Elusive search for a Vietnam Postcode
Why did I need a Vietnam Zip Code (Postal Code)?
The short answer is AMAZON
If you just want to find a postcode for somewhere in Vietnam and don’t wish to read about my detective work then head straight for the third last paragraph of this post. I did work it out in the end.
The whole saga started when I decided I’d try and buy a book from Amazon. We will be in Ho Chi Minh City for a while and I want to really make an effort to get out and explore different aspects of the city. There are lots of great books available, fiction and non-fiction and there were a few I’ve had my eye on. Something to improve my extremely basic Vietnamese language skills looked useful, as did a street food dictionary. There were also a couple of guides written by locals that promised to get me below the tourist veneer and save us lots of money.
Anyway, I chose a couple, threw them in my shopping cart and went to check out. Everything was going well until I got to the shipping address, then WHAMMO!!! I was stopped in my tracks. No problems about shipping to Vietnam but what was the Zip Code (AKA postcode or postal code)? Ho Chi Minh City is extremely large and I figured there would probably be a whole series of codes…BUT, I’d never actually seen one before. Fair to say I’d never looked very far, but now I really needed it. This field is mandatory.
How did I find my local Ho Chi Minh City postcode? ….With a lot of effort!!
OK…So the first thing I did was pull out every business card, pamphlet, brochure and bill we had lying around the apartment and look at the addresses. No luck! Street address, District and even Ward were clearly described but not one single postcode. Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam were also part of the address on many of them but no zipcode. I asked my Vietnamese friends. The unanimous response was that they don’t get used at all.
Next I went to the trusty internet…for a while I didn’t have a whole lot of luck there either. Searches for “postcode Ho Chi Minh City”, “postal code Saigon”, “zip code Vietnam”, “Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam zip code” and every other combination I could think of didn’t really get much joy.
Wikipedia looked hopeful. They have a whole page titled Postal Codes in Vietnam…But the best they could do is tell me that Vietnam uses 6 digit postal codes and that Ho Chi Minh’s ranged from 70XXXX to 76XXXX. I was pretty sure AMAZON
There were plenty of discussion boards lamenting the fact that Postal Codes aren’t used in Vietnam. I finally got onto the Amazon Help Forum that seemed to indicate I should just use 700000 as the default and that would work. But I was a little bit dubious. Postcodes are important in Australia. They help your mail get delivered correctly. What if my books got lost because I had entered a default code? We live in the suburbs and I’m pretty sure our postal code would be different to the GPO that I figured this code was for.. Worry wart I know, but I get like that sometimes!
So I delved a bit deeper and finally hit upon a link to Vietnam Post. Surely they would have something on their site. Ah yes…but it’s all in Vietnamese as the English option wasn’t working. Anyway, with a bit of trial and error I used the 4th tab from the left title MANG LU’OI, which I believe means NETWORK. The locations in the first drop down list for Province had the same 2 numbers that I had seen in the Wikipedia List. Ho Chi Minh City was 70. The next drop down box was titled District so I was pretty sure I was on the right track. I pulled down Phu Nhuan (my suburb) and low and behold a table appeared with a listing of numbers and the addresses of the local Post Boxes in my area.
Inside Saigon Central Post Office
I have deduced that my Postal Code must be the number in the second column on the line matching up with the closest Post Box. Having only sent stuff out from the Central Post Office in District 1, I had no idea where that might be. So the next step was to work out where these locations were and which one was closest to us. Google maps helped me on that one but I did have to take a punt and translate the addresses from Vietnamese.
Amazon has accepted accepted my address. My postal code has six digits. The first two are for my province or City, in this case Ho Chi Minh City. The second two are for my District (Phu Nhuan) and the last two for the Ward (a part of each District).
This is a classic example of how to spend a loooottttt of time doing something that should be so simple. Why didn’t I go to the post office and ask in the first place? You may well ask…I certainly am. Perhaps it’s the fact that until I started this search I didn’t know where that was. Perhaps it’s that I am now so used to obtaining instant information from the internet that it actually didn’t cross my mind. Perhaps it’s that when I needed the information it was blowing a gale outside and teeming with rain. Anyway it’s done now and if you’ve found this post then you won’t have to go through all the effort.
