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It was twenty past five in the morning and I was standing on the promenade at My Khe Beach in Da Nang, wondering if I had accidentally wandered into the world’s most cheerful outdoor gym. Groups of women were dancing in formation to a portable hi-fi system the size of a small suitcase. Elderly men were working the exercise machines bolted along the seafront with a focus that most people I know reserve for things considerably more urgent. People were swimming, walking on the sand, paddleboarding, stretching, laughing. Children were running around underfoot. At twenty past five in the morning.

For context, a busy day at a British beach on a bank holiday does not approach this level of activity. On a bank holiday, most British beach-goers manage to arrive by eleven if the car park is good. Here, at a time when any sensible person would still be horizontal, the entire community had apparently agreed that the beach at dawn was simply where you went.

I stood there thinking: I could live here. Then I thought: but the visa situation is going to need some attention.

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The Visa Situation: What Nobody Wants to Tell You Straight

Here is the one sentence you need to absorb before anything else: Vietnam does not have a retirement visa.

I do not mean it has one that is complicated to obtain, or expensive, or buried in paperwork you could wallpaper a small room with. I mean it does not exist. Malaysia has its MM2H programme. Thailand has its Non-Immigrant O-A retirement visa. The Philippines has the SRRV. Vietnam has none of these things. If you are a British retiree who simply wants to live there without working, teaching English, investing a significant sum, or marrying a Vietnamese national, you are operating in a grey area that requires a certain philosophical tolerance for impermanence.

What you do have, which is genuinely useful, is this: UK citizens can enter Vietnam visa-free for 45 days. In practice, however, I have never done it this way. Every time I have visited, I have bought the 90-day e-visa online before I travelled, through the official Vietnamese government portal. This takes between two and four days to come through, costs around £15 to £20, allows multiple entries, and gives you three months from the date of first entry. For any stay of real length, it is the sensible approach.

The catch that catches people out: you cannot convert the 45-day visa-free entry into the 90-day e-visa while you are still in the country. To switch, you must leave Vietnam and come back in. This is where the border run enters the picture, and it is less dramatic than it sounds.

Every tourist area in Vietnam has travel agents running border run services, and they are not difficult to find. For around £150, including the visa costs, the bus out of the country, and re-entry the same day, you can be sorted with a fresh 90-day stamp without having to think too hard about the logistics. The usual route takes you to Cambodia for a few hours. If you would rather fly, you can leave on a Bangkok flight, apply online from Thailand, receive the e-visa within a couple of days, and fly back into Vietnam. I have done this on several occasions, though I should note that I made it a slightly longer project each time because spending a few days in Bangkok is not, by any reasonable measure, a hardship.

For stays beyond 90 days, the options narrow. A Temporary Residence Card is possible through employment, marriage to a Vietnamese national, or certain categories of investment. The DT visa provides a path for foreign investors. Business visas, requiring Vietnamese company sponsorship, exist but involve an agent and a degree of administrative creativity. None of these were designed for the retired person who wants a comfortable apartment, a motorbike, and unlimited access to pho.

The Vietnamese government has discussed introducing a retirement visa at various points, which is why I will be direct: verify current rules with the Vietnamese Embassy in London or the official Vietnam Immigration Department before making any decisions. Visa regulations change. What was accurate when this was written may not be when you read it.

The honest verdict on the visa: if you want a settled, legally clear long-term life with the minimum of bureaucratic cycling, Malaysia is a more straightforward proposition, and the comparison is there in our companion piece on retiring to Malaysia. If you are someone for whom a border run sounds more like a small adventure than a nuisance, and you are comfortable with the idea of always being, technically, a tourist, Vietnam more than compensates in every other direction.

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Getting from North to South: A Word on Arrival

My first trip to Vietnam began in Hanoi, and I want to address the arrival honestly because people do not always tell you what the first day is actually like.

