Best Time to Visit Vietnam: North, Centre and South, Month by Month

Vietnam is 1,650 kilometres from top to bottom, and it does not have one weather system. It has three. When Hanoi is cool and grey in January, Saigon is dry and 32 °C. When Hoi An is flooding in October, Hanoi is having its best month of the year. Any single answer to “when should I go?” is wrong for two thirds of the country.

So the best time to visit Vietnam depends on which part of it you are visiting, and on whether you are trying to cover the whole length in one trip. Below: every month with rainfall for the north, centre and south side by side, the rainy season explained region by region, and the holiday weeks when the entire country goes home at once.

Vietnam weather by month, in one table

Average highs and rainfall are the climate normals published by the Vietnam Institute for Building Science and Technology for Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City. Crowding is our own five-point rating, based on arrival figures and the domestic holiday calendar. Highlighted rows are the months we would book first for a north-to-south trip. Read the three rain columns side by side: they peak in different months.

Month	Avg high · Hanoi	Rain · Hanoi	Rain · Da Nang	Rain · Saigon	Crowds	The call
January	20.2 °C	20 mm	82 mm	12 mm		Grey north · dry, hot south
February Tet 2027: 6 Feb	21.7 °C	20 mm	24 mm	8 mm		Tet week shuts things · then good
March	25.9 °C	36 mm	25 mm	18 mm		Best whole-country month
April holiday 30 Apr	28.5 °C	104 mm	35 mm	57 mm		Dry centre · hot south
May	32.8 °C	165 mm	81 mm	202 mm		Rains start north and south
June	34.9 °C	264 mm	83 mm	224 mm		Beach season in the centre
July	33.7 °C	254 mm	93 mm	231 mm		Hot and wet · centre still dry
August	33.2 °C	274 mm	141 mm	219 mm		Typhoon risk in the north
September	31.9 °C	228 mm	351 mm	490 mm		Sapa harvest · centre turns wet
October	30.4 °C	155 mm	628 mm	340 mm		North at its best · centre floods
November	26.7 °C	61 mm	448 mm	128 mm		North and south good · centre wet
December	21.3 °C	20 mm	218 mm	41 mm		Dry south · centre still wet

One figure needs a warning. Da Nang’s 628 mm in October is not spread evenly across the month. It arrives in a few multi-day downpours, often pushed ashore by a typhoon or a tropical depression, and those are the days Hoi An’s old town goes under water. Saigon’s big September and October totals work the other way: heavy, but mostly in afternoon storms that are over in an hour or two.

Three climates, three different answers

Read the table by column, not by row. Each region has its own dry season, and they barely overlap.

, Ha Long Bay and Sapa

The north has a real winter. From December to February, Hanoi manages 20–22 °C in the afternoon and a good deal less at night, often under a low grey sky and a fine drizzle the Vietnamese call mưa phùn. That is fine for walking the Old Quarter. It is less fine for a boat on Ha Long Bay, where winter mist can hide the karsts you came to see. Up in Sapa, around 1,500 metres, frost is possible, and snow on nearby Fansipan makes the national news every few years.

Summer is the opposite problem. June to August is hot (34–35 °C highs), humid and wet, with around 250 mm of rain a month in Hanoi, and it is typhoon season in the Gulf of Tonkin. When a storm warning goes out, Ha Long Bay departures are suspended, sometimes for two or three days in a row. Read your cruise operator’s weather policy before you pay, not after.

The good months are October and November (dry, clear, 27–30 °C) and March to April. Sapa’s rice terraces turn gold just before the harvest, from mid-September into early October. That is the fortnight all the photographs come from.

Centre: Hoi An, Hue and Da Nang

The central coast runs on its own calendar. It is dry from February to August, and the beach months in Da Nang and Hoi An are May to August, precisely when Hanoi and Saigon are soaking. Then, from September to December, the rain comes in off the sea. October and November are the wettest months by a wide margin, and flooding in Hoi An’s old town and in Hue is close to an annual event, not a freak one.

If your trip falls in October or November, keep the centre short and flexible, and stay somewhere you would not mind being stuck in for a day. December is still wet but tails off; by February the coast is usually back to normal.

South: Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta and Phu Quoc

The south has two seasons and no winter. It is hot all year (31–35 °C highs), dry from December to April and wet from May to November. April is the hottest and stickiest month in Saigon; December and January are the easiest.

