TL;DR: Web developers in Vietnam earn $2,320 to $5,800+ a month working for international clients on our rate card, and we shortlist 6-8 candidates within 24 hours. The BLS medians for US web developers and software developers were $92,650 and $135,980 a year in May 2025.
Vietnam's Decree 356/2025 lists data that tracks a person's behaviour and activity online as sensitive personal data, next to health and biometric records. A web developer from Vietnam who wires analytics and ad pixels into a site with Vietnamese visitors works under that rule.
Key takeaways
- Vietnam's card sits within $130 of Indonesia's at both ends and opens $700 below Thailand's.
- React fixed CVE-2025-55182, rated CVSS 10.0, in versions 19.0.1, 19.1.2 and 19.2.1.
- Node.js 20 reached end of life on 30 April 2026, and Node.js 24 moves to maintenance on 20 October 2026.
- A 6 pm to 3 am shift in Ho Chi Minh City gives a Los Angeles team four live hours while US daylight time lasts.
What Web Developers Earn in Vietnam Working for International Clients
Vietnam's floor sits $50 above Indonesia's and its ceiling $130 above, so the two cards almost match. Singapore opens $1,630 higher. The figures are what web developers in each market earn working directly for foreign companies, before any employer or platform costs.
| Market |
Monthly pay working for international clients (USD) |
| Vietnam |
$2,320-$5,800+ |
| Philippines |
$1,280-$3,190+ |
| Indonesia |
$2,270-$5,670+ |
| Thailand |
$3,020-$6,350+ |
| Singapore |
$3,950-$15,790+ |
Monthly ranges from the Remote (Working for International Clients) figures on our rate cards for Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, converted at ExchangeRate-API mid-market rates for 14 September 2026.
The Vietnam card quotes ₫60 million to ₫150 million+ a month, converted at ₫25,873 to the dollar. Its ceiling is two and a half times its floor. For a React-heavy product, our React developer card for Vietnam runs from $1,800 to $6,500, with a lower floor and a higher, closed ceiling.
Through Second Talent you pay one monthly fee that bundles salary, payroll taxes, statutory contributions and our service fee, quoted per role and market. Our pricing page explains the monthly subscription, and our React developer cost-to-hire page sets out US freelance rates for the contract route.
US Pay Benchmark for Web Developers
Web developers who build sites and front ends map to Web Developers (SOC 15-1254). Those who write the application logic behind a React or Node.js product sit closer to Software Developers (15-1252), so both columns appear.
| BLS OEWS, May 2025, national |
Web Developers (15-1254) |
Software Developers (15-1252) |
| Median annual |
$92,650 |
$135,980 |
| 10th percentile, monthly |
$4,010 |
$6,870 |
| 25th percentile, monthly |
$5,350 |
$8,770 |
| Median, monthly |
$7,720 |
$11,330 |
| 75th percentile, monthly |
$10,520 |
$14,330 |
| 90th percentile, monthly |
$13,520 |
$17,890 |
Monthly figures are the annual wages on the BLS OEWS profiles for 15-1254 and 15-1252 divided by 12, rounded to the nearest $10.
The printed top of the Vietnam card falls between the US web developer 25th percentile and median. Decide first which column your brief belongs in, since the two US medians sit $43,330 apart.
Salary is only part of the US cost. In the BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release for June 2026, wages and salaries made up 68.5% of employer compensation costs for full-time private industry workers, and benefits the other 31.5%.
Time Zone Overlap: Ho Chi Minh City Against ET, CT and PT
A Black Friday sale that opens at 12:01 am Eastern on 27 November 2026 goes live at 12:01 pm in Ho Chi Minh City. A developer there can watch the checkout, the cache hit rate and the error log in daylight while your US team sleeps.
Vietnam keeps UTC+7 all year, and US clocks stay on daylight time from 8 March to 1 November 2026, per NIST. The sale opens under EST (UTC-5): 00:01 in New York is 05:01 UTC, which is 12:01 pm in Ho Chi Minh City.