What it is like is this: chaos, delivered with enormous warmth. I was nearly knocked off my feet by a scooter approximately four times in the first hour. I had no real street sense for Vietnamese traffic, which does not follow the logic most Westerners expect, does not particularly respect the concept of the pavement as a pedestrian-only zone, and moves in continuous fluid streams that appear entirely ungovernable until you realise, after a few days, that they are governing themselves by a set of rules you simply had not learned yet. The technique, which no guidebook fully prepares you for, is to step out steadily into the road, maintain a consistent pace, and trust that everything will part around you. It will. You just have to believe it, which takes longer than you would hope.

The food, however. The food was extraordinary from the very first meal. Hanoi’s street food culture is one of the most serious I have encountered anywhere, in the way that serious things are often the most unassuming things. I found myself on a tiny plastic stool at the height of a reasonable footstool, which at 97 kilograms is not the most dignified dining arrangement, and which I suspect attracted the particular quality of curious sideways glance that I was receiving from passing scooters. The stool was not designed for a large Londoner. It did not care about this. The soup was worth every second of mild public spectacle.

From Hanoi I took an overnight bus south to Da Nang, which deposited me in central Vietnam with a stiff neck, a mild optimism about what the country had in store, and approximately eight hours until the alarm I had, in a moment of misguided enthusiasm, set for five in the morning.

The beach at 5:20am was what you have already read about. I mention it again only to emphasise that I did not expect it, and that it changed my understanding of what daily life in Vietnam actually looks and feels like.

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Where to Live: Five Cities, Five Very Different Lives

Vietnam is long and narrow, and the two ends of it are genuinely different countries in terms of climate, food, temperament, and energy. The north has proper seasons and a cultural gravity centred on the capital. The south has permanent heat, the relentless commercial vitality of Saigon, and the Mekong Delta. In the middle sits the coastline, Da Nang, and the ancient lanes of Hoi An. Where you end up shapes everything.

Da Nang: Where Most Expats Land, and Usually Stay

Da Nang is where the majority of Western long-term residents in Vietnam tend to settle, and experiencing it for yourself makes the reason immediately obvious. It has a genuinely beautiful stretch of coastline, My Khe Beach among the best in Southeast Asia, combined with the kind of modern city infrastructure that makes long-term life navigable rather than merely survivable. Clean streets, a functioning road network, an international airport with reasonable connections, quality private healthcare facilities within reach, and an expat community concentrated particularly in the An Thuong area that has been growing steadily for years.

The mornings are unlike anything I have experienced in over ninety countries of travel. I have described the beach scene at five in the morning, but it deserves repeating in a slightly different register: there is something quietly remarkable about a city where the community’s natural rhythm begins before sunrise and involves the beach. Not the bar, not a commute. The beach, for exercise and socialising, by choice, at an hour when most of the world is still asleep.

The climate in Da Nang is one of the genuinely good surprises. It has a brief rainy season in the latter part of the year, but for most of the year it offers the kind of warm, clear weather that makes life outdoors a reasonable proposition rather than an endurance test. Air quality is noticeably better than Hanoi. Traffic is, by Vietnamese standards, relatively manageable.

Rent for a good one-bedroom apartment in Da Nang runs to roughly £300 to £430 per month. In the An Thuong expat neighbourhood, you will pay towards the top of that range for something modern and well-equipped; further from the beach, considerably less.

For anyone considering Da Nang as a base, there is more detail on the city in my Da Nang slow travel guide, which covers the specifics of neighbourhoods, daily life, and where to find the kind of morning coffee that makes the early alarm worthwhile.

Ho Chi Minh City: The One That Never Stops

Ho Chi Minh City is the largest city in Vietnam, and it will make that fact known to you from the moment you step outside the terminal. Nine million people, somewhere between eight and a half and nine million of whom appear to be on motorbikes, all conducting their lives at a pace and volume that the city has decided is simply the appropriate setting.

For a retiree seeking an active urban environment with the full range of international amenities, it is excellent. The healthcare infrastructure is the best in the country, centred on facilities such as FV Hospital and the Vinmec network, and the expat communities in District 2 (Thao Dien) and District 7 (Phu My Hung) are well-established, well-resourced, and well-practised at making life comfortable for new arrivals. The food is exceptional. The convenience is genuine.

