Vietnam from Day One — An Honest Relocation Guide
Living Updates
You scanned a QR code, or typed the address off the page. Either way, you're in the right place.
Vietnam changes faster than books reprint. Visa rules shift, banks change their minds about foreign customers, fine schedules get rewritten, school fees rise every spring. So the book gives you the facts as they stood in July 2026, tells you plainly which ones move, and sends you here for the current version.
Nothing on this page is behind an email form. Take what you need.
Next scheduled review: 15 November 2026
What has changed since publication
Newest first. If a chapter isn't listed here, nothing material has changed in it since July 2026.
The first scheduled review is 1 November 2026.
Updates by chapter
Sixteen chapters in the book carry a Last Fact Checked date. Those sixteen are below, each with what moves, where it stands now, and where to confirm it yourself.
The other eight chapters aren't here, and that's deliberate. Packing, scouting, language, culture, finding your people and knowing when to leave don't go stale — they're method and experience, not perishable fact.
Chapter 2 — What Life Actually Costs
What moves here: rents, groceries, insurance ranges, utility costs, and the exchange rates every dollar figure in the book rests on.
Where it stands: the book's baseline is US$1 ≈ 26,300 VND and A$1 ≈ 18,000 VND, checked July 2026. Every conversion in Chapter 2 uses those. If today's rate has moved more than about five per cent, rebuild your budget on the current one before you commit to anything.
Check it yourself: current mid-market rates at xe.com — or your own bank's transfer rate, which is the one that actually applies to you.
The blank budget worksheets from the back matter are in the downloads.
Chapter 3 — Choosing Your City
What moves here: the administrative merger and renaming that took effect in 2025. Hoi An is now formally part of Da Nang. Vung Tau sits inside a fourteen-million-person Ho Chi Minh City.
Where it stands: in conversation, everyone still says Hoi An and Vung Tau, and so does the book. On official documents, addresses, visa forms and government websites, the new names apply. If a guide doesn't know this, it was written before mid-2025 and you should weigh the rest of it accordingly.
Check it yourself: the address as your landlord writes it on the lease is the one immigration will expect to see.
Chapter 4 — The Visa Reality
⚠ Fastest-moving chapter in the book. Check here before you act on anything in it.
What moves here: e-visa eligibility and duration, extension practice, the exemption list, agent pricing, and the July 2026 tech-talent categories that may or may not become the legalisation path a lot of people are waiting for.
Where it stands: as printed. Verified July 2026 against Vietnam's official e-visa portal and current immigration guidance.
Check it yourself: evisa.gov.vn is the only site that counts. It is the official portal. Everything else — including this page — is commentary. Apply there directly; the paid lookalike sites charge a premium to fill in the same form.
One standing warning from the book, unchanged: a visa agent's confidence is not a legal opinion, and no agent's assurance survives contact with a border officer having a bad morning.
Chapter 5 — Your Paperwork Stack
What moves here: document legalisation requirements, apostille status, police-check validity windows, and which driving-licence conventions Vietnam recognises.
Where it stands: as printed, verified July 2026.
Check it yourself: confirm consular requirements with the Vietnamese embassy or consulate in your own country before you courier anything. Requirements differ by country and change without announcement, and a rejected document costs you a month.
Chapter 6 — Money Before You Move
What moves here: foreign-card ATM fees (the book's range is 0–55,000 VND), per-withdrawal limits (2–10 million VND), transfer service pricing, and which Vietnamese banks currently charge foreign cards.
Where it stands: as printed. This set has already reshuffled once this year.
Check it yourself: the fee-free and low-fee ATM list is maintained in the resource directory, because it changes too often to print.
On tax and pensions: no book date is fresh enough, and this page won't pretend otherwise. That's what the accountant hour in Chapter 6 is for. Australian residency tests: ato.gov.au.
Chapter 7 — Health Prep
What moves here: medication import limits (the book's figures: 30 days general, 7 days narcotic, 10 days psychotropic), insurance price ranges, and vaccination recommendations.
Where it stands: as printed, verified July 2026 against official and travel-medicine sources.
Check it yourself: the embassy for import limits, before you fly. And the standing rule from the book — for anything involving your specific medications, conditions or cover, the professionals beat the book. Every time.
Chapter 10 — Landing Well
What moves here: temporary residence declaration rules, the 2026 national system rollout, and fine ranges for non-declaration.
Where it stands: as printed. The one sentence that matters hasn't changed: "Have you declared my stay with the police?" — asked of every landlord, the day you move in, and after every visa run.
Check it yourself: your landlord should be able to show you the confirmation. One who waves the question away is telling you something about the lease.
Chapter 12 — Getting Around
What moves here: Decree 168 fine levels, the foreigner-parity rule, the under-50cc licence exemption, and which international driving permit conventions Vietnam honours.
Where it stands: as printed, verified July 2026. The road safety figures in the chapter — WHO's estimate of roughly 17,000 deaths a year against lower official counts, and the 90 per cent motorcycle share — are unchanged.
Check it yourself: your insurer's wording on unlicensed riding. No website can do that one for you, and it's the difference between an accident and a catastrophe.