For live meetings, 9:00 am in Los Angeles under PDT (UTC-7) is 16:00 UTC, or 11:00 pm in Ho Chi Minh City. Under PST (UTC-8) it moves to midnight. New York's 9:00 am lands three hours earlier, at 8:00 pm in September.
| Ho Chi Minh City shift (UTC+7) |
ET overlap (EDT / EST) |
CT overlap (CDT / CST) |
PT overlap (PDT / PST) |
Hours between 22:00 and 06:00 |
| 9 am-6 pm |
0 / 0 |
0 / 0 |
0 / 0 |
0 |
| 12 pm-9 pm |
1 / 0 |
0 / 0 |
0 / 0 |
0 |
| 3 pm-12 am |
4 / 3 |
3 / 2 |
1 / 0 |
2 |
| 6 pm-3 am |
7 / 6 |
6 / 5 |
4 / 3 |
5 |
Each shift is nine clock hours with a meal break, counted against a 9 am to 5 pm US day. Web work runs on two clocks. Design reviews and content sign-off need live hours with marketing and product leads, while component builds and performance fixes can ship to a preview URL overnight.
Vietnam's Labor Code 2019 counts 22:00 to 06:00 as night hours (Article 106) and pays employees at least 30% extra for them (Article 98). Five of the nine hours in the 6 pm row fall in that band. We agree the shift before the offer, which is how our placements get 4-6 hours of daily overlap with US hours.
Web Developer Skills to Screen For
React, Vue.js and Node.js, the three frameworks named at the top of this page, each carry a security or support date that belongs on a web team's backlog. The screen starts there, then moves to page speed and the Vietnamese consent rules for tracking.
React Server Components patch levels
The React team disclosed CVE-2025-55182 on 3 December 2025, an unauthenticated remote code execution flaw rated CVSS 10.0. Next.js and React Router were among the affected frameworks. An app whose React code runs without a server, or without a framework or bundler that supports Server Components, is not affected.
Ask the candidate to read one of your lockfiles and say, for each app, whether the vulnerable packages are present and which upgrade closes it.
Vue 2 applications after end of life
Vue 2 reached end of life on 31 December 2023 and no longer receives updates or fixes, while Vue 3 has been the default version since 7 February 2022. For teams that cannot migrate yet, the Vue team points to security updates from HeroDevs.
Ask how the candidate would move a Vue 2 admin panel to Vue 3 in stages, and which plugins they would expect to replace.
Node.js release lines
On the Node.js release schedule, Node.js 20 reached end of life on 30 April 2026. Node.js 22 is in maintenance until 30 April 2027, Node.js 24 moves from active LTS to maintenance on 20 October 2026, and Node.js 26 becomes LTS on 28 October 2026.
From Node.js 27 the project moves to one major release a year, and each major version reaches LTS. Ask which runtime the candidate would put under a new Next.js or Express service this quarter, and how they would test the jump.
Interaction to Next Paint
Interaction to Next Paint counts as good at 200 milliseconds or less, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads in the field, and poor above 500. Hand the candidate a slow product filter or checkout form. Ask them to find the long task behind it in a performance trace, fix it and show the before and after.
Tracking consent for visitors in Vietnam
Article 28 of Vietnam's Law on Personal Data Protection, in force since 1 January 2026, allows collection through website monitoring for behavioural or targeted advertising only with the person's consent. The site must also give a way to refuse and set how long it keeps the data.
Decree 356/2025/ND-CP bars default consent mechanisms (Article 6), and consent to sensitive data must tell the person that the data is sensitive. Ask the candidate to build a consent flow that loads no ad or analytics tag for a Vietnamese visitor until they opt in.
Contractor or Employer of Record in Vietnam
Software is not one of the nine categories of commissioned work that can be "work made for hire" under 17 U.S.C. § 101, and a transfer must be in writing and signed under § 204(a). Cover components, design files, page copy and the design system in the assignment, not only code.
Vietnam's Law on Intellectual Property protects computer programs like literary works (Article 22). A party that contracts an author to create a work holds the economic rights unless the contract says otherwise (Article 39). The author keeps the moral rights to be named and to the work's integrity, which cannot be assigned (Article 45), and an assignment contract must be in writing (Article 46).