How to find your Vietnam Post Code
So if you need to get something delivered in Vietnam and or a return address to send something these are the steps to follow to get your Vietnam postcode.
- First find out where your nearest post box is.
- Then click on this LINK.
- Enter your City or Province, the District or Town and
- Use the number in the second column corresponding to the Post Box address.
That should do the trick. As for me…I’m still waiting on my package. I’ll let you know when it gets here.
UPDATE: The books arrived safe and sound about three weeks after ordering. I won’t be ordering hard copies again UNLESS they are not available in eBook format as the delivery charges were quite steep. Even then, I believe you can order through the local FAHASA outlet and you don’t get charged for delivery. I’ll check that out for a future post. It would be worth it for higher priced goods not readily accessible in Saigon, although I’ve heard mixed stories about the amount of customs you are required to pay on various items.
Hooray, they arrived!
Leave me a comment and let me know if this information was useful.
Note: I do not receive any payment for this post (or any others on the site for that matter!). I do receive a small amount of money by allowing advertisements on the site and any purchases made through those links.
Vietnam postal area code is the most stupid idea ever heard of.
America is a large countries, and we invented the area code to help, in addition of true address, that need no area code.
Other countries that are tiny, post office need no such thing.
Letters mailed from the other countries sent to Vietnam go to airports first, either SaiGon or HaNoi. From there, letters are transferred to the District Post Office of the address. Then they go to the branches offices, and to the house of the address. Sometimes the mails get to the mountain by horse or on foot for several hours, where the area code is never a good idea.
Yes it is a bit confusing and not useful in all situations.
Eventhough I’m vietnamese, i dont even know what the postcode for my area is. You save me here, Sharyn. Thank you.
You’re welcome.
Thank you! I was just at UPS and this little Vietnamese woman who spoke very little English was trying to send something to Ho Chi Minh City. She claimed there were no postal codes in Vietnam, but the UPS guy was trying to tell her that without one, the system wouldn’t let him do anything. I whipped out my phone, found your post, and found her postal code, or the next best thing: the code of the nearest post office to her address. YAY you!
I love stories like that. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the useful post. I am a VNMese abroad want to send something home and got same problem –> hence google led me to your blog. On the way I found this link:
http://www.atexpats.com/magazine/144-postcodes.html – very similar to your procedure; a bit faster because I’m spending already 5 minutes trying to load the vnpost.vn from outside VN 😉
Cheers. I’ll take a look and update if required.We had a lot of trouble with the internet here recently so maybe the load time was due to that.
Printed materials and CDs/DVDs are subject to a censorship charge that was around USD$10. Better to use Bittorrent!
As for Postcodes, there are thousands, tens of thousands, in VietNam only VNPT doesn’t use the Quan/Duong (District/Street) levels yet.
For example, here are the Postcodes for Phú Mỹ»Quận 7»Hồ Chí Minh»
Address Code
Đường chuyên dùng 9 756016
Đường Hòang quốc Việt 756014
Đường Huùynh tấn PhátHẻm 160 756028
Đường hùynh tấn PhátHẻm 1063 756017
Đường hùynh tấn PhátHẻm 851 756024
Đường hùynh Tấn PhátHẻm 1113 756021
Đường hùynh Tấn PhátHẻm 1135 756018
Đường Hùynh tấn PhátHẻm 1115 756019
Đường Hùynh tấn PhátHẻm 1205 756013
Đường Hùynh tấn PhátHẻm 184 756029
Đường Hùynh tấn PhátHẻm 240 756030
Đường Hùynh tấn PhátHẻm 719 756026
Đường Hùynh tấn PhátHẻm 803 756025
Đường Hùynh tấn PhátHẻm 865 756023
Đường Hùynh tấn PhátHẻm 88 756027
Đường Hùynh Tấn phátHẻm 1025 756022
Đường hùynh Tấn Phát Khu Phô1 756003
Đường Hùynh tấn Phát khu phố 3 756005
Đường Hùynh Tấn Phát KP2 756004
Đường Phạm Hữu Lầu 756015
There are separate Postcodes for each ward in lesser populated provinces and, as you can see, in more densely populated areas some streets have more than one Postcode.