Chapter 13 — Money on the Ground
⚠ Moves faster than almost anything else in the book.
What moves here: whether tourist-visa holders can open bank accounts, the VPBank and BIDV exceptions, e-wallet card-linking behaviour, and ATM fee levels.
Where it stands: as printed. But this is branch-by-branch, staff-member-by-staff-member territory, and the answer genuinely changes month to month.
Current community reports on which branches are saying yes are in the resource directory.
Chapter 14 — Staying Connected
What moves here: home fibre pricing (the book's entry tiers: ₫190,000–255,000 after this year's industry-wide rises), mobile plan ranges, SIM registration rules, and the state of the submarine cables.
Where it stands: as printed. Providers reshuffle plans constantly, so treat the book's numbers as the shape of the market rather than a quote.
Chapter 15 — Healthcare When You Actually Need It
What moves here: hospital names and accreditations, direct emergency lines, insurer agreements, and cost calibrations.
The numbers that don't change: 115 national ambulance · 9999 HCMC private emergency · 113 police · 114 fire.
What does change: hospitals open, close, and fall in and out of agreement with insurers. Current hospital shortlists by city are in the resource directory.
Do this now, not later: print the emergency card, fill it in, and put it in your wallet.
Chapter 18 — Safety, Scams and Street Smarts
What moves here: government advisory levels (the book notes US Level 1), comparative crime figures (~1.5 homicides per 100,000), and the scam ladder itself.
Where it stands: as printed. Scam fashions evolve faster than crime statistics — the living version of the ladder is maintained here.
Check it yourself: your own government's travel advisory for Vietnam. Australians: smartraveller.gov.au.
Chapter 19 — Daily Life Systems
What moves here: the electricity tariff structure, typical rates for household help and laundry, chain and service names, and the seasonal calendar.
Where it stands: the soft numbers here drift gently rather than lurch.
The one that changes every year: Tet. The lunar new year moves annually and it reorganises the country for a fortnight — closures, price rises, travel chaos, and the best two weeks of the year if you lean into it.
2027 — Saturday 6 February (mùng 1, the Year of the Goat). Official public holiday: Friday 5 to Thursday 11 February.
2028 — Wednesday 26 January (the Year of the Monkey). Official public holiday: Wednesday 26 to Sunday 30 January.
The lunar date is fixed; the public holiday window around it is announced by the government each year, usually a few months ahead, and often runs longer than the official days. Watch for the announcement, then book flights early — the whole country moves in the same week.
Plan around it deliberately, or travel. Improvised is the one option that does not work.
Chapter 21 — Working, Teaching and Business
⚠ Shares the fastest-moving facts in the book with Chapter 4.
What moves here: teaching requirements (degree, 120-hour TEFL, police and health checks, permit terms under the current decree), the legal position on remote work and associated fine ranges, and company-formation mechanics — IRC and ERC, timelines, ownership rules.
Where it stands: as printed, verified July 2026.
Check it yourself: for anything with your name on it, the professionals outrank the book and they outrank this page. Every time. Chapter 21 tells you which professional and what to ask.
Chapter 22 — Families and Schooling
What moves here: fee ranges, first-year overheads, annual increase patterns, and the gaps between cities.
Where it stands: as printed, verified July 2026 against then-current fee schedules. Schools publish the following year's fees each spring, so the book's numbers age on a predictable annual cycle.
Check it yourself: the school directly, always. Enrolment visa requirements in particular vary school to school and change without notice.
The school-fees worksheet — headline fee × 1.25, plus 7 per cent a year — is in the downloads.
Chapter 23 — Long-Term Legality
What moves here: property rules (the 50-year renewable land use right, the 30 per cent and 250-unit caps, the legal-entry purchase requirement, spousal freehold), temporary residence card categories and terms, marriage registration mechanics, and inheritance provisions including forced heirship shares and foreign-will recognition.
Where it stands: as printed, verified July 2026 against the current housing, land and civil codes as reported by practising firms.
A note on this chapter specifically: these are the slowest-moving rules in the book and the highest-stakes. Which is exactly why the professionals outrank this page more here than anywhere else in it. Read the chapter, then pay a lawyer.
Free downloads
Every checklist and worksheet from the book, formatted to print. No email required, no account, no catch. If you bought the book you've already paid for these.
The checklists
The worksheets
The emergency card
Resource directory
The book deliberately doesn't print this. A URL list is stale by the time it reaches a shelf, so the directory lives here where it can be maintained.
Visas and immigration
- The official e-visa portal — evisa.gov.vn. Apply here directly. The paid lookalike sites charge a premium to fill in this same form.
- Vietnamese embassies and consulates worldwide — the official list from Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs: mofa.gov.vn — overseas missions. Use this rather than a third-party list; consular requirements differ by country and only the mission itself is authoritative.
- Current visa rules — see the Chapter 4 section above.
Money
ATMs and foreign cards — checked August 2026. These are the machines, limits and fees the community reports most consistently. Banks change this without notice, so treat it as a starting point and read the screen before you confirm.
