The Vietnamese Dong: Currency, History and Daily Use
The dong was introduced in 1978 to unify the post-war currency. Today it trades around 25,000 to the US dollar, with polymer notes from 10,000 to 500,000.
The Vietnamese dong (VND) is one of the world's lower-denominated currencies by face value, with the largest banknote in circulation worth roughly 20 US dollars. Despite that, the currency has been remarkably stable since the mid-2010s under managed-float supervision by the State Bank of Vietnam.
What it is / Background
The modern dong was introduced on 3 May 1978, replacing the two parallel post-war currencies, the North Vietnamese dong and the South Vietnamese liberation dong, after reunification. A second redenomination followed in 1985, knocking ten old dong off to one new dong, but the resulting hyperinflation of the late 1980s wiped out savings and forced the Doi Moi reforms in 1986.
From 1990 through the early 2000s the dong slid steadily against the US dollar, from around 4,000 VND per dollar to over 15,000. After WTO accession in 2007 the rate stabilised in a narrow corridor, and since 2016 the State Bank has used a daily reference rate against a basket of currencies rather than a hard peg.
Current state
In May 2026 the dong trades around 25,400 to the US dollar and roughly 27,500 to the euro. Inflation runs in the 3 to 4 per cent range, helped by stable rice and pork prices. The State Bank holds reserves of approximately 100 billion US dollars, enough to defend the band against typical capital-flow shocks.
Banknotes in circulation are 500, 1,000, 2,000 and 5,000 dong (older cotton notes, increasingly rare), and 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 100,000, 200,000 and 500,000 dong (polymer, since 2003). Coins minted in 2003 were withdrawn from active use within a few years and are now numismatic curiosities. There is no widely-used sub-unit; the dong has no working "cents".
Key players / Major firms
The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) sets monetary policy and intervenes in the FX market. Commercial banks Vietcombank, BIDV, Agribank and VietinBank dominate retail FX, and licensed gold shops along Ha Trung street in Hanoi and around Ben Thanh in HCMC have historically offered competitive cash rates, though the gap with bank rates has narrowed.
What's coming / Outlook
The SBV continues to manage the dong inside a narrow trading band and is unlikely to allow sharp appreciation while exports drive growth. A gradual depreciation of 2 to 3 per cent per year against the dollar is the consensus baseline. Talks about removing zeros (a redenomination of 10,000 to 1) surface periodically but face strong public resistance because of the 1985 memory.
What this means for visitors / expats
Carry mid-denomination notes for daily use: 50,000 and 100,000 are the workhorses. The 500,000 note (deep blue-green, featuring Ho Chi Minh's birthplace) is awkward at street stalls. ATMs dispense up to 3 million VND per withdrawal at most banks, with Vietcombank and BIDV ATMs typically charging 22,000 to 55,000 VND per foreign-card transaction.
Prices in tourist areas are sometimes quoted in US dollars but payment in dong is almost always cheaper. Mental conversion: drop three zeros and divide by 25 to get a rough USD figure (a 250,000 VND meal is about 10 dollars).
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