For an introvert who values quiet mornings and the capacity to think in peace, it requires management. Ho Chi Minh City does not have an off switch. It does not recognise the concept of a quiet street in the way that some of us would find reassuring. It is an extraordinary city, and living there well is entirely possible, but it asks something of you that the quieter cities in Vietnam do not.

Rent in the main expat neighbourhoods runs to around £400 to £550 per month for a solid one-bedroom apartment. Further from the centre, perfectly comfortable places can be found for £200 to £280.

Hanoi: More Vietnamese, More Complex

Hanoi is where Vietnam keeps its history, its politics, its architecture, and its weather, the last of which includes a genuine winter. Between December and March, temperatures can drop to twelve or fifteen degrees Celsius, which feels considerably colder than the numbers suggest when the city around you was built for a tropical climate and central heating is something of a novelty. In summer it is hot and humid. In between, when the light is right and the Old Quarter is going about its business at a sensible pace, it is one of the most atmospheric cities I have encountered.

The food culture in Hanoi has a fierce local pride that is worth the occasional navigational discomfort. The Old Quarter, a dense maze of narrow streets historically dedicated each to a specific trade, remains one of the more genuinely interesting urban environments in Southeast Asia. Healthcare has improved significantly, with the Vinmec Times City hospital among the better private facilities in the country.

The practical concern that I would not dismiss: air quality. Hanoi consistently records among the worst air quality readings of any major city in Southeast Asia, a product of traffic, industry, and geography, and it is worth taking seriously if respiratory health is any kind of factor in your thinking.

Rent for a good apartment in a central Hanoi neighbourhood runs to around £270 to £390 per month.

Hoi An: The Beautiful Complication

Hoi An is, on any visual measure, one of the loveliest small towns in Southeast Asia. The ancient centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that has earned the designation by actually being remarkable rather than merely old: a preserved merchant city of lanterns, wooden shophouses, and family tailors doing business roughly as they have for several centuries. An Bang Beach is a short bicycle ride away. The local food scene is excellent and remains genuinely local in a way that many Vietnamese tourist towns are no longer.

Hoi An is also thirty minutes from Da Nang’s international airport, which means that its relative isolation is less significant than it might appear on a map. For cultural life and daily ease, it sits within sensible reach of Da Nang’s facilities.

The tension with Hoi An for permanent retirement purposes is that it is a very beautiful place that has attracted a very large number of people who want to look at a very beautiful place. In peak season, the ancient town fills beyond what is comfortable if you want quiet. As a base for a few months, it is close to perfect. As a permanent address, it requires an honest conversation with yourself about whether you want to live inside someone else’s most visited holiday destination. Rent is typically £230 to £350 per month.

Da Lat: The Wildcard

Da Lat sits at 1,500 metres in the Central Highlands and has, as a result, earned its nickname as the “City of Eternal Spring.” While most of Vietnam oscillates between warm and extremely warm, Da Lat maintains a temperature range of roughly 15 to 25 degrees Celsius throughout the year, a fact the French colonial administration discovered and used to build a small hill station of wide avenues, villas, and a general air of mild homesickness for somewhere cooler.

It is also the cheapest city on this list. Rent for a good one-bedroom apartment runs to around £200 to £240 per month. The food is locally grown at altitude and is excellent. The pace is notably slower than anywhere on the coast.

The limitation is infrastructure. Da Lat does not have an international-standard private hospital. Getting anywhere significant requires either a long mountain road or a domestic flight. The expat community, while friendly, is smaller and skews younger. Da Lat works well as part of a broader arrangement, perhaps several cooler months there and the rest on in coast, but as a single permanent base it asks a degree of flexibility around healthcare access that some people will not find comfortable.

Nha Trang: The Coastal Option

Nha Trang is a traditional coastal city of considerable scenic beauty, with long stretches of beach and the kind of ocean backdrop that makes the daily routine feel somewhat more picturesque than average. The beach mornings in Nha Trang carry the same early-rising energy as Da Nang. The retiree community, however, has a notably different character: Russian expats have settled in Nha Trang in large numbers over the past decade, and the menus, signage, and service in many establishments reflect this. Some people find this unremarkable. Others find it shapes the experience of the city more than they anticipated.

