Retiring to Vietnam as an Expat – A Quick Read

With 2,000 miles of coastline, historic Buddhist temples and the ability to enjoy tranquillity on a budget, Vietnam truly is a fantastic and extremely welcoming place to spend your retirement.

In this article, we provide some all-important pros and cons for retiring to Vietnam, information on whether you need private medical healthcare for Vietnam, and how to obtain the necessary visa.

Advantages of retiring to Vietnam

Low cost of living: Vietnam’s low cost of living makes it among the top 10 countries with low cost of living. According to Numbeo (https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Vietnam) , Vietnam’s cost of living is 42.93% lower than the UK, although this does not include rent, which is on average 53.36% cheaper.

Eating nice meals out and good accommodation is comfortably affordable with retirement money. Of course, this depends on your lifestyle choices, and where you settle. You can expect your Dollar/Pound/Euro to go much further in Vietnam than at home.

Lots of English spoken: More and more people in Vietnam are speaking English, so much so, English is taught in schools as a compulsory language. With English being so widely popular, it can make settling into your new life in Vietnam a little easier

Disadvantages of retiring to Vietnam

Strict Visa rules: Vietnam’s visa policy has lots of strict rules for foreigners to comply with and there are no specific retirement visa’s you can apply for. More on this below.

Culture shock: Western culture is very different to Vietnamese culture. It is advised that you do lots of research first before making the move to avoid the full culture shock. The more research you do, the easier the transition will be.

Retirement Visa’s for Vietnam

Unfortunately, Vietnam does not offer a retirement visa. However, there are several options available which you can apply for to retire in Vietnam.

If you are happy to retire part-time in Vietnam, you can apply for a visa via any Vietnamese embassy. These will be approved for either 6 months or a year, however, you are only permitted to stay in the country for 3 months at a time. Perfect for part-time residency.

Alternatively, you can apply for visa extensions (which come at a high cost) or make a ‘visa run.’ This means leaving the country for a few hours/days, and returning to Vietnam to ‘restart’ the 3-month ‘visit.’

Healthcare in Vietnam for Expats

Whilst everyone in Vietnam has access to the basic public healthcare, The World Health Organization ranks Vietnam’s healthcare system at number 160 out of 189 countries. Most expatriates take out private medical healthcare policies for Vietnam to be provided with access to healthcare which most closely matches that of their home country.

To find out more about our expatriate medical insurance for Vietnam, please visit us here: www.healthcareinternational.com