Vietnam: What It Actually Costs a Family to Start Slow Travelling (And the Visa Truth Nobody Warns You About)
Series: Slow Travel Southeast Asia
Disclaimer up front: Everything in this post is the result of internet research, not lived experience. We haven’t arrived yet. What it actually costs, what the immigration officers actually say, and what surprises us when we land, that’ll come later. This is what we found when we looked properly. New here? Start with the, ‘Why Southeast Asia – The Honest Answer‘, series post or our ‘Malaysia‘ post.
Vietnam is one of those places that gets under people’s skin. Ancient towns, limestone karsts, rice terraces, street food that costs less than a cup of tea back home, and a pace of life that makes you wonder why you ever thought the nine-to-five was compulsory. It’s been on the slow travel radar for years, and the numbers make it one of the most affordable destinations in Southeast Asia.
But here’s the thing nobody tells you upfront: Vietnam has no retirement visa. No long-stay pension route. No equivalent of Thailand’s Retirement Visa or Malaysia’s MM2H (Malaysia My Second Home) programme. For a family like ours, living on pension income, not remote work, that changes the conversation significantly.
This is part of our Slow Travel Southeast Asia series. We’ve already covered Malaysia and Thailand in separate posts. Vietnam sits differently to both of them, not better or worse, just different. Understanding how it fits into a slow travel plan requires being honest about what the visa options actually are, rather than what we might wish they were.
Here’s what we found.
The Visa Reality: Honest From the Start
There Is No Retirement Visa
Let’s get this out of the way immediately. Unlike Thailand and Malaysia, Vietnam does not offer a visa category based on age, retirement status, or pension income. This applies to UK passport holders, US passport holders, and most other nationalities equally.
That doesn’t mean Vietnam is off the table, far from it. It means you approach it differently.
What UK Passport Holders Actually Get
As a UK passport holder, you have two practical options for visiting Vietnam:
Visa-free entry (45 days): UK citizens can enter Vietnam without any visa for up to 45 days. No application, no fee, no paperwork. Just arrive. This resets each time you leave the country and re-enter, though immigration officers are increasingly alert to repeated back-to-back entries that look like permanent residency on a tourist basis.
The e-visa (90 days, multiple entry): For $50 (around £40) per person, you can apply online for a 90-day multiple entry e-visa through Vietnam’s official government portal. Processing takes 3–7 business days. This is the route most slow travel families use for an extended stay, and at roughly £120 for a family of three, it’s one of the cheapest visa costs in the region.
The e-visa cannot be renewed from inside Vietnam. When it expires, you exit, to Cambodia, Thailand, or elsewhere, and re-enter on a new one. For slow travellers moving between countries anyway, this fits naturally into the rhythm of the trip.
Long-Stay Options: The Honest Picture
Beyond the e-visa, the long-stay options for retirees in Vietnam are limited and, frankly, more complicated than most travel content acknowledges.
The investor visa (DT Visa): The most common route for long-term foreign residents who aren’t working. It requires setting up or investing in a Vietnamese company. The paperwork is complex, the process needs local legal support, and it’s genuinely designed for people with business intentions rather than families who simply want to live there for a year. We’d consider it a last resort rather than a first option.
The Golden Visa programme: Vietnam is actively developing a long-term residency programme for financially independent retirees and investors — reports suggest it will require around $100,000 in savings or investment. As of mid-2026 it is not yet law. We’ll update this post when it is. It’s worth watching if Vietnam is high on your list.
The practical reality most families use: The 90-day e-visa rhythm. Exit when it expires, explore a neighbouring country for a week or two, re-enter. For a family genuinely slow travelling across Southeast Asia rather than trying to base permanently in one place, this is less of a limitation than it sounds. Vietnam becomes one chapter in a longer story rather than a permanent base.
Honest verdict: Vietnam is not the right choice if you want a stable, long-term visa base like the Sarawak MM2H in Malaysia or the Thai Retirement Visa. It is an excellent choice if you’re moving through Southeast Asia over a period of months, want to spend a meaningful chunk of time there, and are happy with the 90-day rhythm.
Where to Base Yourself
Vietnam is a long, thin country with genuinely distinct regions. Where you base yourself matters more here than in most Southeast Asian destinations, because the north, centre, and south have different climates, different characters, and different costs.