Honestly, the southern wet season matters less than the numbers suggest. Most days bring one heavy storm in the afternoon after a clear morning, and the Mekong Delta looks its fullest from September to November, when the river is high. Phu Quoc shares the same dry season, roughly November to April, but from June to September the sea on the west side of the island is often too rough for swimming.

The Vietnam rainy season, region by region

“Rainy season” means three different things in Vietnam, and only one of them is a real reason to change your plans.

Region	Wet months	What it is actually like
North	May – Sep	Heavy summer rain and heat, with typhoons from July to September. Ha Long cruises get cancelled; city sightseeing mostly carries on.
Centre	Sep – Dec	Sustained rain, typhoons and tropical depressions, river flooding in Hoi An and Hue, peaking in October and November. This is the one that ruins trips.
South	May – Nov	Short, violent afternoon storms and clear mornings. Saigon’s streets flood for an hour, then drain. This is the one that rarely matters.

Typhoon season on the coast runs roughly from June to November and drifts south as the year goes on: the north is most exposed from July to September, the centre from September to November. The National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting publishes storm tracks and warnings. If a storm is heading for the stretch of coast you are about to visit, expect flights and trains to keep running and boats and mountain roads to stop.

Tet and the holiday weeks to plan around

One event sets Vietnam’s travel calendar. Tet, the lunar new year, falls on 6 February in 2027, and tens of millions of people travel home for it in the same few days.

Period	Dates	What actually happens
Tet	6 Feb 2027	Lunar, so the date moves every year. The official break has run to about nine days recently, and family businesses often close for longer. Trains, buses and domestic flights sell out in the week before as the cities empty into the provinces. The first three days of the new year are the quietest.
Reunification Day and Labour Day	30 Apr – 1 May	Usually joined to a weekend into a four- or five-day break. Beach towns, Da Lat and Ha Long fill with domestic travellers, and hotel rates jump.
National Day	2 Sep	One or two days off, often stretched into a long weekend. Busy, but manageable.
School summer holidays	Jun – Aug	Vietnamese families on the beaches in Da Nang, Nha Trang and Phu Quoc. Book the central coast early for July.

Best month to visit Vietnam, by what you want

If your dates are fixed, the table above tells you where to go. If your route is fixed, this tells you when.

If you want	Go in	Why
North to south in one trip	March or April	The only window when all three regions are dry and warm at once. Late February works once Tet is over.
Central coast beaches	May to August	Dry, calm sea, while the rest of the country is wet.
Southern beaches and Phu Quoc	December to April	The southern dry season, with the calmest water.
Ha Long Bay	October, November, or March to May	Winter brings mist; summer brings cancelled cruises.
Sapa and trekking in the north	September to November	Harvest colour, then dry trails. March to May is the second choice.
The lowest prices	May, June or September	Outside the domestic holidays. The weather cost is real, but smaller in the south than it looks.

What the month does not decide

Entry rules do not change with the season. Vietnam’s e-visa is open to every nationality and valid for up to 90 days. Apply on the government portal, evisa.gov.vn, not through the look-alike agency sites that often rank above it, and leave at least a week before your flight.

If Vietnam is one stop on a longer trip, its neighbours’ seasons only partly line up. Thailand’s dry season matches southern Vietnam’s, not the centre’s; see the best time to visit Thailand. Japan and South Korea are at their best in spring and autumn, the same windows as northern Vietnam: compare the best time to visit Japan and the best time to visit South Korea.

Once the dates are set, read tipping in Vietnam: who expects a tip, how much in dong, and the two banknotes visitors mix up.

Before you book, check whether your passport needs the Vietnam e-visa: Americans, Canadians and Australians do, most Western Europeans don’t for stays under 45 days.

Every Vietnam guide we’ve published, from the e-visa to the dong, is sorted by topic in our Vietnam travel guide.

Sources

• Vietnam Institute for Building Science and Technology — climate normals for Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City (national building-climate standard QCVN 02:2009/BXD).
• National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting — typhoon, rain and flood warnings.
• Vietnam National Authority of Tourism — regional travel seasons and festival calendar.
• Vietnam Immigration Department — official e-visa portal.
• Labour Code of Vietnam (2019), Article 112 — statutory public holidays, including Tet.

Data checked: 2026-09-28