The company I work for has a section that is dedicated to coding corporate mailing lists.
Nobody knows what a postcode here is which was the point of the blog.
Printed literature is on the list of prohibited items that cannot be sent by post to Vietnam so in theory no of this should work anyway!
Well it did. I got the books to prove it.
Good post, as I am having the same problem, but it still leaves my main question unanswered.
Can I get my items just as easily if I enter 000000 as the postcode for everything I do? It seems like websites will often accept this.
No. I don’t think Amazon will accept it. They will accept 70 000 though I believe.
No, but they will accept 700000
It is 700k not 70k
Yes you are right. I had a brain snap. I’ve deleted my comment
Great info, but a little incomplete. As you said, this gives the postcode of the nearest postbox. To find the exact postcode of the address, follow the same link and enter the name of the street. Then you have to scroll through all the streets in Vietnam with the same name, until you find the one you’re interested in, then find the matching numbers (and district and ward). Then you have the REAL postcode for the address.
The point is they don’t really use them at all to deliver your mail. Most Vietnamese people don’t know what a postcode/zipcode is. It was really just an exercise in finding something to fill out the mandatory field in Amazon. But cheers for the info. I’ll reference your comment in the next update.
I found your post because hubby was trying to order something from Amazon😂 He’d gone with the default of 700000 before I found it though. Got me thinking though that amazon customers in Vietnam should perhaps petition amazon to drop the mandatory field.
Ha…Not sure how successful that would be convincing the behemoth that is Amazon. I doubt Vietnam is a huge part of their market. Most of us in Vietnam have gone over to online shopping on sites like Lazarda, as the import fees are ridiculously high. Unfortunately the range is nowhere near as comprehensive but it’s a lot cheaper for many things.
Hey please someone will deliver your package from the post box or you’ll have do go and take your package ? Sorry for my bad english i speak french normally
In my case, they delivered to the management office in my block of apartments. I’m not sure what would happen in a house or small block of apartments. If it has a large mailbox, my guess would be that they’ll deliver.
I used this link to find the postal codes, it’s about the most specific source I have seen so far:
http://www.geopostcodes.com/So_1_Binh_Thanh
(in the example is Binh Thinh district, Ward 3)
You can further select the “alley”, but that’s the most specific it gets, no exact unit code. But that should do, I think.
Thanks for the tip Huy. I’ll check it out.
There are a total of seven 6-digit post code sets for TP Ho Chi Minh – 700000 through 760000.
Where a web site displays a couple of digits padded out with 0s they are showing only provincial designators. The first two digits represent the province or city, the middle two digits represent the district or town, the fifth digit represents the commune or precinct and the sixth digit represents the address code.
VietNam is fully indexed – my employer has contracts from many companies to reformat their customer/client databases.
But why bother? The VN Posts aren’t even using the codes for sorting! And you will not find a code on InterNet invoices issued by them.
Yes, just finding them was an effort. And I’ve only ever used mine for that Amazon order.
Extremely helpful. Actually I went through exactly the same process for a similar reason. I live in Vinh Long Province but am Australian and like you have never used post codes. It is a pity that your post did not appear higher up the list it would have saved me a bit of work but i am sure it will help a lot of folks
Cheers. Glad it was useful. It’s one of my most popular articles. It’s just so strange that in a country this populated that the concept of postcodes hasn’t taken off.
Coins have never taken off, either. I always tender coins when paying for parking and the number of parking lots that will give you free parking (as in not wanting coins) is staggering.
One of the initial drivers for coins was to promote the sale of condoms, through machines. Now, as a hotel owner, we receive boxes and boxes of free condoms, to put in our rooms, from some government department.
There were a lot more about in 2012 when we first lived here. I suspect they cost more to make than they’re worth. Also, I heard that people found them too easy to lose so didn’t want to receive them.
Thanks for sharing this, this information was really helpful!