Living in Vietnam vs Dubai: Which Is Better for Entrepreneurs & Expats?
- Good Ground Digital
- May 20
- 7 min read
We spent more than a decade living in Dubai and recently relocated to Hoi An, Vietnam. People constantly ask us the same question:
Which is better for expats and entrepreneurs: Vietnam or Dubai?
The honest answer is this:
Neither is objectively better. It depends entirely on:
What you're building
How you want to live
What kind of life you actually want outside work
Both places shaped us in different ways. Both have strengths. Both have trade-offs.
But after living and building a business in both, we realised something important:
The best city for entrepreneurs and expats like ourselves isn't always the one with the biggest opportunities. Sometimes it's the one that gives you enough space to think clearly, live sustainably, and actually enjoy your life while building.
Here’s our honest experience living and working in Vietnam vs Dubai.
Vietnam vs Dubai Cost of Living
Let’s start with the most obvious difference:
COST
Dubai (2026)
2BR apartment in a decent area: USD $1,800–4,500/month
Casual dinner: USD $13–60/person
Gym membership: USD $30–600/month
Groceries: 2–3x more expensive than Vietnam
Estimated monthly lifestyle cost: USD $4,500–10,000
Dubai is comfortable, polished, and efficient. But it comes with a very high baseline cost just to maintain everyday life.
Hoi An, Vietnam (2026)
2BR apartment or house in a prime location: USD $400–1,000/month
Excellent local meals: USD $3–8/person
Gym membership: USD $15–25/month
Groceries: incredibly affordable, especially local produce
Estimated monthly lifestyle cost: USD $1,000–1,500
The difference wasn’t small.
We now spend roughly one-quarter to one-third of what we spent in Dubai.
And that changed everything.
Lower living costs gave us:
More financial flexibility
Less pressure to constantly scale revenue
More freedom to choose the clients we actually wanted
More long-term thinking instead of survival mode decisions
For location-independent entrepreneurs and digital business owners, this matters more than most people realise. A lower cost base changes how you think, work, price, and grow. It fundamentally changed how we run our business.
Business Environment in Vietnam vs Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is built for business. The infrastructure is excellent:
Fast internet
Efficient banking
Global professional networks
Easy access to services
English widely spoken
Strong international business culture
Dubai offers access to strong international networks, established business communities, and a fast-moving environment that appeals to many entrepreneurs building growth-focused companies. For some founders, that pace and level of global connectivity can be incredibly energising and motivating.
But the trade-off is cost.
Everything costs more:
Licensing
Salaries
Visas
Insurance
Office space
Professional services
Contractors
Business setup
The ecosystem is efficient, but expensive.
Vietnam
Vietnam’s business infrastructure is less polished. Some things take longer:
Banking
Paperwork
Visas
Administrative processes
Professional services can sometimes feel inconsistent compared to Dubai. But once you adapt to the systems, the economics become extremely attractive.
For remote businesses and online companies:
Hiring developers is significantly cheaper
Creative production costs are lower
Operational costs are lighter
Lifestyle overhead is dramatically reduced
For our business model — digital, remote, and service-based — Vietnam actually made more sense operationally and economically.
The Reality
If your business depends heavily on:
Corporate infrastructure
Large-scale hiring
Investor ecosystems
Compliance-heavy operations
Close proximity to the Middle Eastern countries
Dubai is probably the better environment.
But if you’re building:
A remote business
An online company
A consulting practice
A lean digital brand
A location-independent lifestyle business
Vietnam can offer far more flexibility and sustainability.
Social Life and Entrepreneur / Expat Communities
Dubai
Dubai is filled with ambitious people. The networking scene is strong. Events happen constantly. You meet founders, executives, investors, creators, and professionals from everywhere. The energy is high-performance and fast-moving.
But the city is also deeply transient.
People arrive and leave constantly. Relationships often revolve around business value, status, or opportunity. It can sometimes feel difficult to build long-term depth. That doesn’t mean the connections aren’t real.
But the environment naturally encourages speed and transaction.
Hoi An
Hoi An feels very different. The entrepreneurial and expatriate community is smaller than Da Nang, but more intentional. Many people living here deliberately chose a slower pace of life. They’re not necessarily chasing hyper-growth. They’re building businesses around freedom, lifestyle, family, creativity, or sustainability. The pace changes the relationships.
People spend more time together. Conversations go deeper. Friendships feel less rushed. For us, that mattered more over time than we expected.
The Reality
If you're actively building a large professional network and need constant business proximity, Dubai has a major advantage.
But if you're looking for:
Slower living
Deeper relationships
Stronger community
More intentional connections
Vietnam offers something increasingly rare.
Quality of Life: Hoi An vs Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is incredibly convenient. The infrastructure works. The roads are excellent. The buildings are modern. Air conditioning is everywhere. Almost anything can be delivered. There’s a level of comfort and predictability that’s hard to deny.
But the pace can also feel relentless. The traffic is intense. The social pressure is high. The city moves fast and summer temperatures regularly become extreme.
Living there sometimes feels like you're constantly operating at high output, especially with rising housing and education costs.
