The weak yen has raised the bar for travel abroad. Before settling on a destination, people first look up whether prices in that country are high or low. More and more travelers seem to think in that order these days.
I spend most of my time in Ho Chi Minh City, and I'll start with the conclusion: prices in Vietnam are cheap. A beer costs around 100 yen, and tomatoes run about 200 yen a kilo. On that front, the country is exactly what you'd hope for.
That said, if you arrive expecting to live on a third of what Japan costs, you'll be slightly off. The cheap things here are relentlessly cheap, but the things that aren't are woven neatly into daily life, and when I look back at the end of the month, the total hasn't come down as much as I thought it would. In this article I break down where the money actually goes. The figures reflect what I've experienced as of August 2026, and yen conversions are calculated at 10,000 dong = about 60 yen (1 yen = about 165 dong, as of July 31, 2026).
For a breakdown of typical prices by category for travelers, seethe Vietnam price guidecovers that side of things. Here, I want to write about what I noticed once I actually started living here.
It really is cheap. Let me start with beer and vegetables
Let me start with the parts that live up to expectations.
Beer runs around 100 yen, and even at a restaurant it never tops 500 yen
A can of beer at a supermarket or convenience store runs from under 100 yen to around 100 yen. Order one at a local eatery and it feels about the same, and at the kind of restaurant I normally go to, a bottle of beer rarely costs more than 500 yen. Hotel bars and places in tourist areas are another matter. As for how the brands differ,The complete guide to Vietnamese beercovers that in detail, but on price, you won't be far off if you assume that wherever you drink it, coffee costs a notch less than it would in Japan.
Vegetables and fresh food are where the low prices hit hardest
Of the things I buy every day, cheap vegetables make the biggest difference. Tomatoes are around 200 yen a kilo. Set that against 100 yen for a single tomato at a Japanese supermarket and it looks like a different order of magnitude. Fresh herbs go even further: enough for a dish often costs only a few dozen yen.
Instant noodles and drinking water fall into the cheap category too. A bottle of mineral water costs a few tens of yen, so it's never something you need to budget around.
Meat and seafood: cheaper than in Japan, but only just
Protein, on the other hand, is a little less of a bargain. A pack of chicken runs 300 to 400 yen, going by my own shopping. It is certainly cheaper than in Japan, but there is none of that "this is a whole different order of magnitude" surprise you get with vegetables.
I don't buy much seafood myself, so I'm no expert here, but a pack of peeled shrimp came to about 600 yen. I didn't note down the weight, so this isn't exact, but I remember there were 20 to 30 shrimp in the pack.
| Item | What prices feel like in Ho Chi Minh City | Compared with Japan |
|---|---|---|
| Canned beer | Under 100 yen to around 100 yen | Distinctly cheap |
| A bottle of beer at a restaurant | Under 500 yen | Cheap |
| Tomatoes | Around 200 yen per kilo | Distinctly cheap |
| Mineral water | A few dozen yen each | Distinctly cheap |
| Instant noodles | From a few dozen yen | Cheap |
| Chicken | 300 to 400 yen a pack | Somewhat cheap |
| Peeled shrimp | Around 600 yen per pack (roughly 20 to 30 pieces) | Somewhat cheap |
Local food is 400 yen, but "one plate isn't enough"
When it comes to what is genuinely cheap in Vietnam, local food still leads. Even in the city a dish almost always comes in under 500 yen, with most sitting at 50,000 to 70,000 dong, or roughly 300 to 420 yen. Head out to the suburbs and you can eat for around 30,000 dong, about 180 yen.
Portions per meal are smaller than eating out in Japan
Portions of local food in Vietnam are modest. On days when I want a proper meal, I end up wanting a plate and a half, sometimes two. There are days when a single bowl of pho does the job, but if that's all I have for dinner, I'm eating again a few hours later. That has happened to me more times than I can count.
