Phong Nha cave ticket price: each cave and boat fee, 2026
The cave ticket is the fixed part. The boat is priced per trip, so group size decides what you pay.
VerdictFill the boat if you can: VND 500,000 each as a couple, about VND 208,000 in a full boat of 12.
The Phong Nha cave ticket price is VND 150,000 a person, and children under 1.3 m go in free. That's the fixed part. Phong Nha Cave (Động Phong Nha) is reached by river, and the boat costs VND 700,000 a trip, return, for up to 12 passengers, so the number of people in your boat decides what the day really costs. Every price below comes from the pages of the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park management board, checked in October 2026.
Here's the trip as two recent visitors describe it. You'll walk down to the little pier in Phong Nha town and climb into a long wooden boat on the Son River, then pass rice paddies and limestone cliffs until the boat glides straight into the mountain. Colleen Sims of Then We Walked, writing in September 2025, found it "a little eerie drifting through the half-darkness", watching the rock formations appear under the lights. Partway in, the boat stops at a small jetty and you carry on along lit boardwalks. You don't need a tour for this. In 2023 a Redditor watching their spending paid about 1.5 million dong for a Phong Nha and Paradise cave tour, then realised how easy it was to turn up alone. Their do-it-yourself prices that year: 200k dong for the cave and "a shared boat trip 350k between 12 people". The park's current figures are in the table below.
Phong Nha cave ticket price and the boat
The park's page for Phong Nha Cave lists three charges:
| Item | Price | Notes on the park page |
|---|---|---|
| Phong Nha Cave entry | VND 150,000 per person | Children under 1.3 m free |
| Boat to Phong Nha Cave | VND 700,000 per trip | Return, up to 12 passengers |
| Boat to Phong Nha and Tien Son caves | VND 750,000 per trip | Return, up to 12 passengers |
After you buy the ticket at the counter, the park says to walk to the boat landing on the left and take a boat number. The boat runs down the Son River for about 30 minutes to the cave mouth. There the engine goes off and the crew rows about 1,200 m along the underground river. On the way out you walk two dry branches, Tien Cave and Cung Dinh Cave, on a composite boardwalk. The counter prices are in dong; our ATM fee comparison covers what five banks' machines charge a foreign card.
Opening hours are 07:15 to 16:30 in summer and 07:30 to 15:45 in winter, every day.
Phong Nha cave ticket price per person, with the boat
The boat is priced per trip, so your share depends on how many people are on it. These sums are our own arithmetic from the park's prices:
| People on the boat | Entry tickets | Boat | Total | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | VND 300,000 | VND 700,000 | VND 1,000,000 | VND 500,000 |
| 4 | VND 600,000 | VND 700,000 | VND 1,300,000 | VND 325,000 |
| 12 | VND 1,800,000 | VND 700,000 | VND 2,500,000 | about VND 208,000 |
A couple pays VND 500,000 each, more than three times the entry price, because the boat is split only two ways. The park page does not say whether you can join other visitors on a shared boat, so ask at the counter.
Tien Son Cave
Tien Son Cave sits partway up the same mountain, 100 m above Phong Nha Cave in height, and is 980 m long. Its ticket is VND 80,000 a person, again free for children under 1.3 m. You use the same boat, and the two-cave boat at VND 750,000 is only VND 50,000 more than the Phong Nha-only boat.
Paradise Cave ticket price
Paradise Cave (Dong Thien Duong) is 31.4 km long. The park lets a company, Truong Thinh Tourism, run it under a forest-environment lease. The park's page for the cave lists these prices:
| Ticket | Price |
|---|---|
| Adult, gate and electric car included | VND 270,000 |
| Child 1.1 to 1.3 m, gate and electric car included | VND 145,000 |
| Child under 1.1 m | Free |
| 7 km day tour inside the cave | VND 2,000,000 per guest |
| Two-day, one-night tour | VND 4,000,000 per guest |
From the gate you walk or ride the electric car for 1.6 km under the forest, trek 500 m from the foot of the mountain to the entrance, then follow about 1 km of wooden stairs and walkways inside.
The 7 km day tour runs for groups of two or more. The notes after the overnight tour say it needs at least five guests and does not take anyone under 16 or anyone with a heart or blood pressure condition.
