Vietnamese money: notes, zeros and the blue mix-up

Vietnamese money: the notes, the zeros and the two blue ones

Short answer

Vietnam uses the dong, ISO code VND, symbol ₫. Six polymer notes are in circulation, from 10,000 to 500,000, with 1,000, 2,000 and 5,000 still around on paper. No coins have been in use since 2022. The 20,000 is blue and the 500,000 is cyan, which is the mix-up that costs visitors money.

Last checked: September 21, 2026

VietSIM sells prepaid Vietnam eSIMs. This guide mentions our store where it is relevant; the facts come from the sources listed at the end.

The notes

Note	Material	Colour
500,000 ₫	Polymer	Cyan
200,000 ₫	Polymer	Red
100,000 ₫	Polymer	Green
50,000 ₫	Polymer	Pink
20,000 ₫	Polymer	Blue
10,000 ₫	Polymer	Yellow
5,000, 2,000, 1,000 ₫	Cotton paper	Still circulating, no longer printed

Disclosure: VietSIM sells prepaid eSIMs for Vietnam and prices its plans in US dollars. This page is about the money in your hand, which is a different thing.

The two blue ones

The 20,000 is blue and the 500,000 is cyan. They are the same material, close enough in size, and in a dark restaurant or the back of a taxi they are easy to swap. The gap between them is twenty five times the value.

There is one fix and it is boring: count the zeros before the note leaves your hand. Four zeros is twenty thousand. Five zeros is five hundred thousand. Colour is a hint, the zeros are the fact.

Reading a price

Three conventions, all in daily use:

25 on a menu means 25,000 dong. The thousands are understood.
25k means the same thing, written the way a phone would.
25.000 is the full figure, with a dot where an English speaker expects a comma.

Type any of them into the reader below and it will tell you what you are actually paying, and which notes make it up.

Cash, card and the gap between them

Cards work where the business is large: hotels, supermarkets, chain cafes, the railway’s own ticket site, and booking platforms like Baolau, which takes Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB and UnionPay along with Google Pay, Apple Pay and Alipay.

Cash is what the rest of the country runs on. The bus into Ho Chi Minh City from the airport is 15,000 dong, paid on board. A bowl of pho, a coffee on a plastic stool, a market mango, a motorbike parking attendant: notes, every time.

Ride apps sit in the middle, since Grab lets you pay by card in the app or in cash to the driver, and the app tells you which before you confirm. The way those fares are built is in Grab in Vietnam.

What to carry

A day’s cash, not a week’s. ATMs are everywhere a hotel is.
Small notes for buses and street food. Breaking a 500,000 at a noodle stall is a nuisance for everyone.
A card for the big items, which keeps the cash pile small enough to lose without pain.

Arriving with a working phone makes the rest easier, because the ride, the map and the address all live there. What that needs is worked out in how much mobile data for Vietnam, and the plans are in the Vietnam eSIM store.

Questions

Which two notes get confused?

The 20,000 and the 500,000. One is blue, the other cyan, both are polymer, both are roughly the same size in a dim wallet. Handing over the wrong one is a twenty five times error. Check the number of zeros, not the colour, every time until the habit sticks.

Are there coins?

No. Coins were withdrawn from distribution in 2011 and none have been in use since 2022, so the smallest thing you can hand over is a 1,000 note. Anything below that is rounded at the till, which is why prices come in round thousands.

Why does the menu say 25?

Because the thousands are understood. A bowl at 25 is 25,000 dong, and a shop writing 25k means the same. A printed tag showing 25.000 is the full number with a dot for the thousands mark, which is the opposite of what a British or American reader expects.

Cash or card?

Both, with a split that follows the price. Hotels, supermarkets, chain cafes and trains take cards. Street food, markets, the 15,000 dong airport bus in Ho Chi Minh City and most of the small joys of the trip want notes. Keep enough cash for a day and let the card do the rest.

Should I pay in dollars?

No, and a place quoting you in dollars is choosing its own exchange rate. Pay in dong, the currency the price was set in. The exception is a tour or a hotel that publishes dollar rates in writing before you arrive, where the figure is the deal rather than a moment of arithmetic at a counter.