So 400 yen a plate is not the same as 400 yen a meal. If you assume, as I do, that you'll order one and a half to two plates, you're looking at 450 to 840 yen in the city. Add a drink and a single meal edges up to 1,000 yen. At that point it isn't far from what a set meal at a chain restaurant in Japan costs.
| How to eat | Price per dish | What it actually costs to eat until you're full |
|---|---|---|
| A local eatery on the outskirts | Around 30,000 dong (about 180 yen) | About 270 to 360 yen |
| Local eateries in the city | 50,000 to 70,000 dong (about 300 to 420 yen) | About 450 to 840 yen |
| City center + one drink | Same as above, plus about 20,000 dong (roughly 120 yen) | About 570 to 960 yen |
Budget on the assumption that food will cost a third of what it does in Japan and this is the gap you trip over. For what to order, and how much of it, to make one meal enough, seeThe Complete Guide to Vietnamese Foodgoes through them item by item.
Rent is where the savings are clearest
Housing is where living here pays off most. There's no arguing with that one.
If you are renting on your own, 50,000 to 70,000 yen a month gets you a perfectly decent one-bedroom. Furnished is the standard here, and with a serviced apartment it is not unusual for laundry and cleaning to be included as well. Imagine what the same package would cost you in Japan.
Even in a high-rise tower, the kind of place people here call a residence, budgeting somewhere around 100,000 to 200,000 yen a month opens up a lot of choices. That price range comes with a pool and a gym.
| Type of housing | Rough monthly cost | Usually included |
|---|---|---|
| 1LDK rental (living alone) | 50,000 to 70,000 yen | Furniture and appliances |
| Serviced apartment | About the same and up | Furniture, appliances, laundry, cleaning |
| Serviced high-rise (residence) | Around 100,000 to 200,000 yen | Furnished, pool, gym, 24-hour security |
That said, I can only call this cheap because I'm bringing Japanese yen with me. According to Vietnam's statistics office, the average worker earned 9 million dong a month between April and June 2026, about 54,000 yen. Even in urban areas alone the figure is 10.6 million dong, roughly 64,000 yen. In other words, the apartment I describe as "50,000 yen a month" costs about as much as an average local earns, if not more.
Calling somewhere a cheap country always hides this assumption: it's cheap for me, not for the people who live in the city. It wouldn't be fair to leave that unwritten.
With that caveat in mind, cheap housing and cheap fresh food do mean that, coming from Japan, the baseline cost of living genuinely drops.
Electricity is 2,000 to 3,000 yen a month with the air conditioner on every day
After rent, utilities are probably the next thing on your mind. I braced myself for this one before I came. Ho Chi Minh City is hot all year round, so the air conditioning is on almost every day, and there are plenty of days when I shut the place up and just leave it running.
With all that, electricity for one person comes to about 2,000 to 3,000 yen a month. I don't remember a single summer back in Japan when the bill stayed that low.
I want to be honest about this one: electricity is where my prediction was wrong. Everything up to this point has been an argument that low unit prices do not lower the total, because you end up using things more often and in greater quantity. With electricity, my usage clearly went up and the bill still came down. Housing and electricity are two of the very few line items that simply got cheaper.
A haircut is 1,000 yen. But so is a bottle of detergent
Labor is cheap here, so anything that involves paying someone to do something for you costs less.
1,000 yen for a cut, shave, and shampoo
At a salon where Vietnamese locals go, a men's cut with a shave and a shampoo came to about 1,000 yen. At a genuinely local barber right on the street, it should be about half that. Massage follows the same logic: by Japanese standards, the price makes it something you can do on a whim.
Gyms also fall on the cheap side. The one I go to is about 500 to 700 yen a month. Prices vary with the facilities and the area, but compared with the 7,000 or 8,000 yen a month I used to pay in Japan, the whole range you get to choose from is different. If you live in a residence, the shared gym is sometimes included in the rent, in which case it costs you nothing at all.
Everyday goods don't drop as much as you'd expect
Buying things, though, is another story. A large bag of laundry detergent ran me around 1,000 yen. Toilet paper isn't dramatically cheaper than at a drugstore in Japan either.
In a country where vegetables cost 200 yen a kilo, detergent costs 1,000 yen. That gap only became clear to me once I started living here. Fresh produce grown in the country is cheap, while processed household goods carry brand and distribution costs and land at more or less Japanese levels. Walk the supermarket aisles and you can see exactly where the line falls.