Dark Cave and the Chay River
Dark Cave (Hang Toi) was found in 1990 and is known for a mud bath inside the cave. The park sells it as part of three packages on the Chay River:
| Package | Adult | Child 1.1 to 1.3 m |
|---|---|---|
| Explore: Dark Cave, mud bath, 400 m zipline, kayak, river games | VND 450,000 | VND 150,000 |
| Standard: zipline, kayak, swimming, no Dark Cave | VND 220,000 | VND 110,000 |
| River play only: short zipline, kayak, swimming | VND 150,000 | VND 110,000 |
It opens 07:45 to 16:30 in summer and 08:00 to 15:30 in winter. Nuoc Mooc stream, about 20 minutes by car from Phong Nha Cave, keeps the same hours and charges VND 80,000 for an adult who only walks the site without the swimming services.
Which Phong Nha caves need a tour company?
The park lists 472 surveyed caves with a total length of more than 259 km, but most are not open on a walk-in ticket. Son Doong, which the park calls the largest cave in the world, is run by the company Oxalis under a cooperation contract, together with Hang Va, Hang Nuoc Nut and Hang En. Jungle Boss runs the Tra Ang cave tours. The park page names these operators but gives no prices for their tours, so we do not list any.
UNESCO and NHK's short film on Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park shows the karst and the cave systems the park manages.
Getting there and when to go
Phong Nha Cave is 50 km from Dong Hoi, the nearest city with a station and an airport. The Hanoi to Hue train article lists when each SE train stops at Dong Hoi, and Vietnam airports by destination covers the flight side. If you go late in the year, check Vietnam typhoon season and the rain records in central Vietnam in October first. Our Phong Nha page has the monthly weather table.
Vietnam Tourism, the national tourism site, says Dong Hoi has an airport with flights from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, plus trains to Dong Hoi station. It gives February to August as the best time, when dry weather suits caving, and says the flood-prone months of September to December are best avoided.
In a thread about Son Doong, one r/VietNam user compared the cheaper caves:
"I loved Paradise cave. Its also an infinitely cheaper option. Dark Cave was a really unique experience also. I didn’t do Phuong Nha cave, looked way too over touristed"
u/Long-Confusion-5219 on r/VietNam
What we could not confirm
- The park's Phong Nha Cave page does not show a date for its prices. We checked them on 8 October 2026.
- The park does not define "summer" and "winter" opening seasons on these pages.
- We found no price on the park site for Son Doong, Hang En or the other company-run tours.
- At least one travel site lists Paradise Cave at VND 250,000 plus VND 60,000 for the electric buggy. The park page lists VND 270,000 with the electric car included, so we use that.
Our take on the Phong Nha cave ticket price
Go, but don't pay for an empty boat. The fare is per trip, so a couple pays well over twice what each person in a full boat does; ask at the counter whether you can join another group before you buy. Tien Son Cave is worth adding while you're there, since the two-cave boat costs only a little more per trip than the Phong Nha one, plus a Tien Son ticket each.
How we checked this
We read 8 pages on 2026-10-08: six from the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park management board (one for each cave or route and the overview), a Vietnam Tourism travel page cited only for the figure it gets wrong, and the national tourism site's Phong Nha page. Vietnam Tourism later moved and rewrote its Phong Nha page, so we re-read it at the new address on 2026-10-12 and updated the transport and season note. Every price, distance and time in this article matches a line in our source log; the per-person shares are our own arithmetic.
On 2026-10-21 we read all eight pages again: every ticket price, boat fare, opening time and child rule is unchanged, and the per-person shares add up the same. Last reviewed 2026-10-21.
References
-
Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Phong Nha Cave: entry price, boat prices, opening hours and the route. Checked October 2026.
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Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Tien Son Cave: entry price and length. Checked October 2026.
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Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Paradise Cave: ticket and tour prices, route lengths. Checked October 2026.
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Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Chay River and Dark Cave: package prices and hours. Checked October 2026.
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Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Nuoc Mooc stream: sightseeing price and hours. Checked October 2026.
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Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, tourism overview: cave count, tour operators and 2025 visitor numbers. Checked October 2026.
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Vietnam Tourism, Phong Nha: national tourism site, transport and seasons. Checked 2026-10-12.
-
UNESCO, Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park (UNESCO/NHK): UNESCO's official video on the site.
Photo (cover): pen_ash / Unsplash
Data checked: October 2026.
About the author
Pen name for the sights beat: what to see, what it costs and when it is open. Prices and hours come from the managing authority, dated.
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Disclaimer
This article is general information, not legal, immigration, medical or financial advice. Prices, visa rules and transport schedules change, and each figure shows the month we last verified it. Confirm anything that affects your trip (entry requirements, fees, health rules) with the official government or provider source before you book or travel. The site has no affiliate links today; our affiliate disclosure explains what we will do if that changes.