Or, you can read the guide and, once armed with knowledge, start talking to any bride here after that. What will you choose?
3 best sites to meet Vietnamese brides
Editor’s Choice
Things to know before mail ordering a bride from Vietnam
- There are dozens of sites for meeting a Vietnamese wife but right now, the most trustworthy one is SakuraDate. With almost 500,000 monthly visits, it’s also one of the most popular platforms in this niche.
- The most popular cities for meeting a Vietnamese girl for marriage are Hanoi, Ho Chi Mihn, Da Nang, and Haiphong. If you’re here for the best nightlife, focus on Hanoi, Phan Thiet, and Hoi An.
- The average cost of a Vietnamese mail order bride is $6,000 for the whole package, from online dating to the K-1 visa. However, you can save money and reduce the bill easily by using hotel aggregators, planning your trip in advance, and choosing more affordable places for your dates.
- It’s legal to marry them. After the marriage, your wife will become a US permanent resident and in 3 years, she’ll be able to apply for citizenship.
- Most girls from Vietnam believe that American men are more polite, faithful, and respectful than local men—that’s one of the main reasons why they become mail brides.
Vietnamese mail order brides – who are these women?
- The average Vietnam mail order bride is in her 30s, single, has no children, and speaks Advanced or at least Upper-Intermediate English.
- According to statistics, most online brides from Vietnam have at least a college degree, most of them have a slim body type, they don’t smoke or drink, and they work as teachers or doctors.
- According to the visa statistics, 1 out of 6 Vietnamese wives who enter the US and marry American citizens have children and bring them with them (it’s the ratio of K-2 visas to K-1 visas).
- They have very strong family ties and their family opinion is extremely important for them. You’ll most likely meet her parents quite soon if you’re in a serious relationship, and during that meeting, you’ll have to show your manners and your respect to them. That’s the only way it can work if you’re going to marry that lady because if her family doesn’t approve of you, your relationship will probably be over.
Can you buy Vietnamese women for marriage?
No. It’s dating mail order Vietnamese brides we’re talking about, not “buying” them. That’s just how some people call it but it has nothing to do with human trafficking, of course.
Is it legal to mail order a Vietnamese bride?
Yes. Hundreds of Americans marry Vietnamese women every year, so it’s 100% legal. Of course, your relationship must be real, your income must meet 100% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines, and you’ll need to submit evidence of your romantic relationship (photos, emails, phone bills, tickets, etc).
How to get Vietnamese mail order wife?
- Choose the region. Women from South Vietnam are often described as very warm and friendly while northerners are slightly more reserved and probably less friendly at first. Northerners are generally more polite and calm, while Southerners are considered more direct, straightforward, and relaxed. Choose the region that would meet your requirements because if you’re looking for a wife here, the price of a mistake can be too high!
- Choose the site. We recommend start with SakuraDate but you can read expert reviews and test its competitors. Just make sure the website you choose is trusted, reputable, and has real women, not fake accounts and bots.
- Join the site, create a profile. The registration usually takes around 1 minute but you’ll have to spend up to 10 minutes if you really want a detailed and nice profile. We recommend spending more money, writing a good profile bio, and finding your best picture because if you have a nice profile, the response rate will skyrocket!
- Search for women. Search filters are always free and SakuraDate isn’t an exception. This site, for example, has 15 filters so you’ll certainly find a match on it.
- Get a bonus. Not all the sites offer free credits, but SakuraDate does—on this platform, you’ll get 20 credits as a new user. The absolute majority of these websites are paid so a welcome bonus is perfect for those who don’t want to pay right away.
- Start chatting with the ladies. With 20 credits, you’ll be able to chat for 10 minutes which is not that much but is certainly enough to understand if the ladies here are real.
- Purchase more credits if needed and continue chatting with them. Show your intentions, and don’t forget to try all the other premium features like emails, gift delivery, etc; they can add up to your dating experience.
- Meet them in person. You going to Vietnam is the best choice here because it’s cheaper and faster than her going to the US (the tourist visa might take up to 1 month to proceed). Come up with romantic date ideas and plan everything in advance—these women love it when a man leads the relationship.
- Repeat the previous step if necessary! We know that 2 weeks in Vietnam is enough for some men to make a choice, but you might as well feel that this trip was not enough and you’re not ready to propose to that lady yet.
- Propose and bring your bride from Vietnam to the US. You can go with a K-1 visa or with a CR-1 visa: if it’s the latter, you’ll marry her in Vietnam; if it’s the former, you’ll marry her in the United States. It doesn’t matter which visa it is, your wife will still get a green card and will be able to become a US citizen later.
How much does it cost to mail order a Vietnamese Bride?
Before you start dating Vietnamese girls for marriage, let’s see how much it actually costs. Let’s start with online dating and let’s talk about SakuraDate.
Why this site? Because it’s trusted and pretty affordable, and because it’s a very good example of how these websites work—SakuraDate has a credit-based system like most dating sites and it has a live chat and an email messaging tool like most apps.
So, let’s say you’re going to buy 1,000 credits for $200. In this case, you’ll pay 20 cents per credit. Let’s say you’re going to spend a month on this website—typically, it’s around 300 minutes of chatting and 30 emails. Here’s how much you’ll pay for it:
| 1 credit cost | 1 minute of live chat cost | 1 email cost | 1 month cost (300 minutes of live chat, 30 emails) |
| $0.2 | $0.4 | $4 | $240 |
But it’s not only about using the mail order bride Vietnam website, of course. After that, you’ll have to go there to meet her. Here’s how much you’ll pay for a 2-week trip to Hanoi:
- Tickets — $900
- Hotel room — $700
- Food — $250
- Transportation — $50
- Dates — $700
- Gifts — $500
- Total — $3,100
Now add to that the K-1 visa fee which is around $2,600 and you’ll get the final cost: $5,700 for a real-life date and visa, $240 per month of online dating.
