LASIK in Vietnam costs about 15 to 30 million VND (roughly $600 to $1,200) for the standard blade-flap method, and 30 to 70 million VND for femtosecond LASIK or SMILE, according to Vietnamese price guides. Forum posters quote $5,000 in Norway for the same operation.
The price is the easy part, and the clinic and the laser model deserve more of your attention than the discount.
I have not had this surgery myself. I help foreigners in Da Nang with visas, and the eye-surgery question comes up from people who plan to stay for months. Everything below comes from Vietnamese price guides, hospital pages and expat.com threads, and the forum posts are older than the guides, so treat every number as a range and get a written quote.
How much does LASIK cost in Vietnam?
Standard LASIK costs 15 to 30 million VND, femtosecond LASIK (a laser cuts the flap instead of a blade) runs 30 to 50 million VND, and ReLEx SMILE (the laser works through a small cut with no flap) costs 40 to 70 million VND. At about 25,500 dong to the dollar, standard LASIK is $600 to $1,200 and SMILE is $1,600 to $2,800.
FV Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City gives a reference point. A promotion that ran from November 2024 to January 2025 listed LASIK at 26,800,000 VND and femtosecond LASIK at 47,400,000 VND before discount, so use those as list prices and expect them to be higher today. One expat.com poster paid 21 million dong at Cao Thang International Eye Hospital and said the eyes healed well after one day, apart from a long wait. Another wrote that having the department head operate can roughly double the price to over $2,000.
Which hospitals do foreigners use for LASIK?
Most foreigners end up in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi, which have the widest choice. Cao Thang International Eye Hospital in District 5 and FV Hospital in District 7 come up most often, and Vinmec also lists eye surgery at its hospitals.
- Cao Thang International Eye Hospital, 135B Tran Binh Trong Street, District 5. It offers both blade and femtosecond options. A foreign patient on a forum said the hospital runs a separate, pricier track for foreigners, so ask for the price in writing.
- FV Hospital, District 7. It publishes LASIK and femto LASIK prices in its promotions, which makes it easy to compare against other quotes.
- Vinmec. I found no public LASIK price for any branch, so you will need to ask for a quote.
- A government eye hospital at 280 Dien Bien Phu, District 3. A local poster recommended it at about $750, but that thread is years old, so confirm the price today.
- Hanoi. A poster named the Vietnam Eye Hospital as the biggest in the capital. I did not find a verified current price list.
I did not find a Da Nang LASIK price list that I could verify, so people from Da Nang usually fly to Saigon for it.
Who can have LASIK and what do surgeons check first?
You need a prescription that has stopped changing, usually unchanged for about two years, and the surgeon has to measure your corneas before saying yes. Posters on expat forums say doctors in Europe and the US advised waiting until the mid-20s because eyes keep changing.
None of this is medical advice. Opinions split on very strong myopia. A German poster with -10 and -11 said European clinics refused her, while Vietnamese doctors offered to operate and warned that a residual -1 or -2 might remain. A reply on the same thread put it bluntly: for the right price anything can be done in this country. The advice that followed is sound, and the laser is the part I would pin down before anything else: ask which laser the clinic uses, check that it is a model approved in the US or Europe, and book exams at more than one hospital before you decide.
What is recovery like, and how long should you stay?
Posters report seeing well after one day, and a Vietnamese commenter described about a week at home and a month of wearing glasses outdoors to keep dust out of the eyes. Plan for two to three weeks in the city so you can attend the follow-up checks.
Ask the clinic for its follow-up schedule before you pay, because that decides how long you stay. One commenter stressed choosing LASIK over LASEK. LASEK treats the surface of the cornea without a flap and can take two to three months to reach full vision, which does not fit a short stay. Dust matters in Saigon as well: a poster with hard contact lenses said she could not wear them there.
Does health insurance pay for LASIK in Vietnam?
Usually not, because most policies treat vision correction as elective surgery. I found no insurer that lists LASIK as covered for expats in Vietnam, so ask your insurer in writing if you hope otherwise.
If you are still choosing cover, my comparison of health insurance for expats in Vietnam shows what each plan excludes. For anything that goes wrong after surgery, my guide to the hospital bill for foreigners explains deposits and claims, and the international hospitals comparison helps you pick a hospital for general care.
Which LASIK option and clinic should you pick?
For most foreigners I would book two exams in Ho Chi Minh City, one at a private hospital such as FV and one at an eye hospital such as Cao Thang. I would then pick the method the surgeons agree on and the quote that includes follow-up visits. A cheaper bill is not worth much if it leaves out the checks.
How does a surgery trip fit with your visa?
The surgery, the follow-ups and the rest week add up to two to three weeks on the ground. A 90-day e‑visa leaves plenty of room for that, while a shorter stamp leaves little slack if the date moves.
That is where people usually message me. My guide to visa extension services covers the routes if your stay needs more days than your visa has left. You can file an e‑visa yourself on evisa.gov.vn for the state fee of $25 for single entry or $50 for multiple entry. A turnkey e‑visa from BestBus Vietnam is $55 on the one-week tariff.
BestBus Vietnam works from offices in Da Nang and Nha Trang. For an e‑visa it fills in the application, checks your passport data against it, pays the state fee on its own card, files the application and follows it until the result arrives, which takes about a week on the standard tariff and less on an urgent one. You can send a passport photo through this WhatsApp link and get a reply with the exact steps.
If you would rather not count days while your eyes heal, message me on WhatsApp with your visa end date and your surgery plan, and I will tell you what to fix before you book.