IRS Publication 515 says the place where services are performed determines the source of the income, so a developer working in Ho Chi Minh City earns foreign-source income. A foreign individual gives the payer Form W-8BEN to certify foreign status.
Under Article 13 of the Labor Code, an agreement that covers a paid job, wages and one party's management and supervision counts as a labor contract, whatever the parties call it. A fixed-scope landing page fits a contractor. A developer who works your sprint board for a year, on hours you set, fits Article 13.
Launch weeks meet a hard limit for employees. Overtime needs the employee's consent and, for most jobs, stays within 200 hours a year (Article 107). Our Employer of Record service employs the developer in Vietnam, and our Vietnam EOR page covers the setup. This is a summary, not legal advice.
|
Independent contractor |
Employer of Record |
| Legal employer |
None; the developer invoices you |
The EOR's Vietnam entity |
| US paperwork |
Form W-8BEN from the developer |
Service agreement with the EOR |
| IP |
Written assignment of code, components and design files (Articles 39 and 46; § 204(a)) |
Employer holds the economic rights (Article 39), passed on through your EOR agreement |
| Local labor law |
Article 13 labor contract finding if you manage and supervise the work |
Overtime consent and caps, night pay and public holidays apply |
| Pay currency |
Agreed in the contract, often USD |
Vietnamese dong, as Article 95 requires for Vietnamese employees |
English Level and Working Norms in Vietnam
Marketing staff in Vietnam score 511 on the EF English Proficiency Index 2025, 11 points above IT staff, and Ho Chi Minh City scores 508. The national score is 500, which ranks 64th of 123 countries and regions and sits 12 points above the global average of 488. IT's job-function score matches it at 500, per EF's Vietnam page.
Web developers write for users as well as teammates: button labels, error messages, alt text and release notes. Ask finalists to rewrite the error states on one of your forms and explain each change in a pull request description.
Article 112 of the Labor Code gives five paid days for Lunar New Year, set each year by the Prime Minister, and back-to-back holidays on 30 April and 1 May. Hold site migrations and redesign launches clear of those dates.
Thanksgiving on 26 November 2026 is a working day in Vietnam, so a developer there can run the Black Friday checks while your US team is off.
Web Developer Hiring Process in Vietnam
Second Talent's vetting covers stages 2 to 5 before you see a profile.
Stage 1: Define what the hire owns
You name the sites and apps, the React, Vue.js and Node.js versions in production and who signs off on design. Say whether any visitors are in Vietnam, list the tracking tags on the site, and pick a shift from the table above.
Stage 2: Application review
We look for live work with traffic: a product front end, an e-commerce storefront or a CMS-driven site the candidate built and still maintains. A candidate should name the performance problem they fixed and the metric that moved.
Stage 3: Skills assessment
The candidate patches a Server Components app, moves a small Vue 2 view to Vue 3 and fixes a slow interaction on a checkout form. We score the diff, the performance trace and the pull request notes.
Stage 4: Live technical interview with a senior engineer
A senior engineer walks through the assessment in English, then asks for a Node.js upgrade plan and a consent flow for Vietnamese visitors that holds back all tags until opt-in.
Stage 5: Background and reference checks
We ask former managers how the candidate handled launches, production incidents and design feedback. You then choose the contractor or EOR route above.
Hire Web Developers from Vietnam with Second Talent
We shortlist 6-8 candidates within 24 hours from 100,000+ pre-vetted engineers, accepting only the top 1% of applicants. Web developers from Vietnam come with $0 upfront, no lock-in and 4-6 hours of daily overlap with US hours. We handle contracts, payroll and equipment, with compliant EOR contracts in Vietnam.
Our pricing page sets out the monthly subscription. The Lane Crawford Joyce Group, a luxury retail group in Asia with substantial e-commerce programmes, built a tech team in Vietnam through us. Its case study reports 10 engineers hired within 2 months, a further 50% team growth over six months and development speed doubled.