Hanoi is the capital — chaotic, charming, historically rich, and slightly cheaper than Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). It suits families drawn to culture, history, and proximity to northern highlights like Ha Long Bay and Sapa. It has a growing expat community and solid infrastructure for longer stays.
Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is the commercial engine — faster-paced, more international, slightly more expensive. Better for families who want a big-city base with easy connections to the Mekong Delta and the south. The expat community is large and well-established.
Da Nang and Hoi An are where a lot of slow travel families actually end up. Da Nang has beaches, modern infrastructure, and costs meaningfully lower than the two major cities. Hoi An, 30 minutes down the coast, is one of the most liveable towns in Southeast Asia: walkable, UNESCO-listed, deeply atmospheric, family-friendly, and genuinely affordable. It consistently appears at the top of slow travel recommendations for good reason.
Hoi An deserves a special mention. It’s the kind of place that gets into people’s plans as a stop and becomes a month-long stay. Lantern-lit streets, tailor shops, cooking classes, beaches a short cycle away, and a community of long-term travellers and expats who chose it deliberately. If you only have one place in Vietnam on your list, make it Hoi An.
What Does It Actually Cost?
All figures below are estimates from research. Real costs will vary.
| Category | Hanoi / HCMC | Da Nang | Hoi An |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visa fees (family of 3, e-visa) | ~£120 | ~£120 | ~£120 |
| One-way flights from UK | ~£1,600 | ~£1,700 (via HAN/SGN) | ~£1,700 (via HAN/SGN) |
| First month rent + deposit (3-bed) | ~£1,400 | ~£1,000 | ~£900 |
| Estimated entry cost | ~£3,120 | ~£2,820 | ~£2,720 |
Vietnam has the lowest entry costs of any destination we’ve covered in this series so far. That’s partly the cheap visa, partly the lower rents outside the major cities, and partly the simple fact that Vietnam is one of the most affordable countries in Southeast Asia.
Monthly Living Costs
Hanoi / Ho Chi Minh City
- 3-bed apartment (expat area): £700–£900/month
- Family monthly budget (all in): ~£1,600–£1,800
Da Nang
- 3-bed apartment: £500–£750/month
- Family monthly budget (all in): ~£1,300–£1,500
Hoi An
- 3-bed house or apartment: £450–£700/month
- Family monthly budget (all in): ~£1,200–£1,400
These are among the lowest numbers in the series. A family of three can live comfortably in Hoi An on under £1,400 a month, and that includes decent accommodation, eating out regularly, and moving around. For context, that’s roughly what a one-bed flat costs to rent in most British cities.
The Money Question: Can You Afford This?
Scenario A — Lean but comfortable: Self-directed homeschooling (~£3k/year) + living in Hoi An or Da Nang (~£16–18k/year) = £19–21k total. The most affordable scenario we’ve found across the whole series. Well within reach of a modest UK pension.
Scenario B — More structured: Online school (~£8–10k/year) + family apartment in Hanoi or HCMC (~£10k rent) + living costs (~£12k) = £30–32k total. Manageable on pension income with modest drawdown.
We’ll cover education costs in detail in a separate post. But Vietnam, particularly outside the major cities, is the most budget-friendly destination we’ve researched in Southeast Asia.
The Tax Question
Vietnam taxes foreign residents on Vietnamese-sourced income only. If your income comes from a UK pension and stays in overseas accounts, Vietnamese tax residency, which kicks in at 183 days, is unlikely to create significant complications for most British families.
That said, the same principle applies here as in Thailand: get proper tax advice before you move your first significant sum. Rules change, enforcement changes, and what was true last year may not be true when you arrive. We’ll be taking cross-border tax advice before September 2027 and will share what we find.
What We Don’t Know Yet
Vietnam is the destination in this series where we have the most questions still open. The visa situation is the main one, the 90-day rhythm works for slow travel, but the lack of a long-stay option for retirees is a genuine gap that Vietnam hasn’t yet filled. The proposed Golden Visa could change that entirely. We’re watching it.
The things we genuinely don’t know:
- Whether the Golden Visa programme becomes law before September 2027, and if so, what it actually requires
- How immigration officers respond to repeated 90-day e-visa entries from the same family
- What Hoi An actually feels like to live in for six weeks rather than visit for four days
- Whether TN will want to stay forever or be ready to move on in three weeks
We’ll find out. And we’ll tell you exactly what we find.
“Hoi An keeps coming up in everything we read — from people who went for a week and stayed for three months. If you’re one of those people, tell me what kept you there.”