- VPBank — no fee on foreign cards, and the highest single-withdrawal limit at around ₫10 million. The most reliable fee-free option at the time of writing.
- ACB — no fee on foreign cards, but a lower limit of about ₫3 million per withdrawal.
- TPBank — no longer fee-free. TPBank was the expat default for years; during 2025–26 it moved to charging foreign cards (around ₫55,000, or a percentage at some machines). High limits still make it useful, but it is not the free option it was. If you learned this trick from an older guide, it has expired.
- Agribank, Vietcombank, Vietinbank and most others — expect a fee and a lower limit, typically around ₫3 million per withdrawal.
The practical rule from Chapter 6 stands: fewer, larger withdrawals beat many small ones, and your home bank's foreign-transaction fee usually costs you more than the Vietnamese machine does.
Bank accounts for tourist-visa holders — the book names VPBank and BIDV as the usual exceptions. This is branch-level and staff-member-level territory: the same bank says yes on one street and no on the next, and the answer changes month to month. If you have a recent yes or no, tell me which bank, which branch and which month, and it goes on this list: [email protected]
Transfers from Australia — the services the community names most are the multi-currency accounts covered in Chapter 6. Compare the all-in rate, not the advertised fee: the margin on the exchange rate is usually where the real cost sits.
Health
Hospital shortlists — checked August 2026. Choose your default hospital in month two, not in an ambulance. Save its direct number in both phones and write it on the emergency card.
- Da Nang — Vinmec Da Nang International (JCI-accredited, 24/7 emergency, interpreters on staff; the premium option). Family Medical Practice Da Nang, 96–98 Nguyen Van Linh (Western-trained doctors, consultations entirely in English; the most expensive per consultation). Hoan My Da Nang, 161 Nguyen Van Linh, Hai Chau (24/7, an international ward with English-speaking staff, direct billing with many insurers; the community's usual first call and the best value of the three).
- Ho Chi Minh City — FV Hospital, District 7 (JCI-accredited, foreign-owned, the most internationally recognised hospital in the country). Vinmec Central Park (JCI-accredited, materially cheaper than FV for comparable work). Family Medical Practice HCMC.
- Hanoi — Vinmec Times City. Hanoi French Hospital (one of the first international hospitals in the north). Family Medical Practice Hanoi.
- Hoi An — now formally part of Da Nang. Use the Da Nang list; for anything serious the drive is short and worth it.
Insurers — the names that come up most often for Vietnam are Pacific Cross and Luma for regional Asia cover, and Cigna, Allianz and AXA at the international end. Current market pricing still matches the book's Chapter 7 ranges: roughly US$600–1,200 per person per year for a regional Asia plan, US$1,500–5,500+ each for full international. Age is the single biggest driver — a sixty-year-old pays two to three times what a thirty-five-year-old pays for the same policy.
What no comparison table can tell you is how a claim actually goes. If you have claimed on a policy in Vietnam — paid or refused, easy or awful — that is the information other readers need most: [email protected]
People and services
Expat groups by city — the large ones are on Facebook and free to join. Search the name; joining takes a day or two for approval.
- Da Nang and Hoi An — Da Nang & Hoi An Expats, Expats in Da Nang, Danang & Hoi An Expat Hub. Several overlapping groups; join two or three, because the useful answer often appears in only one of them.
- Ho Chi Minh City — Expats in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is the biggest English-language community in the country. Fexpats for women. Expat Life in Ho Chi Minh City.
- Hanoi — the Hanoi Massive family of groups, split by purpose (jobs, housing, general).
A word of calibration from Chapter 20: these groups are excellent for logistics and unreliable for judgement. Use them to find a laundry, an electrician or a landlord's phone number. Do not use them to decide anything about visas, tax or medicine — that is what the professionals in Chapters 21 and 23 are for.
Agents, insurers and services vetted by the community — nothing is listed here yet, and it will stay empty until there is something honest to put in it. A name earns a place when several readers independently report the same good experience. If you have one, send it with what actually happened: [email protected]
Sources and verification
Every material factual claim in the book is supported by a note in the back matter. This is the living version of that archive — the same notes, hyperlinked, each carrying its own checked date.
Facts were checked in July 2026. Rules change. Always confirm current requirements with the primary source before acting on anything.
Personal experience, Sheridan's journals and community observations are presented in the book as experience, not as national fact, and are not cited here.
About these updates
Why this page exists. A printed book that asks you to trust it blindly on visa rules is doing you a disservice. So Vietnam from Day One dates its facts, names the ones that move, and maintains them here. It's the honest version of a reference book about a fast-changing country.
How often it's reviewed. Every quarter, and immediately when something material changes. Every section shows when it was last checked. If a date looks old to you, treat the section as unverified and go to the primary source.
Found something out of date? Tell me. Corrections from readers on the ground are how this page stays useful: [email protected]
Vietnam from Day One — An Honest Relocation Guide by David Bunney.
Published by 42 Publishing (ABN 80 655 824 455), Perth, Western Australia. ISBN 978-0-6457239-8-4.
The TALK Method™ is a trademark of 42 Publishing.