Medical care is clearly expensive
What is clearly expensive, on the other hand, is medical care. You can't hand a Japanese health insurance card over the counter and pay 30 percent of the bill. There is a route to claim part of it back as overseas medical expense reimbursement once you're home, but at the counter you pay the full amount first.
I've been fortunate enough never to face a big bill, so I can't put a number on it. But I wish I had decided what to do about insurance the way I decided on rent: first, before anything else. The one thing not to assume is that medical care must be cheap because prices are low.
Expensive ①: Japanese and Western food, because the cheap end of foreign cuisine barely exists here
From here on, the things that feel expensive. The first one that comes to mind is foreign food.
A Japanese lunch runs around 1,500 yen
Lunch at a Japanese-owned Japanese restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City runs around 1,500 yen a meal, three to four times what a local eatery costs. Dinner for two at a Western restaurant can pass 10,000 yen, depending on where you go.
Dinner for two at Pizza 4P’s, say pasta, a pizza, a salad and a drink each, comes to 700,000 to 1,400,000 dong, or roughly 4,000 to 8,000 yen. The official menu starts at 168,000 dong for a pizza and runs up to 440,000 for the pricier ones, so that total makes sense.
This restaurant, incidentally, is a Vietnamese brand launched in Ho Chi Minh City in 2011 by a Japanese couple. The price makes sense for the food and the service, but the assumption that a place must be cheap because it's in Vietnam simply doesn't hold.
Japan has a "Saizeriya tier." Vietnam doesn't
Why does it work out this way? My sense is that foreign food is cheap in Japan because the layer of foreign dishes adapted to Japanese tastes runs so deep.
In Japan, Italian means Saizeriya, the budget Italian chain; Chinese means the neighborhood machi-chuka joint; Indian means a suburban place with all-you-can-eat naan. From serious high-end restaurants down to cheap everyday spots, the price range runs in one smooth, unbroken line.
What Vietnam lacks is that middle tier. Vietnamese food is overwhelmingly cheap. Foreign food is served mostly at places aimed at expats and the wealthy, so it costs a fair bit. With nothing in between, the moment you think you'd like something different today, your options jump straight from 400 yen to 1,500 yen. Live here a while and that structure starts to bite.
A few Japanese chains have opened here as well, and for that side of thingsThe Complete Guide to Japanese Chains in Vietnam.
Expensive thing 2: Getting around is cheap per trip, but it adds up over a month
One more thing I only noticed after living here is what I spend on getting around. Look only at the cost of a single ride and you will never see it coming.
Each ride really is cheap
The metro in Ho Chi Minh City is priced by distance. Paying by card or QR code costs 6,000 to 19,000 dong, and cash costs 7,000 to 20,000 dong, or roughly 40 to 120 yen. A short hop is about 50 yen, and riding the full line end to end is still only 120 yen. A one-day unlimited pass is 40,000 dong, about 240 yen, which also feels cheap coming from Japan.
The same goes for ride-hailing apps. Call a motorbike on Grab and the base fare covers the first 2 kilometers at 12,273 dong, with 4,222 dong for each kilometer after that, so a 2 to 3 kilometer ride stays around 100 yen. Choose a four-seater taxi instead and you're looking at 300 to 400 yen.
What's easy to overlook is that once you pass 2 kilometers, a time charge of 344 dong per minute is added on top. The same distance costs a different amount if you get caught in traffic. That mechanism comes back to bite you later.
Alongside Grab, there is Green SM, a ride-hailing app that runs only electric cars and electric bikes. It was renamed from Xanh SM in April 2026, and the number of its vehicles on the streets has grown considerably over the past few years. For how to use it step by step, seeA Guide to Using Ride-Hailing Apps in Vietnamcovers that.
The problem is how often you end up riding
The metro in Ho Chi Minh City is a single line: Line 1, which opened in December 2024. Line 2 only broke ground in January 2026 and is scheduled to open in 2030. The starting point is nothing like the dense rail network you get in Japan. Most destinations simply aren't reachable by the metro, so you end up on a bus or in a ride-hailing app.
