What street food costs, city by city

The Hoi An old town ticket, VND 120,000 when checked, covers entry to five heritage sites. It is not needed to walk the streets or eat there.

Overcharging of visitors is a recurring story in the Vietnamese press, and the authorities treat the clearest cases seriously. Some reported food cases:

• Hanoi, June 2026. A pavement vendor near Hoan Kiem Lake charged a foreign tourist VND 430,000 for ten small fried cakes that usually sell for about VND 5,000 each. A video spread online, ward police fined her VND 225,000 for unlicensed vending, and told her to display her prices. She offered to refund the tourist.
• Hanoi, Tet 2025. A crab noodle shop charged VND 1.2 million for three bowls, ten times the usual price, paid by bank transfer. The owner said it was a joke and offered a refund; the ward suspended the shop while it investigated.
• Hanoi Old Quarter. A tour guide quoted by VnExpress in March 2026 said foreign tourists are sometimes asked four or five times the normal price for snacks such as pickled fruit sold by weight.

Hanoi's Department of Tourism has said that failing to display prices and pushing customers into purchases are fraudulent practices. Critics quoted in the same report said fines of a few hundred thousand dong are too low and proposed VND 5 to 10 million; that was a proposal, not the law, when we checked.

A simple day built from the tables above: a noodle soup at breakfast (VND 40,000 to 60,000), a banh mi or rice plate at lunch (VND 20,000 to 70,000), a few snacks and a sweet soup in the afternoon, and a grilled dish or pancakes in the evening. That comes to roughly VND 200,000 to 350,000 a person before drinks. Sit-down restaurants, seafood and beer raise it quickly; markets and one-dish stalls keep it low.

This is our arithmetic from the ranges above, not a quoted figure. Check current prices locally, and remember that prices at stalls aimed at visitors, in the old quarters and around the big markets, run higher.