is why the list moved. The legal spine is why the list is incomplete.
Stay. Vietnam has no dedicated retiree visa. Stay runs on 90-day e-visa cycles.
Americans. US Social Security is restricted in Vietnam — payments need an exception and embassy check-ins. Original Medicare does not pay abroad. The 2015 US–Vietnam tax treaty was signed and has never entered into force.
Cities. Da Nang, Hội An and Ho Chi Minh City (Thao Dien) have cost bands on this page. Forbes also names Hanoi; we have not published a city cell for it yet.
Visa and taxAmerican overlayVietnam vs Thailand
Forbes cited as news, 31 July 2026, not as a ThonRetire fact cell. Visa, tax and cost figures on this page are ours, each with a check month.
Cite: ThonRetire, “Retire in Vietnam”, https://thonretire.com/retire/vietnam (visa, Social Security, Medicare, and the unsigned-in-force US–Vietnam tax treaty). Dataset /data · method /method.
Why this number
Every point is accounted for. Nothing is hidden in a weighting you cannot see.
- Base country quality60Vietnam scores 60/100 before anything about you is applied — visa system, tax regime, healthcare, safety and property rights.
- Australian passport+1Better than average for Australian retirees: 8h, low cost, strong trial-stay option
- Best fit for you61A decision aid, not a prediction. Two people with the same passport can rank these differently — that is the point of showing the working.
What it means for your money, month one and year twenty-five
A score tells you how well Vietnam fits. This tells you what lands in your account each month compared with staying in Australia — and then what happens to that figure over the rest of a life, which is where the two answers stop agreeing.
Where $4,000/mo goes in Vietnam
- Living$2,170
- Health$342
- Left$1,488
The same month, 25 years apart
On the day you land, a pension that keeps rising and one held at the rate you left on pay exactly the same amount. Everything above this line is that day. This is what separates them afterwards.
On these inputs your liquid assets last the whole 25 years on both branches — $1,148,148 left at 86 if the pension rises, $565,584 if it does not.
Which branch applies to your pension is decided by the authority that pays it, not by Vietnam. The published rule for your passport, with its source and the date we opened it, is on what happens to your pension once you leave.
What this projection assumes (projection)
- Costs are assumed to rise 3% a year, every year, in the currency you spend.
- Liquid assets are assumed to return 4% a year after fees, with no bad decade.
- The uprated branch is modelled as rising 3% a year — exactly enough to stand still. The frozen branch does not rise at all. Neither branch is a forecast of what any government will do.
- Tax is held at the same effective rate for the whole projection; in reality bands, thresholds and treaties all move.
- Exchange rates are held flat. For a pension paid in one currency and spent in another, that is the single largest thing this projection does not model.
- This is a scenario, not a forecast. Its value is in the gap between the two branches, not in either number on its own.
A scenario, not a forecast, and not financial advice. It describes what arithmetic does to two published rules over time; it does not tell you where to take a pension.
Vietnam
- Monthly pension
- $3,000
- Drawdown from assets4% a year on your liquid assets
- $1,000
- Tax in VietnamForeign pension not taxed here
- $0
- Private health covertwo people, by age
- −$342
- Cost of livingall-in for a couple
- −$2,170
- Net per month
- $1,488
Australia (home)
- Monthly pension
- $3,000
- Drawdown from assets
- $1,000
- Tax in Australiaeffective on pension income
- −$675
- Health coverpublic system, no private premium
- $0
- Cost of living
- −$5,425
- Net per month
- $-2,100
How this is estimated (estimate)
- Effective tax is estimated from the headline band; real tax depends on your residency status, asset structure and the tax year.
- Assets are drawn at 4% a year — a planning rule of thumb, not a guarantee.
- Health cover is a private-insurance estimate by age; public enrolment (where allowed) can be cheaper.
- Cost of living is an all-in monthly figure; a couple is modelled at 1.55× a single person.
- A double-tax treaty is assumed to prevent taxing the same pension twice.
Indicative decision aid, not immigration, tax or financial advice. Confirm with a qualified adviser before acting.
Right for you if
- Seasonal retirees — months, not decades
- Deep-value hunters — the cheapest on the list1
- People with family or roots in-country
What the rules say
Every figure here is written into Vietnam's own immigration, tax or civil code, so you can open the source and check it yourself. Nothing on this page is behind a login.
Who the door opens for
How long it takes, what it costs to set up
Tax, property and what happens to your estate
Sources: Procedures for temporary residence cards for foreigners (Vietnam Immigration Department, Ministry of Public Security); Law 109/2025/QH15 on Personal Income Tax (passed 10 Dec 2025, in force 1 Jul 2026) (National Assembly of Vietnam — Official Gazette, Government Office) · checked Aug 2026.
Ownership and inheritance rules come from the national civil code; we have not yet linked a primary page for it, so treat those two lines as indicative.
The 13 things about Vietnam you can't look up
Your net tax burden once the treaty and the local regime are applied. What opening a bank account actually takes, and how many weeks. Private cover priced at your age, not the brochure age. Whether people really keep their first passport here. Capital controls as they work in practice, where the community actually lives, and air and internet by neighbourhood.
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Sign in to unlockWhat living in Vietnam actually costs and takes
Real rents by city, named hospitals, the visa route as a numbered checklist, and a first-90-days plan for banking, tax registration and residency.
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Sign in to unlockTrack Vietnam
Thresholds move without notice. Get an email the moment a visa or tax fact for Vietnam changes.
Sources to re-check
- Vietnam e-visa / temporary residence practice — no dedicated retiree visa
Indicative decision aid, verified July 2026. Not immigration, tax or financial advice. Thresholds and backlogs move; confirm against the official source before you act.
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