Why Vietnamese women become mail order brides?
In most cases, the main reason why a Vietnamese bride wants to date or marry a foreign man is because she believes that men from the West make better husbands than men from Vietnam. It’s mostly about loyalty and respect—a very large number of Vietnam mail order brides say that local men are just not faithful enough and don’t treat them as equals, which makes them search for a man abroad.
Of course, some Vietnamese mail brides are looking for an opportunity to live a better life, too. Often, it’s not actually one reason that drives their actions, it’s the combination of them: a woman might think that Western men make better partners and want to have a better quality of life at the same time.
Common myths about Vietnamese women for marriage
If you really into the idea of finding a Vietnam wife, you need to understand two facts:
- There are lots of stereotypes about them
- Not all these stereotypes are true
Some of these myths are offensive, some of them are partially true, and the others are completely false. Here, we’ll cover the most common ones and we won’t talk about all those “domestic”, “household” stereotypes like green oil or nail salons—only about those that are important for a romantic relationship with Vietnam brides.
“Bar girls”
Some men are sure that the only option for a foreigner visiting Vietnam is dating a bar girl. These are the ladies who work in nightclubs and bars whose job is to entertain men and spend time with them. They’re not easy girls, they can turn a man down, but often, they go home with the guy. They usually speak English and they are obviously very friendly and flirty because, well, that’s their job—the problem here is that some foreigners think that all the girls in Vietnam are like that.
It’s not true. The vast majority of Vietnamese women don’t go to bars, and if you’re interested in finding a bride, these bars are not the best choice. So expecting to find a serious, genuine relationship in such places is definitely not the best strategy—if you want to find marriage-minded ladies, you’d better focus on Vietnam bride websites.
And by the way, it’s not even a Vietnamese-only thing. Almost any Southeast Asian country has these bars, the concept of “hostess bars” has actually originated in Japan and lots of these bars in Vietnam are owned by Koreans and it’s actually Korean expats who are the main target audience!
“They just want a green card”
Lots of men believe that the only thing these ladies want is a green card—and that’s obviously not true. There might be some women who’re interested in a sham marriage, but according to our experience and our interviews (we asked more than 50 men about their stories), the majority of the ladies on dating sites are looking for a real relationship. We’re talking about the dating sites here because the ladies on these sites usually have much more serious intentions than the women you can meet when walking down Bui Vien Street.
The same is about them being “gold-diggers”. This has not much to do with reality if we’re talking about those Vietnamese women for marriage you can find online. Well, yes, they of course want a man to be able to provide for the family, but it’s not like they’re searching for someone extremely rich. But just like with the previous type of girls, it’s definitely possible to find those “gold-diggers” if you meet the ladies in nightclubs or in bars, that’s just how it works all over the world, not only in Vietnam.
“Uneducated”
This stereotype is not only offensive, it’s also completely not true. Yes, the quality of education in Vietnam might be lower than in Western countries, but colleges are heavily subsidized by the government and there are no gender barriers that could prevent Vietnamese girls from attending high schools, colleges, and universities. The female to male ratio in tertiary education, for example, is slowly increasing—in 2006, it was 0.96 which means there were 96 female tertiary students for 100 male tertiary students in Vietnam. In 2016, the rate was 1.24!
“Hate America”
The United States and Vietnam weren’t always friends, you’ve probably heard that story. But it’s not a problem anymore, especially when we’re talking about young generations—only 1% of Vietnamese adults say their opinion of the US is very unfavorable while for 84% of them, it’s either “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable”.
“Very shy and reserved”
Just a few decades ago, Vietnam was an extremely conservative country in this regard. Today, the role of a woman in this country has changed—it’s not about spending their lives working out in the fields anymore, and it’s not about uncompromising obedience to men. Modern Vietnam performs pretty well when it comes to gender equality and even though there are still discriminating social norms and perceptions there (especially in rural regions), the norms and beliefs are slowly shifting towards equality. Due to all these changes, modern Vietnamese brides are stronger, more active, and more ambitious than their mothers and grandmothers.
However, this stereotype is actually partially true. Thus, when you’re in a relationship with a Vietnam girl, you’ll have to lead it, that’s how their dating culture works. Of course, we’re not talking about leading in an aggressive way, but it’s you who needs to take the initiative and make plans.
Why not meet Vietnam girl for marriage right now? Thousands of them are a few clicks away!
We could talk about Vietnamese mail order brides and about how great they are for hours, but let’s get straight to the point: if you really want to date them, just go for it. Join SakuraDate or any other trusted dating app, upload a picture, start chatting, find a girl, and let your love journey begin!
Written byJohn Millerstone, Author
We decided to create this project because we’re tired of the situation in the industry. 10 years ago, there were like 40% good sites and 60% bad ones. Today, the ratio is more like 10% to 90%, and that’s not how I want it to be. I mean, it kills me that when an American man types “mail order brides” on Google, there is a 90% possibility that he won’t even find a good dating site, let alone find a bride. I want to change that.
Edited byPhilippe Berry, Contributing Editor
I'm going to tell you everything I know, mes amis. We'll spot online dating charlatans, test the dating sites together, and, of course, with me, you'll learn everything about traveling—I have had 33 trips since 2009, and I think traveling is the best part of online dating. I'll tell you how to save money, how to enjoy a trip, and how to have a good date in a foreign country. I know something about that, too!