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What It Actually Costs

The headline for Vietnam is this: a comfortable retired life in a decent apartment, eating well and living properly, costs somewhere between £800 and £1,700 per month, depending on city, lifestyle, and how often you choose to eat in restaurants with tablecloths rather than on a plastic stool in the street. The lower end of that range produces a genuinely comfortable life; the higher end is for people who want air conditioning they do not think about, a regular meal out somewhere that takes bookings, and the occasional taxi rather than a Grab.

A rough monthly budget for a single retired person in Da Nang might look something like this:

Category	Budget estimate
Rent (1-bed apartment, good area)	£300 to £430
Food (mix of local restaurants and self-catering)	£150 to £230
Utilities (electricity, water, internet)	£60 to £90
Transport (motorbike fuel or Grab)	£35 to £60
Health insurance	£85 to £150
Entertainment, travel, miscellaneous	£100 to £200
Approximate monthly total	£730 to £1,160

A note on electricity: Vietnamese electricity is billed at rising rates above certain usage thresholds, which means air conditioning in summer can push the utilities line significantly higher than the figure above. Budget generously for it until you understand your own patterns.

These figures are from 2026 data and do not include flights back to the UK, private medical treatment beyond routine care, or the cost of visa management, whether that is the e-visa fee itself, a border run through an agent, or an occasional Bangkok trip.

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Healthcare: Good in the Cities, Variable Everywhere Else

The private healthcare network in Vietnam has improved considerably over the past decade. In Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City, and Hanoi, you will find internationally staffed private hospitals, clinics with English-speaking staff, and a standard of routine care that is genuinely good. FV Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City is partly French-managed and widely respected by the expat community. The Vinmec chain operates across multiple cities. Family Medical Practice clinics are used by many long-term residents for day-to-day care.

For routine healthcare, dentistry, and straightforward procedures, these facilities are excellent and represent extraordinary value compared to private care in the UK. A GP consultation at a decent private clinic costs roughly £20 to £40. Dental work of a standard that would cost several hundred pounds at home is a fraction of that here.

For serious conditions or specialist surgery of the kind that requires tertiary-level care, many expats choose Bangkok. This sounds more alarming than it is. Bangkok is two to three hours from anywhere in Vietnam by air, and hospitals such as Bumrungrad International are genuinely world-class at prices that make UK private healthcare look expensive. Many long-term residents factor in a rough annual allowance for a Bangkok medical trip as routine planning rather than an emergency measure.

Private health insurance is essential and not optional. A policy covering Southeast Asia with medical evacuation included runs to roughly £1,000 to £2,000 per year for a person in their fifties, rising with age and pre-existing conditions. Research this before you commit to the country, not after. Providers such as Cigna Global, AXA International, and Allianz Care operate across the region, and it is worth comparing policies carefully on the evacuation cover specifically.

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The Honest Verdict

Vietnam is one of the most genuinely exciting countries to live in anywhere in Southeast Asia, and I write that having spent time in most of the others. The food is extraordinary in a way that goes beyond the typical travel-writing superlative: it is a culture that has taken its culinary traditions as seriously as France takes its cheese, and the evidence is on every street corner, from the bun bo Hue vendors who have been arriving at their spots before dawn for thirty years to the Da Nang coffee shops that have elevated the morning ritual to something approaching ceremony. The cost of living makes a modest income feel substantial. The people are practical, funny, and genuinely welcoming without performing it.

For the retiree considering Vietnam as a long-term home from the UK, the central question is simpler than it looks: how do you feel about the fact that you will always be, technically, a tourist?

If that sits comfortably with you, and many people find it does, Vietnam is a brilliant choice. Thousands of Western retirees have built real long-term lives there by managing their visa cycling with the same calm that locals manage the traffic: steadily, consistently, and without overthinking it. The country has not made it easy to stay legally, but it has made it very easy to want to.

