What's the monthly cost of living and rent in Ho Chi Minh City?

Renting for 3 months instead of a full year can significantly raise the price — e.g., an apartment that costs $300/month on a yearly contract might go for a minimum of $450-500/month on a 3-month booking.

Avoid leaving a large deposit before moving in, especially if the apartment has issues — a deposit of around 30% of monthly rent is usually enough for the landlord to hold the unit for up to a week while problems get fixed. If issues remain unresolved, deliberately delaying payment can prompt the owner to reach out to sort things out; often only a property manager is on-site (not the owner, who may not even live in the country and may be unaware of tenant issues).

To rent an apartment in Ho Chi Minh City for 2-3 months without a contract, you can offer the landlord extra on top of the usual price — it's better to think in percentage terms rather than a fixed amount (e.g., an extra 1M VND might work for a 5M VND/month rental, but wouldn't matter much for a 15M VND/month place).

For a 5-week (36-night) rental booked directly with the owner, the apartment cost 33.7 million VND including utilities, electricity, parking, Wi‑Fi, and management fees; 4.7 million VND of that total was for utilities. Weekly cleaning was included. This was a short-term rate, so long-term pricing may differ.

Typical budget: about $260-400/month for rent, plus $110-160/month for food.

Between District 9 and District 2, a nice new studio costs ~6 million VND rent plus 150k service fee and 800k-1M for electricity, with a 6 million deposit and twice-weekly cleaning included.

Renting a scooter costs about 1.3 million VND/month, or you can buy your own to save money long-term.

Cooking at home with healthy meals (meat, fresh fruit, vegetables) costs around 4 million VND/month, or 600k-1.2M per week.

Overall monthly living budget comes to about 12-14 million VND, though food costs can be trimmed further by cooking at home.

In District 9, a studio rental deposit runs about 18-25 million VND, with monthly rent of 6.5-10 million, plus utilities and groceries on top.