How to Pay for Things in Saigon: Cash, Cards, and Which QR App Actually Works

Most places in Saigon still want cash, and a card only really works once you're inside a hotel or a mall. For everything else, a QR wallet app like PayMoji or Moreta, topped up from your own bank, covers you at almost any counter that takes a QR code.

Here's the short version before I get into why. Most people should use PayMoji or Moreta. I use Moreta myself, most days, for most things. The cheapest app on paper is LBank, and I've mostly stopped recommending it, because it doesn't show the vendor's name after a payment lands, and more than once that's made a stall owner squint at their phone and ask me if the money actually came through. Cash still matters too. I take it on every tour I run, any currency someone hands me.

Can I use cards in Vietnam?

Barely, once you leave the hotel. Cards work fine at hotel front desks, in malls, in the bigger restaurants with a proper machine at the till. They don't work at a street stall, on the back of a xe om, at a market stand, or at most of the small places I actually take people. If a Visa card is your whole plan, you'll run out of places to use it by your second meal.

Do I need cash in Saigon?

Yes. Street food, markets, small shops, parking, the guy who fixes your sandal strap on the sidewalk. None of that runs on an app. I take cash on every tour I guide, whatever currency a guest is carrying, because I'd rather someone enjoy the food in front of them than fumble with a phone mid bite.

Which QR payment app works for street food?

This is the real question, and it's not the one most comparisons answer. A bowl of phở here runs 40,000 to 60,000 VND. A coffee is about 25,000. Moreta's minimum payment is 2,500 VND, so it clears every one of those without a second thought.

Now look at the other end. Bitget Wallet won't take anything under 17,349 VND. Antarctic Wallet needs roughly 23,330. DopePay needs 20,000. A coffee might scrape past those floors, barely, but a lot of what people actually buy walking around Saigon, a bag of fruit, a bottle of water, a xe om fare, sits under them. The app that wins on a spreadsheet stops being useful the moment you're eating the way my guests eat, which is often, small, and cheap.

That's my actual answer for anyone eating their way around this city. Not the cheapest app. The one whose minimum doesn't get in the way at every second stall.

Which QR app is cheapest for a $100 top-up?

Google's rate that day was 2,592,251 VND to the dollar. Here's what $100 actually landed as, cheapest to most expensive, checked September 2026:

App	Cost to send $100
DopePay (crypto top-up only, $0.20 fixed fee)	$101.30
PayMoji	$101.47
LBank	$101.48
Moreta	$102.26
Supercash (crypto only)	$102.40
Bitget Wallet (crypto only)	$103.83
LocalPay	$104.09–$106.02
Antarctic Wallet (crypto only)	$111.11

Those numbers assume the top-up came from crypto. Top up with a bank transfer or a card instead, on PayMoji or Moreta specifically, and you'll pay more than what's in that table. Check which top-up method you're using before you hold any app to these numbers.

Which QR app is cheapest for a small payment, like a coffee?

Different order entirely at $1, or 25,922 VND, which is closer to what you're actually spending most of the time.

App	Cost to send $1
LBank	$1.015
PayMoji	$1.02
Supercash (crypto only)	$1.02
Bitget Wallet (crypto only)	$1.02
Moreta	$1.03
Antarctic Wallet (crypto only)	$1.11
DopePay (crypto top-up only)	$1.21
LocalPay	$1.35

What's the minimum payment each app allows?

This is the number that actually decides whether an app works for the way most visitors spend money here.

App	Minimum payment
Moreta	2,500 VND
PayMoji	10,000 VND
LocalPay	10,000 VND
LBank	10,369 VND
Supercash	17,100 VND
Bitget Wallet	17,349 VND
DopePay	20,000 VND
Antarctic Wallet	~23,330 VND

What is VietQR, and is it different from these apps?

VietQR is how locals pay each other. Scan a code, money moves bank to bank, no fee most of the time. MoMo and ZaloPay work the same way. The catch is all three need a Vietnamese bank account to set up. As a visitor passing through, you don't have one, so none of the three are actually an option for you, no matter how often you see the sticker taped to a counter.

Are these apps safe? What if I send money to the wrong place?

Saying this once, plainly. Several of these run on crypto rails underneath the QR code, and a transfer sent to the wrong wallet does not come back. Double check the amount and the merchant before you confirm, every time, the same way you'd count change before walking off.

Do these apps work outside Vietnam too?

Moreta and LBank also work in Cambodia and Laos, so if your trip runs through Phnom Penh or Luang Prabang after Saigon, the same app follows you. Antarctic Wallet works in Thailand. Worth knowing if you're not stopping at the border.

One more thing worth flagging. LocalPay's rate moved every single minute I tested it, which is where that $104.09 to $106.02 range for $100 comes from. The others held still while I checked them. If a rate shifts between opening the app and confirming, that's not a glitch, that's just LocalPay.

So what do I actually use?

Moreta, most days. It clears my guests' street food bills without a minimum getting in the way, and the fee sits somewhere I don't think about twice. For a bigger top-up before a trip I'd still reach for PayMoji or Moreta over LBank, even knowing LBank is cheaper on paper, because the missing merchant name isn't rare enough for me to keep ignoring it.

And I still carry cash. On the Street Food Tour and on Chill Nights in Saigon, I take whatever currency a guest hands me. Dong, dollars, euros, it doesn't matter. One less thing to think about on a night that's supposed to be easy.

A comparison thread on r/Vietnam_Tourism ran the numbers on eight of these apps before I did. Worth a read if you want someone else's math sitting next to mine.