If you want a settled legal status, a straightforward path to long-term residency, and a government programme specifically designed to welcome foreign retirees, Malaysia remains the more secure foundation, and our piece on retiring to Malaysia from the UK covers that comparison in detail.

My honest assessment for 2027, as I make my own plans to move permanently to the region: Vietnam is somewhere I will spend significant time, almost certainly including Da Nang as a regular base. It is not where I would plant a single fixed flag, but as part of a life arranged across the region, it is where I most look forward to arriving.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does Vietnam have a retirement visa for UK citizens?

No. Vietnam does not currently have a retirement visa. UK citizens can enter visa-free for 45 days, or purchase a 90-day e-visa online before travelling. For anything beyond 90 days, the options are limited and typically require employment, a Vietnamese spouse, or significant investment. This is the single most important thing to understand before considering Vietnam as a long-term retirement base.

How do the visa runs work in Vietnam?

If you entered on the 45-day visa-free allowance and want to stay longer, you must leave the country and re-enter on an e-visa. You cannot convert in-country. Travel agents in most tourist areas offer a same-day border run service for around £150, including visa costs and bus transport to the border and back. Alternatively, flying to Bangkok, applying for the e-visa online, and returning after two to four days when it comes through is a straightforward option, and one that gives you a reason to spend a few days in Thailand.

How much money do you need to retire in Vietnam?

A comfortable life in a decent apartment with reliable healthcare is achievable on £800 to £1,700 per month depending on city and lifestyle. Da Nang and Hanoi sit towards the lower end for similar quality of life; Ho Chi Minh City tends to be slightly higher for comparable accommodation. These figures do not include flights back to the UK or visa travel costs.

What is the best city in Vietnam for British retirees?

Da Nang is the most popular choice among Western expats and for consistently good reasons: a beach, clean streets, manageable traffic, good air quality, growing healthcare infrastructure, and a well-established expat community in the An Thuong area. Ho Chi Minh City offers better healthcare and a larger expat network but demands considerably more energy in daily life. Hanoi suits people who want a culturally immersive city with genuine seasons. Hoi An works best for a slower-paced few months rather than a permanent base.

Is healthcare good enough in Vietnam for a retiree?

In Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City, and Hanoi, the private hospital network is good for routine and moderate care. For serious conditions or specialist surgery, many expats use Bangkok, which is two to three hours away by air. Private health insurance with medical evacuation cover is essential.

Is Vietnam safe to live in as a foreign retiree?

Vietnam is generally very safe for foreign residents. Petty theft occurs in tourist areas, particularly bag snatching from motorbikes, and standard city awareness applies. Violent crime against foreigners is rare. The primary practical safety concern is road traffic: the motorbike culture takes adjustment, and learning the local logic of how traffic actually moves is something to invest time in during your first weeks. The learning curve is real but short.

How does retiring in Vietnam compare to retiring in Malaysia?

The primary difference is legal. Malaysia’s MM2H programme provides genuine long-term residency for retirees who qualify. Vietnam has no equivalent, which means UK retirees in Vietnam manage their stays through tourist and e-visas rather than a settled legal status. Vietnam is generally cheaper and culturally richer in terms of daily life, but less stable as a fixed long-term base. Many people who love Vietnam use it as part of a wider Southeast Asian arrangement rather than a single permanent address.

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This article is for general information only. Visa rules, costs, and regulations change. Always verify current requirements with the Vietnamese Embassy in London or the official Vietnam Immigration Department before making any decisions about long-term residence.

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase or booking, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. I only recommend services I have researched and would genuinely use myself.

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A note on how I write: Every trip starts with a journal, filled in wherever I happen to be; on a bus, plane, train, or in a backstreet cafe that has clearly seen better days. It’s not tidy, and it’s not always legible even to me. When I get the time, I use AI to help turn those notes into something readable, organising drafts and occasionally rescuing a sentence that has wandered off without me. The experiences, the perspective, the humour and every editorial decision remain entirely mine. As for the photos, I’m not remotely fond of having my picture taken, family portraits included, so I also use AI to help visualise the places and moments I write about.