In Japan you walk to the station, ride a few stops and pay 200 yen. In Ho Chi Minh City there is no walk-to-the-station step, so every small errand means calling a bike. Even at 100 yen a ride, four or five rides a day add up to a sum you cannot ignore by the end of the month.
Fares also climb during the morning and evening commute. Grab moves its prices in real time based on demand and weather, and the time-based charge I mentioned earlier stacks on top of that. Busy hours and rainy days cost you extra. A ride that ought to be short can come to 600 yen by taxi. Go through daily life thinking it's cheap enough not to worry about, and you'll be startled when you total up your transport spending at the end of the month.
Green SM, for its part, states surcharges as flat amounts: 10,000 dong per ride between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., and 5,000 dong on public holidays. If the price on Grab looks steep on a rainy day, it's worth opening the other app and comparing.
| Mode of transport | Per trip | Where it fits into daily life |
|---|---|---|
| Metro Line 1 | 6,000 to 19,000 dong / 7,000 to 20,000 dong in cash (about 40 to 120 yen) | Cheap, but with only one line there are few occasions to use it |
| Motorbike ride-hailing (Grab / Green SM) | Around 100 yen for 2 to 3 kilometers | The everyday workhorse. The rides add up fast |
| Ride-hailing taxi | 300 to 400 yen | When you have luggage, or when it rains |
| A taxi at peak hours | About 600 yen even for a short trip | Traffic and rain push the fare up |
All of this, though, is a resident's concern. On a trip of a few days you only make so many journeys, so travelers can go on thinking of Vietnam as a country where taxis are cheap.
What made me want to write this piece was transport. Not long after I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, I learned that a motorbike ride costs about 100 yen, and I genuinely thought I'd never have to walk again. And I didn't. I'd hail one to a café just up the road, or to a supermarket five minutes away, without thinking twice. It's cheap enough that there's no guilt in it at all.
It was seeing a month of those charges stacked up on one statement that finally stopped me. If each ride costs a fifth of what it would in Japan but you take it more than five times as often, the total doesn't change.
In Japan I walked to the station, and once I was on the train it carried me several stops in one go. I think that built-in assumption, that you walk and that you get moved in bulk, mattered more than the fare itself. It took losing it for me to notice.
What about travelers? Hotels cost less than in Tokyo or Kyoto
So far I've been writing from the perspective of living here. On a short trip, the impression leans much more straightforwardly toward cheap.
Two nights at the Hotel Majestic Saigon, a grand old property that opened in 1925, came to about 47,000 yen. Two nights at the Sheraton Saigon Grand Opera on Dong Khoi Street runs somewhere around 50,000 to 60,000 yen. Both are what I actually paid, and the figures move with the season and the room type. Even so, it's cheap set against two nights at a comparable hotel in Tokyo, and there's still a gap compared with a tourist city like Kyoto.
If that is the level at a luxury hotel, mid-range hotels and dorm beds go lower still. If you want to keep your accommodation costs down, assume you have no shortage of options. For how to choose by neighborhood, seeHotels in Ho Chi Minh City: which area should you stay in?covers that.
| Where to stay | Rough cost for two nights | A word |
|---|---|---|
| Hotel Majestic Saigon | About 47,000 yen | Opened in 1925. A long-established hotel on the Saigon River |
| Sheraton Saigon Grand Opera | About 50,000 to 60,000 yen | A five-star on Dong Khoi Street |
| Mid-range hotels | Well below this | A price range with plenty to choose from |
| Dormitory | Cheaper still | For long stays and backpackers |
Even with the weak yen, Vietnam is still cheap enough if you are coming for a short trip and want to enjoy yourself. For what to sort out before you leave, seeThe complete guide to preparing for a trip to Vietnam, and for payment methods,Can You Use Credit Cards in Vietnam?.