Hoi An
Hoi An feels slower and softer. Life happens outdoors. People linger longer. Meals take time. The rhythm feels more human.
The food is incredible. The café culture is strong. The coastline and surrounding countryside create natural breathing room.
But it’s not perfect.
Infrastructure is less polished. Some services take patience. Internet reliability can vary occasionally. Healthcare requires more navigation than Dubai.
Still, for us, the slower pace created a better quality of life overall.
The Reality
Dubai is ideal for people who value:
Convenience
International connectivity
Access to a large expat population
Wide availability of services and amenities
Being surrounded by ambitious, career-focused people
Vietnam is ideal for people who value:
Slower living
Affordability
Cultural immersion
Balance
Lifestyle sustainability
Neither is objectively better. They simply optimise for different lives.
The Cultural Experience
Dubai
Dubai is international and highly diverse. You can experience cultures from all over the world within one city. But those communities can sometimes feel separate from one another. It’s possible to live in Dubai almost entirely within expat circles and never deeply engage with local culture.
Many people do.
Hoi An
Hoi An feels deeply connected to Vietnamese daily life. The culture isn’t compartmentalised. It’s woven into everything:
The food
The streets
The markets
The pace
The routines
The social rhythm
Even without trying, you participate in it. For us, this mattered more than we expected. We didn’t just want somewhere to work remotely. We wanted somewhere that actually felt lived-in and human.
Why We Chose Vietnam Over Dubai
For us, the decision came down to five major factors.
1. Financial Sustainability Without Constant Growth Pressure
Lower living costs created breathing room. We didn’t need aggressive scaling just to maintain our lifestyle. We could focus on quality instead of volume. We could turn down projects that didn’t align. That changed how we approached business entirely.
2. Space for Intentional Living
Hoi An created more room to think clearly. The slower pace allowed us to become more intentional about:
Work
Routines
Priorities
Relationships
Long-term goals
Dubai’s speed made that harder for us personally.
3. Better Integration Between Life and Work
We didn’t want business to become our entire identity. In Vietnam, work became part of life instead of consuming all of it. That distinction mattered.
4. Community
We were looking for genuine community, not just professional proximity.
Hoi An offered deeper connections and a stronger sense of belonging than we personally experienced in Dubai.
5. Long-Term Sustainability
We wanted to build a life we could realistically maintain for years without burnout. The close proximity between Vietnam and Singapore means more trips back home to spend time with our loved ones. For us, Vietnam felt more sustainable emotionally, financially, and mentally.
The Honest Downsides of Living in Vietnam
This isn’t a “Vietnam is perfect” post.
There are real challenges.
Healthcare is not at Dubai’s level
Flooding in late 2025 may repeat history (picture above)
Bureaucracy can be frustrating
Infrastructure is less consistent
Some services require patience
Weather can be hot and humid year-round
Internet occasionally becomes unreliable
Language can be a barrier if you refuse to learn Vietnamese
Vietnam requires more adaptability than we thought. Some people love that. Others absolutely hate it. And honestly, that’s fair.
Why More Entrepreneurs Are Moving to Vietnam
Over the last few years, Vietnam has become increasingly attractive to:
Entrepreneurs
Remote workers
Freelancers
Creators
Online business owners
Digital nomads
Retirees
Cities like Hoi An and Da Nang offer a combination that’s becoming harder to find globally:
Lower living costs
Strong café culture
Improving infrastructure
Slower pace of life
Excellent food
Access to nature
Growing international communities
For founders building digital businesses, Vietnam offers something many expensive global cities no longer do:
Breathing room.
And for many entrepreneurs, that breathing room becomes the difference between constantly surviving and actually building sustainably.
Should Entrepreneurs and Expats Live in Vietnam vs Dubai?
The real question isn’t “Which city is better?”
It’s: “Which city is better for the life and business you’re trying to build?”
Dubai may suit you better if you:
Are building a high-growth startup
Want access to larger international business ecosystems
Rely heavily on networking
Enjoy living in a large international city
Prefer a more fast-paced urban lifestyle
Vietnam may suit you better if you:
Run a remote or digital business
Want lower living costs
Value lifestyle balance
Prefer slower living
Want deeper community and cultural immersion
For us, the answer became very clear.
Vietnam aligned more closely with the way we wanted to live and build. But we still respect Dubai deeply for what it offers. It just wasn’t what we needed long term.
Where are you considering living or building your business next?
Location affects far more than cost of living. It changes your pace, your priorities, your relationships, and often the way you build entirely.
If you’re navigating that decision as an entrepreneur, we understand how complex it can feel.
Schedule A Call to talk through how location choice can impact both your business and your quality of life.
If you are interested in other resources:
Our free 20-minute guide gives you the four chapters he wrote after two decades of speaking on international stages: The Freeze, The Voice, One Structure, and The Recovery. Instant PDF download. No fluff.
If you want personalised support, Benjamin also run a four-week 1:1 Confidence Speaking Mentorship for working professionals, executives, and founders. Four sessions, one hostile-audience simulation and one recorded final talk you keep. USD 300 introductory rate.
