Leaving Vietnam checklist

Leaving is a project with a hard deadline and a dozen parties who do not talk to each other: the landlord, the electricity company, the bank, the employer, the vet, the shipping agent and the buyer of your sofa. This checklist puts them in order from eight weeks out. It is written by a storage company, so the last section is about the belongings, but the rest is the list we wish our customers had been given.

Updated September 2026

Eight weeks out

1. Read the lease for the notice period and give notice in writing, in the way the contract says. Notice periods and deposit terms vary; the contract, not the landlord's memory, is what applies.
2. Walk the flat room by room and decide for every large item: ship, sell, give, store, or dispose. Write it down. The decision is the hard part; the rest is logistics.
3. Ask your employer what they handle on departure: work permit, residence card, tax finalisation for the year you leave. Most employers have a routine; ask for it in writing and for the dates they need from you.
4. If a pet is travelling, book the vet now. Export paperwork, vaccinations and airline requirements have lead times of weeks and depend on the destination country.
5. Get quotes if you are shipping. Sea freight for a home takes weeks to arrive and needs a packing date well before the flight; air freight is priced by weight and suits a few boxes.
6. Open the leaving-sale groups for your district and list the big things first: appliances, furniture, bicycles. The early listings sell; the ones in the last week are given away.

Four weeks out

1. Book the storage collection if you are storing, for a date a few days before the deposit meeting. The form takes bookings up to ninety days ahead; standard notice is 2 days, and the last week before a flight is not the time to find out a slot is gone.
2. Confirm the shipper's packing date if you are shipping, and separate the ship pile from the store pile physically, in different rooms if you can. Crews pack what is in front of them.
3. Tell the bank your date and ask what closing an account requires in person. Keep the account open until the deposit has been returned and the last utilities are settled, if the bank allows it.
4. Tell the phone company. A number that can be kept on a cheap plan for a few months is useful for banking codes and the deposit conversation.
5. Photograph the flat as it is now, every wall and floor, before the furniture goes. It is the evidence for the deposit meeting.
6. Give notice to the school, the gym, the clubs and the subscriptions that bill a Vietnamese card.

One week out

1. Storage collection. The crew photographs and codes every item, and the catalogue is in your portal the same day. Check it before the crew leaves.
2. Shipping pack-out, if separate. Keep the two inventories apart and check nothing you meant to keep here went into a container.
3. Final meter readings for electricity, water and internet, and settle them; a landlord with an unpaid bill keeps the deposit.
4. Deep clean or book one. Deposits are argued over cleaning more than anything else.
5. The deposit meeting, with the photographs from four weeks ago and the ones from today, the keys, and a bank account the landlord can transfer to.
6. Collect the pet's final certificates, print the airline confirmation, and put the documents you cannot replace in your hand luggage: passport, residence card if it is being returned at the border, tax papers, the storage plan login.

Ship, sell, give or store: the four ways

Why store when you are leaving

Storage is the option for the things the eight weeks were not long enough to decide about. Three groups end up in a plan. First, the people who may come back: a posting that might be extended, a partner still here, a contract that ended but a city that did not. Their plan holds a flat's worth at 2,450,000 VND a month for a Medium, and when the answer comes, either the crew delivers it to the new flat or the portal empties it. Second, the people who are leaving for good but cannot sort a life in eight weeks. Their plan is a buffer: the flat is handed back on time and clean, and the catalogue is worked through from abroad over the following months, item by item, delivered to friends, sold by a friend with a delivery to the buyer, or disposed of on request. Third, the people with things that must stay in Vietnam: documents, a family archive, furniture inherited here, a motorbike sold but a bicycle kept. Their plan is small and long, in the air-conditioned section for paper, at the 12-month discount.

Running the plan from abroad

Everything in the plan is photographed and named, so a decision about a box can be made from a screen in another country. The portal takes delivery requests to any city address, disposal requests one item at a time, and payment by card. A friend in Saigon can be added as a team member with the orderer role, so a buyer who turns up in March gets the bookshelf delivered without you. The plan runs month to month and closes when the last item leaves. Nothing about it needs a return flight.

The last day

Keys handed over, deposit agreed, meters read, pet checked in, and a portal on your phone showing every item you kept, with a photograph, in a facility with CCTV, code and fingerprint entry and pest control. That is a better last day than most people get. The checklist above is how to have it.

Frequently asked