Quick reference: what is cheap and what is expensive
To finish, here is my conclusion as someone living here.
| Expense | Verdict | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Rent | Reliably cheap | A furnished 1LDK runs 50,000 to 70,000 yen. Even a serviced high-rise is 100,000 to 200,000 yen |
| Vegetables and fresh food | Reliably cheap | Tomatoes around 200 yen a kilo. The more local the produce, the cheaper |
| Beer and water | Reliably cheap | A can of beer around 100 yen, water a few tens of yen |
| Electricity | Cheap | 2,000 to 3,000 yen a month living alone with the air conditioning on every day |
| Haircuts and massage | Cheap | Labor is cheap, so anything done for you costs less |
| Gym | Reliably cheap | 500 to 700 yen a month. In a serviced high-rise it may be included in the rent |
| Vietnamese cuisine | Cheap (but mind the portion size) | 300 to 420 yen a plate. 450 to 840 yen if you eat until you're full |
| Meat and seafood | Somewhat cheap | A pack of chicken 300 to 400 yen. Not a change in order of magnitude |
| Everyday goods (detergent, paper products) | Much the same as Japan | Processed goods carry the brand markup and distribution costs |
| Getting around | Cheap per item, but the total swells | Rail coverage is limited, so you use ride-hailing apps more often |
| Japanese and Western food | Expensive | There are no budget-priced places, so your options skew expensive |
| Medical costs | Expensive | You pay in full at the counter; handing over a Japanese insurance card won't work here |
| Hotels (for travelers) | Cheap | Around 50,000 yen for two nights at a five-star. Below Tokyo and Kyoto |
What's cheap and what's expensive is simply divided along different lines than in Japan. That's all it comes down to. Know where those lines fall in advance, and both a travel budget and a life here become far easier to plan.
For how to get around the city itself, seeA Neighborhood Guide to Ho Chi Minh Citysums it up.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does it cost to live in Ho Chi Minh City for a month?
-
It changes a great deal depending on where you choose to live. Rent runs 50,000 to 70,000 yen for a furnished one-bedroom (1LDK), or somewhere around 100,000 to 200,000 yen for a serviced high-rise. Food and transport go on top of that, and this part can swing by roughly double depending on whether you eat mostly local food or work Japanese meals in. Combine the levels given for each category in this article and run the numbers against the way you actually live.
- If a Vietnamese meal costs 400 yen, does that mean food costs a third of what it does in Japan?
-
it doesn't. Local food comes in modest portions, and an adult man needs about 1.5 to 2 plates to feel full. At 300 to 420 yen a plate, one meal in the city lands somewhere between 450 and 840 yen. Add a single drink and 1,000 yen comes into view.
- How much is the electricity bill in Ho Chi Minh City?
-
Living alone with the air conditioning on almost every day, it comes to about 2,000 to 3,000 yen a month. It's hot here all year, so the hours of use are longer than in Japan, and the bill still lands below what a Japanese summer costs. In a serviced high-rise, what the management fee covers changes the real figure, so check before you sign.
- How can I keep transport costs down in Ho Chi Minh City?
-
is to cut down on short back-and-forth trips taken with a ride-hailing app. Even at around 100 yen a ride, the trips pile up. On top of that, fares rise during the commuting hours and in the rain, so simply avoiding those times makes a difference.
- How much does Japanese food cost there?
-
Lunch at a Japanese-owned restaurant runs around 1,500 yen a meal, three to four times what a local eatery costs. Dinner for two at a Western restaurant topping 10,000 yen is not unusual.
- Is a trip to Vietnam still cheap with the weak yen?
-
A short trip comes out cheap. Even a five-star hotel is around 50,000 yen for two nights, less than a hotel of the same class in Tokyo or Kyoto. Choose a mid-range hotel or a dormitory and it drops further. Stick only to foreign restaurants and you'll spend about what you would in Japan, so that's the one thing worth keeping in mind.
Related reading
- [Latest 2026] Are prices in Vietnam cheap? A resident explains food, hotel, and souvenir costs
- Which neighborhood should you stay in in Ho Chi Minh City? Picking a hotel by area
- The Complete Guide to Using Ride-Hailing Apps in Vietnamese Cities
- The Complete Guide to Vietnamese Food | 20 Classics, Regional Differences and Local Picks
- The Complete Guide to Japanese Chains in Vietnam
- I compared Vietnamese chè in the north and the south
