a country · VietnamVietnam

A country that sends more money out for treatment than it takes in, and that is building a dental and cosmetic trade in Ho Chi Minh City on the difference. The figures published about it are estimates without a named author, and this record carries none of them as fact.

State media reported in August 2026 that "around 300,000 international visitors use medical services in Vietnam annually", spending "1-2 billion USD" on treatment, accommodation, transport and food, while "Vietnamese people spend an estimated 2-3 billion USD each year on medical treatment abroad". The target attached to the same piece was "around 750,000 international medical tourists by 2030".

Every one of those numbers is attributed to reports and estimates that are not named. This directory quotes them, credits the agency that printed them, and does not carry them in its own metrics.

Inference — the outbound figure being two to three times the inbound one is the part worth reading. Vietnam's wealthy travel to Singapore, Bangkok and Seoul for cancer and cardiac work, and the state's interest in this sector is import substitution before it is export promotion.

The patients coming the other way, by the same reporting, are overseas Vietnamese and visitors from Cambodia, Laos, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Australia and Europe. Trade practice — the Cambodian and Lao arrivals are a border phenomenon rather than a package trade: a referral to the nearest hospital with a scanner, paid for in cash.

Trade practice — Ho Chi Minh City's dental clinics quote packages in US dollars on public pages and work to a holiday calendar, fitting implants and full-arch restorations into a two-visit schedule. Hospital care for foreigners is arranged through international departments at a handful of city hospitals. The country has no medical visa class of the kind India and Thailand run.

As of 16 September 2026 no Vietnamese government series counting foreign patients has been read for this record.