Whenever you travel to, especially for a long trip, money exchange should become one of your considerable concerns whether you have a national or international bank account. As to facilitating your Vietnam tour packages, here is a few useful tips to necessarily keep in mind when you are traveling in Vietnam.
The official currency in Vietnam is the dong or VND. Vietnam circulating money is range from 1,000 to 500,000. There are paper notes with a value of 500; 1,000; 2,000; 5,000 and then plastic ones valued at 10,000; 20,000; 50,000; 100,000; 200,000 and 500,000 VND. If you get used to be familiar with these money, you can distinguish most of them by their color.
Kindly note that the VND20,000 notes look only slightly different from the VND500,000 ones (different shade with the similar of blue) as in picture but the value is a big gap. Therefore, be careful to avoid paying wrongly.
The acctual exchange rate of one dollar to VND usually fluctuates around 22,000 point; however, here's a quick rule of thumb for Vietnam tourists: $1 ≈ VND22,000.
It is supposed that the most convenient place for this practice for your holiday in Vietnam is currency exchange booths at airport because you will need some money for taxi services in case you arrive at night. Just go through the terminal, come to the arrival hall and you will see the exchange kiosks. Just ask the staff about currency exchange and they will help. Be mindful that there is no problem with the exchange rate here, but they will charge you a large transaction fee.
It is clear that getting the best exchange rates requires you to use a local bank’s services, and it will not be an exception when you arrive in Vietnam. The best place is in banks, which are offically openned from Monday to Friday. Time range is between 8 a.m - 4 p.m with a lunch break from 11:30pam to 1pm. Top ten big branches are suggested including Vietinbank,Vietcombank, BIDV, Agribank, VIB, Sacombank, Eximbank, Maritime bank, ACB, and VPBank (based on Vietnam report JSC’s notice). In some cases, however, you might feel to be hassled because of requirements (showing passport, filling out a form) going along with. Moreover, banks do not accept torn or damaged notes. You will be charge for 3-4 percent of the note’s value, or moredepending on how badly damaged the note isifyou deposit a damaged note.
To obtain more cash, you go to any ATM around Vietnam's major cities. Remember thatATMs will only dispense Vietnamese dong.Most ATMs now are connected to the Visa and Mastercard networks that facilitate your trip a lot.
There are some Vietnam bank rules relating to ATM fee that you should keep in mind for your Vietnam tours. You are charged two fees when withdrawing cash at an ATM: currency exchange fee and ATM fee per transaction.
Each bank sets its own withdrawal limitation at ATM. For example, Vietcombank and Agribank ATM users can withdraw 5,000,000 VND of each time and a daily limit of Vietcombank at VND100,000,000 while one of Agribank at VND20,000,000.
