Working remotely from Vietnam for a month
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Working remotely from Vietnam is a well-worn path, and the practical parts are easier than people expect. Fibre is fast. Coffee shops assume you will sit for two hours. A month here costs what a fortnight costs in most of Europe.
The parts that need thought are the visa and the clock, and neither is about Vietnam being difficult.
Which city should you pick?
Da Nang, if you have no strong opinion. It is where most people who stay a month end up, and the reasons are boring and good. A beach, an airport, low costs, and enough of a foreign community that the practicalities are already solved.
| City | Best for | The trade |
|---|---|---|
| Da Nang | A first month, beach and routine | Quiet, and the wet season is real |
| Ho Chi Minh City | Coworking, flights, nightlife | Noise, traffic, heat all year |
| Hanoi | Food, seasons, the north on the doorstep | Winter drizzle, heavier traffic |
| Hoi An | A month somewhere small | Floods in autumn, thin coworking |
| Da Lat | Cool air, cheap rent | Slower connections outside the centre |
What does a month cost?
Roughly 700 to 1,500 US dollars all in, and the apartment is the line that moves. Monthly rates are a fraction of nightly ones, which is the single biggest saving available and the reason a month costs less than twice a fortnight.
Add a coworking pass at 60 to 150 dollars a month, food at the numbers in the cheap eating guide, and transport that rounds to nothing. The trip cost guide covers the shorter-stay version of the same arithmetic.
Where do you sit all day?
A coffee shop, like everybody else here. One drink holds the table for the afternoon, the chains have plugs and air conditioning, and the coffee shop guide sorts out which kind of place suits a laptop and which is for twenty minutes with a view.
Vietnamese sockets are two-pin and usually unearthed, which catches out a three-prong laptop cable. The plugs and power guide covers what fits and what needs an adapter.
Is the wifi good enough?
Yes, and it is worth arranging a backup anyway. Fixed fibre in apartments and coworking spaces handles video calls without drama. Cafe wifi is usually fine and occasionally shared with forty other people, and mobile data is cheap.
Buy a local SIM or eSIM on arrival and keep enough data to tether through a bad afternoon. The SIM and internet guide is the page for getting online at all, and it covers what that costs, which is very little.
What is the visa position?
The visa constrains a month more than anything technical does. Most nationalities can get a 90-day e-visa and some hold short exemptions, and Vietnam has no digital nomad visa. People working for a foreign employer do it on a tourist entry, which is a grey area rather than a permission.
The staying longer guide sets out the options honestly, including what changes if a month turns into six. Nobody should treat a border run as a plan, and the rules have changed repeatedly.
Does the time zone work?
Vietnam runs UTC+7, and that decides more than the wifi does.
European colleagues put you five or six hours behind them, which makes a Vietnamese afternoon and evening the overlap — workable, and it costs the evening. American colleagues put you eleven to fifteen hours out, which means nights, and a month of that is a different proposition from a month of working afternoons in the sun.
Ask that question before booking anything else.
What is a month actually like?
Slower than a fortnight of travelling and busier than a holiday. The rhythm most people settle into is work in the afternoon and evening for European hours, a morning outside before the heat, and one weekend trip a month rather than three.
One weekend trip a month is the argument for picking a city with something reachable at the weekend. Da Nang has Hoi An at 30 minutes and the Hai Van pass north of it. Hanoi has Ninh Binh at two hours and the mountains beyond.
The other thing a month buys is the ordinary stuff: a laundry that knows you, a coffee place with your order, a market where the fruit is cheaper than in the tourist street. None of that shows up on a two-week itinerary.
Where do you actually work?
Cafes for a few hours and coworking for a routine. Vietnamese cafe culture is built on sitting a long time over one drink, and nobody minds a laptop. What a cafe will not give you is a chair that works for six hours, or an upload speed nobody else is using.
Coworking exists in every large city with day and month passes. It also solves the other thing a month alone in a new country needs, which is people to talk to — the same argument the solo travel guide makes about hostels for shorter trips.
FAQ
Is Vietnam good for working remotely?
For the practicalities, yes. Fixed-line broadband is fast and cheap, cafes expect people to work in them, coworking exists in every large city, and a month of living costs a fraction of a European one. The visa is the part that needs planning.
Which city is best for remote work?
Da Nang for the balance of beach, cost and quiet, Ho Chi Minh City for the density of coworking and flights, Hanoi for the food and the seasons, and Hoi An for a month somewhere small. Da Nang is where most people who stay a month end up.
How fast is the wifi?
Fast enough for video calls almost everywhere. Fibre in apartments and coworking spaces is genuinely quick, cafe wifi is usually fine, and mobile data is cheap enough to use as a backup — which is the thing to have rather than to hope you do not need.
What does a month cost?
Roughly 700 to 1,500 US dollars for an apartment, food, transport and a coworking desk, depending on the city and the standard. Monthly apartment rates are far below the nightly ones, and the difference is the single biggest saving available.
What about the visa?
That is the constraint rather than the wifi. Most nationalities get a 90-day e-visa, exemptions vary by passport, and there is no digital nomad visa. Working for a foreign employer on a tourist entry is a grey area that plenty of people occupy and nobody should be casual about.
Does the time zone work?
It depends entirely on where your colleagues are. Vietnam runs UTC+7, which is five or six hours ahead of western Europe and eleven to fifteen ahead of the United States. European hours mean an afternoon-to-evening day here; American hours mean nights.
Where do you actually work?
Cafes for a few hours, coworking for a routine. Vietnamese cafe culture accommodates laptops without complaint, and every large city has coworking with day and month passes, which buys a desk, a proper chair and a connection nobody else is streaming on.